Reusable Shopping Bags A Great Beginning

bamboo reusable shopping bagYou have probably noticed more and more retailers offering reusable shopping bags at the check out aisle for sale.  You may also have been hearing news of more and more cities throughout the United States lobbying to ban retailers from offering customers plastic bags at check out.  There are a lot of good reasons for this you may not be aware of.  Politicians do a pretty good job of not bringing attention to the negative aspects of producing all this throw away plastic, because after all, it is a multi-billion dollar business that powerful corporations do not want to see interrupted.

Why Is There So Much Plastic Being Produced?

corporations more powerful than governmentIn today’s age, corporations have become richer, bigger and therefore more powerful than government.  So to keep their jobs, and their funding, governments are making decisions, and passing bills, with money as the motivating factor rather than the health of our society.  Ultimately, we need to stop allowing corporations to donate large sums of money to politicians.  Until there is a cap on allowed “donations” from lobbyists, the seduction of money is going to continue to be a factor in our governments decision making rather than what is best for the people.

Our government, along with the media, are also encouraging us to shop, shop and shop some more to keep our economy going.  We have become the world’s largest consumers as a result, believing that consumerism can take care of any problem we may have.  However, all this consuming is taking a toll on our natural resources, as well as our mental and spiritual health.

If you pause for just a moment, and think about how many plastic shopping bags you use in a week to purchase all of the items you buy that are contained or wrapped in plastic, then in a month and finally in a year, it has probably added up to quite a few plastic bags you end up throwing away.  In fact, more than 380 billion plastic bags are used in the United States every year and of those, approximately 100 billion are plastic non reusable shopping bags.  The production of the plastic packaging and plastic bags we use to bring home all of the products we buy is quite a business for oil companies and manufacturers.

Worldwide, it is estimated that 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed and discarded annually worldwide.  Taiwan consumes about 20 billion plastic bags annually (900 per person), Japan consumes 300 billion bags each year (300 per person), and Australia consumes 6.9 billion plastic bags annually (326 per person).

Individually, we can all do our part to reduce the amount of plastic bags that we use by bringing recycled shopping bags with us to retail stores, and that is a great individual action to take.  However, it is going to take more community involvement to actually reduce the amount of plastic being produced and consumed each year by voicing your concerns to local government officials.  To understand the depth of the issue, lets take a look at the life cycle of plastic and some of the damaging effects plastic does to our planet.

Where Are We Getting The Resources?

oil used to create plasticIt all starts with using our natural resources to produce all the items we consume as well  as  the plastic bags we use to take them home in.  Just for a moment, take a look around your immediate environment.  How many items that surround you are made of plastic?  To create this plastic, we drill for oil, not only in the United States, but also in other countries.  The United States has 5% of the world’s population, but consumes 30% of the worlds resources.  If the rest of the world were to start consuming the way the United States does, we will destroy forests, river systems, communities and habitats.
Manufacturing Plastic

After we use our natural resources, we then manufacture products for consumers to buy.  The manufacturing process is where we take our natural resources and add over 100,000 synthetic chemicals to create products like calculators, phones, computers, chairs and just about anything you see in front of you.  These synthetic toxins are added to most of the plastic products we use on a daily basis, not to mention the plastic packaging they are wrapped in.  According to Salon, a study a few years ago “found that the inks and colorants used on some plastic bags contain lead, a toxin.”

After manufacturing, these products go into stores for us to purchase.  As a society in the United States, our whole economy has become based on consumerism.  Products are actually being made to become obsolete so that we have to keep buying more of them.  This is called planned obsolescence.  If the product doesn’t break, it becomes out of fashion, and this is called perceived obsolescence.  The whole idea is to keep consumers consuming, and thus keep the cycle of our economy moving.  The single use plastic bags given to consumers are a perfect example of planned obsolescence as the single use plastic bag has a life span of 12 minutes before it is thrown out.  Every year, Americans throw away some 100 billion plastic bags which  is equivalent to dumping nearly 12 million barrels of oil.

Where Does All This Plastic Go?

an average landfillThe life cycle of plastic begins by using up our natural resources, and ends with how to dispose of all these products and the plastic packaging they are wrapped up in.  Only a small percentage of the plastic products we buy are actually recycled.  In fact, the EPA estimates that around 1% of all plastic products are actually recycled.  For the most part, they are buried in a land fill.  If they aren’t buried, they are burned, where all of those toxic, synthetic chemicals used to manufacture these products are released into the air we breath, and then buried in a landfill.

Another problem with all of this plastic being thrown away, is that it doesn’t always end up in a landfill.  Sometimes it ends up in our streets from human littering or overflowing trash cans.  Once it finds itself in our streets, it then blows into our sewer systems through street drains and river systems.  Once it is in our sewer systems and rivers, it ultimately ends up in our oceans.   There is actually an area in the Pacific ocean called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that is estimated to be the size of Texas.  Most of the items in this gyre are plastic; products made of plastic and the plastic packaging they are sold in, including the plastic bags handed out by retailers.

The problem with plastic bags, plastic containers and plastic wrappers ending up in our oceans, is that plastic never fully decomposes.  Sunlight and salt water causes the plastic to break into smaller and smaller pieces.  These tiny particles of plastic are then eaten by fish in the ocean.  When we eat the fish, we are eating the plastic toxins they have consumed as well, so the 100,000 synthetic toxins used to make the products we buy are ending up in our food chain.  You can purchase organic produce, but you cannot purchase organic fish.

What Can We Do? Go With Reusable Bags.

jute reusable shopping bagsThe only solution to stop contributing to the amassing of plastic is to stop manufacturing it, and start recycling what has already been produced.  Our technology is still being developed to find ways to recycle hard-to-recycle plastic.  Until the technology to recycle catches up with the manufacturing and distribution, more and more plastic will continue to fill our landfills and make it’s way to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  The best action to take right now is to reduce the amount of plastic being distributed.

More and more cities throughout the United States are banning the distribution of single use plastic bags at check out.  In 2007, San Francisco, California, was the first city to ban the distribution of hard to recycle plastic bags in grocery stores, and that has translated into 5 million fewer plastic bags every month being distributed in S.F.

Westport, CT., Edmonds, WA., Brownsville, TX., and Bethel, AK., are a few more cities that have banned plastic bags.  Aspen, CO., Austin, TX., Seattle, WA., Boulder, CO.,  Jersey City, NJ., and many other cities are currently in the process of banning not only single use plastic shopping bags, but also paper bags.

World wide, plastic bags are either restricted or completely banned in over a quarter of the world’s countries.  Belgium, Ireland and Hong Kong have legislation discouraging the use and encouraging the recycling of plastic bags by imposing a fixed or minimum levy for the supply of plastic bags or obliging retailers to recycle.  Italy, Bangladesh, South Africa, Thailand and three states/territories of Australia, have already banned plastic bags.

What Is The First Step Towards Embracing Reusable Shopping Bags?

meet with city council membersIf you are interested in banning single use plastic bags, as well as paper bags in retail outlets in your city, start by contacting your local city council members to discuss the issue and see if a ban is already in process.  If it isn’t, find out what parameters the city needs in order to start the process.  Raising community consciousness and bringing signed petitions to city council meetings are usually the first step.  Using Facebook as a social media outlet is a great way to get your voice heard as well as finding supporters.

Find out what road blocks you could potentially face such as expenses for Environmental Impact Reports, which cost about $15,000.00.  A way to raise awareness is by handing out free reusable shopping bags to the community in front of retail outlets  or high profile events.  You can design custom reusable bags with your petition slogan and contact information on the bags.  The beauty of this idea is that every time someone sees the bag, they are going to notice your campaign.  Using reusable grocery bags is a great beginning to reducing the amount of plastic we throw away each day, week, month and year.

Three steps you can take to help the problem our world has with what to do with all this plastic are to start using reusable shopping bags, get involved with your city council to affect true change as a community and raise children to be interested in our environment and the sciences.

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