A Local Article: BYOB!!!

Stay up to date on the latest posts. Subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

No this isn’t a post about beer. It’s Bring Your Own Bag. Say no to plastic bags at grocery stores and businesses. Bring your own cloth bags instead or heck reuse your old plastic ones. Why say no to plastic and bring you own?

Consider the following shocking facts about plastic shopping bags:

Plastic bags are made of polyethylene
Polyethylene is a petroleum product
Production contributes to air pollution and energy consumption
Four to five trillion plastic bags are manufactured each year
Americans use over 380 billion polyethylene bags per year
Americans throw away approximately 100 billion polyethylene bags per year
Of those 100 billion plastic bags, 1% are recycled
It takes 1000 years for polyethylene bags to break down
As polyethylene breaks down, toxic substances leach into the soil and enter the food chain
Approximately 1 billion seabirds and mammals die per year by ingesting plastic bags
Plastic bags are often mistaken as food by marine mammals. 100,000 marine mammals die yearly by eating plastic bags.
These animals suffer a painful death, the plastic wraps around their intestines or they choke to death
Plastic bags choke landfills
Plastic bags are carried by the wind into forests, ponds, rivers, and lakes
There are alternatives to plastic bags. All of this death and pollution is unnecessary Read more: www.environmentalactivism.sutie101.com

Here are a few reusable options:

Reuse plastic/brown bags from previous visit!
www.envirosax.com
www.reusablebags.com
www.theinconvenientbag.com
www.chicobag.com
www.greeneyed.com

Many cities have  attempted/already banned the use of plastic bags such as the City of Santa Monica and in and around the Bay area. Also, stores like Albertsons (in Quartz Hill)  and The Whole Foods Market give back five cents towards your purchase for every bag you bring.  -My ? Why don’t we jump on board and get our city to stop using plastic bags? With all the wind the litter carries (I’d bet plastic bags are #1) we could use a ban!!!

Okay, let’s take baby steps and start within. Next time you go shopping forgo the plastic and BYOB!! It’s an easy way to help save the planet. Not only that but many grocery chains and retailers are selling their own version of grocery bags to make it easier for you. Which brings me to my next point…when you make the switch – go plastic-less completely and AVOID bags that are made from plastic.

It’s a catch-22 so be mindful and choose cloth or any other sustainable material. Either way, whether you’re mindful or not… you’ll be helping to protect our environment by bringing your own bag. Guess what? It doesn’t just stop there either- especially, when you consider all the possibilities to reduce your plastic intake i.e.: produce bags, Ziploc bags, utensils from fast food joints etc. Plastic lives forever so let’s keep our community clean and say no to plastic bags. If you forget reusable your bags- ask for paper!!!

For Ziploc bag alternatives go to www.etsy.com and enter Love For Earth in the search.
Also be sure to check out www.to-goware.com

More Facts (obtained from www.greeneyed.com):

The average American uses between 300 and 700 plastic bags per year. If everyone in the United States tied their annual consumption of plastic bags together in a giant chain, the chain would reach around the earth 760 times!

Californians cut their plastic bag waste in half, it would save over two thousand barrels of oil a day (over 800,000 barrels a year) and keep 73,000 tons of rubbish out of our landfills.

Californians cut their plastic bag waste in half, it would save over two thousand barrels of oil a day (over 800,000 barrels a year) and keep 73,000 tons of rubbish out of our landfills.