You Can Be Part Of The Answer To The Plastic Waste Issues

It is time for BYOB! Yes, bring your own shopping bag! While we continue our path through a eventful 2010, it’s crazy to think about how much shopping we traditionally do now in America and world-wide. Whether it's everyday visits into the supermarket as we keep our kitchen’s stocked for wonderful meals and tasty treats or those occasionally dreaded (yet skillful) "6 bags on each arm" walks through the local mall, it all adds up to a whole lot of unnecessary waste. Probably the most blatant examples of this waste is disposable grocery bags.

An estimated 100 billion plastic shopping bags are consumed every year within the USA, according to the Wall-Street Journal. Most plastic bags wind up in landfills furthermore the rest frequently end up in rivers, ponds, lakes, streams or in the ocean, where animals can ingest or become tangled in them. Bearing in mind the amount 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 grocery bags. After all, most of us want to give back to our families, friends and communities as often as possible.

Adopting a BYOB strategy in our individual shopping habits is a straightforward method to do just that. If we are able to raise awareness presently, the positive impact for the environment is incalculable for 2010 and well into the future. Several cities have already made gradual but significant progress in endorsing the use of eco friendly bags in recent years. Encouraging 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 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, 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 kind 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 gentleman who really jump-started the ban, another great example of the influence 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 sites in the state further demonstrates the need for BYOB. The 50-year-old environmental advocacy group focused on 10 explicit 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 cities have banned plastic bags so far, five in the past year. Even Mexico City enacted a ban on plastic shopping bags, which went into effect in August. The city of 20 million now faces the realities of effective enforcement, which is not easy while the Mexico City Chamber of Commerce estimates there are 35,000 vendors in Mexico City’s downtown vicinity alone.

Bans on plastic bags aren’t the only effective approach to reduce damaging waste attributable to disposable bags. PlasTaxes, which tax customers at the register for using plastic bags while shopping, had been primarily launched by the Irish. John Roach of National Geographic reported in 2008 on the worldwide momentum that’s been building because Ireland instilled a PlasTax in 2003. The Irish showed they could diminish plastic bag consumption by 90% or more. Momentum is increasing the world over, predominantly in America. From Washington, DC to Edmonds, WA to North Pole, AK, communities and governments are developing an international trend to scale back the harmful environmental effects of disposable shopping bags. In the great state of Hawaii, the legislature is currently taking into account a bill to ban single-use plastic bags (SUP), or to ascertain a minimal fee to utilize SUP bags.

Even major retail stores like Target and CVS are taking action by enacting discounts at the register for customers who choose to BYOB or just carry-out their stuff without a bag. For those naysayers, it’s opportune to ignore recent momentum in reducing disposable bag waste. But to a few, 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 a similar way, who's to say the usage of disposable bags won’t turn out to be taboo someday in the (hopefully near) future? The use of eco-friendly recycled grocery bags is certainly picking up steam. Our personal decisions to carry our recycled shopping bags can go a whole lot farther than we think. That’s what BYOB is all about.

Naturally, plastic and paper bags ought to be recycled and it’s crucial to take into account most 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 lot simpler because there isn't a need to accumulate that cupboard full of plastic bags or figure out what and when to deal with it. Keeping a couple of eco bags in the car or backpack is a great 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 mall, or while grocery shopping, we can make a difference for the environment and help increase consciousness one transaction at a time. For the struggle to eradicate disposable shopping bag waste, 2010 is our moment.

Article Source: http://casinoarticles.us

Albert Jefferson is a highly experienced author conversing about green and reusing dilemas and spreading the ideal to companies to employ reusable grocery bags and other eco promotional products to promote both their trade name and recognition for our environment.

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated