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.
Creating a BYOB strategy in our individual shopping habits is a simple way to do exactly that. If we are able to elevate consciousness presently, the positive outcome for our environment is immeasurable for 2010 and well into the future. Quite a few cities have already made gradual but significant progress in promoting the use of reusable bags in recent years. Motivating consumers with plastic and paper bag bans, savings 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 recently approved one of the nation?s strictest bans on plastic and paper shopping bags. It is a large victory for the Bay Area, that has 1 million plastic bags per year accumulating in and along the San Francisco Bay. San Jose becomes the most recent bay area city to enact some type of ban on disposable shopping bags; some others comprise of San Francisco and Palo Alto. Tracy Seipel of the San Jose Mercury News reported that it was actually ONE man who truly jump-started the ban, a further 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 yearly report on the most garbage-strewn sites in the area further demonstrates the need for BYOB. The 50-year-old environmental advocacy group focused on 10 specific bay-area sites where approximately 15,000 plastic bags were retrieved in one day last year in their account. Here?s an extract 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 to date, five throughout 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 the moment faces the realities of effective enforcement, which isn’t simple when the Mexico City Chamber of Commerce estimates there are 35,000 vendors in Mexico City?s downtown area 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 major retail stores like Target and CVS are taking action by enacting savings at the register for customers who decide to BYOB or simply carry-out their items without a bag. For those naysayers, it?s opportune to pay no attention to recent momentum in reducing disposable bag waste. But to a few, the wide-spread adoption of eco-friendly recycled bags is inevitable. Look at just how smoking is becoming taboo in America. Indoor smoking bans have caught on like wild-fire. In a similar way, who is to say the use of disposable bags won?t turn out to be taboo at some point within the (hopefully near) future? The use of eco-friendly recycled grocery bags is unquestionably gaining steam. Our personal decisions to take our recycled shopping bags can go much farther than we think. That?s what BYOB is all about.
Needless to say, plastic and paper bags ought 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 need to bring them your accumulated stash). That being said, a BYOB shopping approach can make your life much simpler because there is no longer a need to accumulate that cabinet full of plastic bags or figure out what and when to do something about it. Keeping a couple of eco bags inside your car or backpack is a great way to ensure you possess them when required. So give back this year by remembering to BYOB! Whether it be at a convenience store, the mall, or while grocery shopping, we can make a change for our environment and help lift awareness one transaction at a time. In the fight to eradicate disposable shopping bag waste, 2010 is our moment.
Albert Jefferson is an accomplished writer discussing eco and sustainability issues and spreading the word to companies to utilize eco friendly promotional bags to promote both their brand and awareness for the environment. We can help this planet with every bag and bottle we reuse.