| Paper or Plastic? Neither! BYOB |
BYOB...Bring your own bag!Americans throw away about 100 billion plastic bags each year! What can you do to help this problem?Top Reasons to Say No to Plastic Bags1. Plastic bags use natural resources - Most plastic bags are made from polyethylene. This is made from finite resources (crude oil and natural gas.) 2. Plastic bags harm wildlife - Plastic bags are now the 5th most common debris item found on beaches, according to the Ocean Conservancy, and international coastal cleanups have turned up more than 354,000 stray bags each year. 3. Plastic bags create litter 4. Plastic bags take a long time to biodegrade - 1 plastic bag takes about 1,000 years to biodegrade. In a landfill, plastics make up 7% of the waste by weight, and 18% by volume. Less then 3% of bags are recycled. 5. Plastic bags are hazardous to people. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission receives an average of 25 reports each year in which a child has suffocated from a plastic bag. So what can you do? 1. Buy a reusable bags from your grocery store. I have seen reusable bags at Albertsons, Wild Oats, Walmart, Target & Ikea for $1-$2 a piece. 2. Buy a canvas or hemp bag http://www.reusablebags.com/ 3. If you have a small item, just carry it or put it in your purse |