It’s time for BYOB! Yes, bring your own shopping bag! As we keep on our path through a busy 2010, it’s outrageous to think about how much purchasing we historically carry out now in America and world-wide. Whether it be frequent visits to the supermarket as we keep our kitchen’s stocked for wonderful meals and tasty goodies or those sometimes dreaded (yet skillful) “6 bags on each arm” walks through the local shopping mall, it all adds up to so much needless waste. Probably the most blatant examples of this waste is disposable grocery bags.
An estimated 100 billion plastic shopping bags are consumed every year in the USA, according to the Wall-Street Journal. Most plastic bags wind up in landfills furthermore the rest time and again end up in rivers, ponds, lakes, streams or in the ocean, where animals can swallow or become entangled in them. Considering the amount of shopping bags that are consumed and wasted each year, the time is now to extend the word in regards to the constructive benefits of eco-friendly reusable grocery 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 simple method to do exactly that. If we can raise awareness at this time, the positive outcome for the environment is immense for 2010 and well into the future. Quite a few metropolitan areas have already made gradual but significant progress in promoting the usage of eco friendly 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 here in America, the San Jose City Council recently passed among the nation’s strictest bans on plastic and paper shopping bags. This is a big 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 latest bay area town to enact some type of ban on disposable shopping bags; others include 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, another impressive example of the power of one individual. 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 places in the region further demonstrates the need for BYOB. The 50-year-old environmental advocacy group focused on 10 particular bay-area sites where approximately 15,000 plastic bags were retrieved in one day last year in their account. Here’s an excerpt 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 metropolitan areas have banned plastic bags thus far, 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 present faces the realities of effective enforcement, which is not easy 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 effective way to cut back dangerous waste brought on by 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 relating to the worldwide momentum that’s been building from the time when Ireland instilled a PlasTax in 2003. The Irish confirmed they could reduce plastic bag utilization by 90% or more. Momentum is on the rise the world over, predominantly in America. From Washington, DC to Edmonds, WA to North Pole, AK, communities and governments are spurring an international trend to scale back the harmful environmental effects of disposable shopping bags. In the great state of Hawaii, the governing body is at this time considering a bill to ban single-use plastic bags (SUP), or to ascertain a small fee to utilize SUP bags.
Even key retail stores like Target and CVS are taking action by enacting special discounts at the register for customers who choose to BYOB or just carry-out their items without a bag. For those naysayers, it’s opportune to pay no heed to recent momentum in reducing disposable bag waste. But to some, the wide-spread adoption of recycled grocery bags is inevitable. Look at just how smoking is becoming taboo in America. Indoor smoking bans have caught on like wild-fire. In the same way, who is to say the use of disposable bags won’t become taboo one day in the (hopefully near) future? The use of eco-friendly recycled grocery bags is certainly picking up steam. Our individual decisions to carry our recycled shopping bags can go a great deal farther than we imagine. That’s what BYOB is all about.
Needless to say, plastic and paper bags need to be recycled and it’s crucial to take into account a bunch of huge 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 plan can make your life a whole lot less difficult because there is no longer a need to accumulate that cabinet full of plastic bags or determine what and when to handle it. Keeping a couple of eco friendly bags in the car or backpack is a good way to ensure you possess them when needed. So give back this year by remembering to BYOB! No matter whether it be at a convenience store, the shopping mall, or while grocery shopping, we can make a difference for the environment and help increase awareness one transaction at a time. For the battle to eradicate disposable shopping bag waste, 2010 is our moment.