Bring Your Own Bag

Bring Your Own Bag

One trillion plastic grocery bags are consumed worldwide each year. Yes, I said *trillion*. These bags can take up to 1000 years to degrade. When they finally do break down, they leak toxins into our soil and groundwater.

Hundreds of thousands of marine animals die every year from eating plastic grocery bags. Plastic bags are among the twelve most common items found during beach clean-ups. They can be found floating in the oceans from the north to the south pole. Sailors say that plastic bags are the most common ocean trash that they encounter.

Wind blown grocery bags are a signifigant source of litter. Tens of thousands of plastic bags are collected each day during environmental clean-ups around the world. Plastic bags are notorious for clogging stormwater drains in urban environments.

Plastic bags are made from oil and natural gas. The production of plastic bags accounts for four percent of the world’s total oil usage.

While paper grocery bags do biodegrade, they are still not green alternatives. Compared to plastic, paper bags take more energy to produce and transport, produce much more pollution during manufacture, and require much more energy to recycle. In 1999 14 million trees were cut down to supply the nation with paper grocery bags.

The Bring Your Own Bag movement is taking action to stem the tide, one consumer at a time. One person consumes 300-600 plastic bags per year. By taking your own reusable bag with you when you go shopping, you will make a big impact on the environment.

Kroger is the only mainstream grocer that currently offers reusable bags bags to its customers. You can buy a sturdy, washable market bag from Kroger’s for 99 cents. Those bags hold three times more groceries than a normal plastic, so you only need a few.

If you don’t have a Kroger in your town, ask the manager of your grocery store to start stocking reusable grocery bags. Retailers can team up with the folks over at www.bringyourbag.com to offer market bags at the same incrediblly low prices as Kroger. Since your local manager might not have the clout to make this decision, a letter to corporate headquarters couldn’t hurt, either.

If none of your grocery stores carry reusable bags, its not a problem. You might have some bags around your house that would suit the purpose just fine. If you just don’t have anything on hand, and can’t find anything in the stores around town that seems suitable, there are stores online that have just what you need. Reusablebags.com is the most popular site.

Anything that you can do to spread the use of reusable bags throughout your community will make a huge beneficial impact on the environment. www.love-a-tree.com will provide wholesale custom printed cotton canvas carry bags for community fund-raiser projects. With a 40% profit margin, this opportunity is a great way for any club to raise funds and spread the Bring Your Own Bags gospel. By choosing to print the bags with a “Stop Using Plastic Bags” slogan, you are spreading the message even further. Your fund-raising customers become walking billboards.

Do you have a collection of plastic grocery bags under your sink, waiting to be used as trash bags? If so, take them down to your local grocery store and put them in the plastic bag recycling bin. If you can’t find it, speak to the manager. You should not put plastic grocery bags in with your recycling at home. Most municipalities lack the infrastructure to handle them appropriately.

Get your own bag. Use it. Recycle all of the plastic grocery bags that you’ve stashed. Tell your friends. Work to inform and engage your community. If all of that sounds overwhelming, then just do one thing. Get your own bag.