It's time for BYOB! Yes, bring your own shopping bag! As we keep on our journey throughout a busy 2010, it?s crazy to think about how much purchasing we traditionally do now in America and world-wide. Whether it be regular visits to the supermarket as we keep our kitchen?s stocked for superb meals and tasty treats or those sometimes dreaded (yet skillful) "6 bags on each arm" walks through the local mall, all of it adds up to a great deal of unnecessary waste. Probably the most blatant examples of this waste is disposable grocery bags.
An estimated 100 billion plastic shopping bags are used each year in the USA, according to the Wall-Street Journal. Most plastic bags wind up in landfills and the rest time and again end up in rivers, ponds, lakes, streams or in the ocean, where animals can swallow or become tangled in them. Bearing in mind the number of shopping bags that are consumed and wasted each year, the time is now to spread the word in regards to the positive benefits of eco-friendly
reusable shopping bags. After all, most of us want to give back to our families, friends and communities as often as possible.
Adopting a BYOB approach in our individual shopping habits is a straightforward way to do just that. If we are able to raise awareness presently, the positive impact for our environment is immeasurable for 2010 and well into the future. Quite a few cities have already made gradual but significant progress in endorsing the usage of
eco friendly bags in recent years. Motivating consumers with plastic and paper bag bans, discounts at the register for reusable bag usage and tax motivations are a few to speak of.
Right now in America, the San Jose City Council only just approved one of the nation?s strictest bans on plastic and paper shopping bags. It is a large victory for the Bay Area, which has 1 million plastic bags per year accumulating in and along the San Francisco Bay. San Jose becomes the most recent bay area town to enact some type of ban on disposable shopping bags; others comprise of San Francisco and Palo Alto. Tracy Seipel of the San Jose Mercury News reported that it was actually ONE man who really jump-started the ban, an additional great instance of the power of one person. Here?s a an excerpt:
"While visiting his sister-in-law in Taipei, (Kansen) Chu (elected to San Jose city council in 2007) went grocery shopping and was surprised to get charged for plastic grocery bags. The next day, he brought his own cloth bags back to the store. "I guess the question," said Chu, "was, ?Why not San Jose?? " He began a conversation with the city?s environmental services staff, which later moved to council committee discussions.
Save the Bay?s 4th annual report on the most garbage-strewn places in the district further demonstrates the need for BYOB. The 50-year-old environmental advocacy group focused on 10 particular bay-area sites where nearly 15,000 plastic bags were recovered in one day last year in their account. Here?s an passage of an article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Kelly Zito.
According to (Save the Bay?s) research, Californians use about 19 billion plastic bags each year, 3.8 million in the Bay Area. The average use time for the bags - made using about 12 million barrels of oil each year in the United States - is about 12 minutes. In addition to the hundreds of years it can take for a plastic bag to decompose in a landfill, the bags also force downtime when fed into traditional recycling equipment. Typically, the bags get wound into conveyor belts or gears and must be cut out by hand.
Ten US cities have banned plastic bags so far, five within the past year. Even Mexico City enacted a ban on plastic shopping bags, which went into effect in August. The city of 20 million at present faces the realities of effective enforcement, which isn't simple while the Mexico City Chamber of Commerce estimates there are actually 35,000 vendors in Mexico City?s downtown vicinity alone.
Bans on plastic bags aren?t really the only efficient means to cut back dangerous waste the result of disposable bags. PlasTaxes, which tax consumers at the register for using plastic bags when shopping, had been first introduced by the Irish. John Roach of National Geographic reported in 2008 about the worldwide momentum that?s been building from the time when Ireland instituted a PlasTax in 2003. The Irish showed they could decrease plastic bag consumption by 90% or more. Momentum is growing internationally, predominantly in America. From Washington, DC to Edmonds, WA to North Pole, AK, communities and governments are creating a global trend to cut back the damaging environmental effects of disposable shopping bags. In the great state of Hawaii, the legislature is currently considering a bill to ban single-use plastic bags (SUP), or to establish a minimal charge make use of SUP bags.
Even chief retail stores like Target and CVS are taking action by enacting savings at the register for customers who choose to BYOB or just carry-out their items without a bag. For the naysayers, it?s opportune to disregard recent momentum in reducing disposable bag waste. But to several, the wide-spread adoption of eco-friendly recycled bags is inevitable. Have a look at just how smoking is becoming taboo in America. Indoor smoking bans have caught on like wild-fire. In the same way, who's to say the use of disposable bags won?t become taboo someday in the (hopefully near) future? The use of eco-friendly recycled grocery bags is unquestionably picking up steam. Our individual choices to bring our recycled shopping bags can go much farther than we think. That?s what BYOB is all about.
Naturally, plastic and paper bags need to be recycled and it?s crucial to take into account a bunch of large retailers including Albertsons and Wal-Mart will recycle plastic bags for you (just have to bring them your accumulated stash). That being said, a BYOB shopping plan can make your life a whole lot easier because there isn't a need to accumulate that cabinet full of plastic bags or figure out what and when to deal with it. Keeping a few eco bags in the car or backpack is a great way to ensure you possess them when needed. Thus give back this year by remembering to BYOB! No matter whether it be in a convenience store, the mall, or while grocery shopping, we can make a difference for the environment and help elevate consciousness one transaction at a time. In the struggle to eradicate disposable shopping bag waste, 2010 is our moment.
