Eco-Friendly Products

It is time for BYOB! Yes, bring your own shopping bag!  As we keep on our journey through a busy 2010, it’s outrageous to think about how much purchasing we traditionally carry out here in America and world-wide. Whether it's regular trips to the grocery store 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.  One of 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 end 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 tangled in them.  Considering the number of shopping bags that are consumed and wasted each year, the time is now to spread the word about the positive benefits of eco-friendly reusable grocery bags.  After all, the majority 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 simple method to do exactly that.  If we could boost consciousness at this time, the positive outcome for the environment is immeasurable for 2010 and well into the future.  Numerous cities have already made gradual but significant progress in promoting the use of eco friendly bags in recent years.  Motivating consumers with plastic and paper bag bans, discounts 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 among the nation’s strictest bans on plastic and paper shopping bags.   It is a great victory for the Bay Area, which has 1 million plastic bags per year accumulating in and along the San Francisco Bay.  San Jose becomes the most recent bay area town to endorse some sort of ban on disposable shopping bags; some others include San Francisco and Palo Alto. Tracy Seipel of the San Jose Mercury News reported that it was in fact ONE man who truly jump-started the ban, an additional remarkable 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 explicit bay-area sites where approximately 15,000 plastic bags were recovered in a single day last year in their statement.   Here’s an passage 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 to date, 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 currently faces the realities of effective enforcement, which isn't easy while the Mexico City Chamber of Commerce estimates there are actually 35,000 vendors in Mexico City’s downtown area alone.

Bans on plastic bags aren’t really the only valuable approach to scale back harmful waste brought on by disposable bags.  PlasTaxes, which tax customers at the register for using plastic bags while shopping, had been first introduced by the Irish.  John Roach of National Geographic reported in 2008 on the worldwide momentum that’s been building from the time when Ireland instilled a PlasTax in 2003.  The Irish showed they could cut down plastic bag consumption by 90% or more.   Momentum is growing internationally, particularly in America.  From Washington, DC to Edmonds, WA to North Pole, AK, communities and governments are spurring a global trend to cut back the harmful environmental effects of disposable shopping bags.  In the great state of Hawaii, the government is currently considering a bill to ban single-use plastic bags (SUP), or to establish a minimal fee make use of SUP bags.

Even chief 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 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 the way smoking is becoming taboo in America.  Indoor smoking bans have caught on like wild-fire.  In a similar way, who is to say using disposable bags won’t become taboo at some point in the (hopefully near) future?  The use of eco-friendly recycled grocery bags is definitely picking up steam.  Our personal decisions to take our recycled shopping bags can go a good deal farther than we imagine.  That’s what BYOB is all about.

Of course, plastic and paper bags need to be recycled and it’s crucial to bear in mind 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 approach can make your life a lot simpler because there is no longer a need to accumulate that cabinet filled with plastic bags or figure out what and when to deal with it.  Keeping a couple of reusable bags inside your car or backpack is a great way to make sure you possess them when needed. So give back this year by remembering to BYOB!   No matter whether it be in a convenience store, the mall, or while grocery shopping, we could make a change for our environment and help elevate consciousness one transaction at a time.  In the struggle to eradicate disposable shopping bag waste, 2010 is our moment.