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It is time for BYOB! Yes, bring your own shopping bag! As we keep on our path through a eventful 2010, it’s outrageous to think about how much purchasing we traditionally carry out here in America and world-wide. Whether it be frequent visits into the supermarket as we keep our kitchen’s stocked for wonderful meals and tasty goodies or those occasionally dreaded (yet skillful) "6 bags on each arm" walks through the neighborhood shopping mall, it all adds up to a whole lot of preventable garbage. Probably the most blatant examples of this waste is disposable grocery bags. An estimated 100 billion plastic shopping bags are consumed each year in the USA, according to the Wall-Street Journal. Most plastic bags end up in landfills and 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. Bearing in mind the number of shopping bags that are consumed and wasted each year, the time is now to extend the word in regards to the constructive benefits of eco-friendly reusable grocery bags. After all, most of us want to give back to our families, friends and communities as often as possible. Creating a BYOB approach in our individual shopping habits is a simple method to do exactly that. If we can increase awareness presently, the positive outcome for our environment is immense for 2010 and well into the future. Several cities have already made gradual but momentous advancement in endorsing the usage 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 recently passed among the nation’s strictest bans on plastic and paper shopping bags. This is a large 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 latest bay area town to enact some type of ban on disposable shopping bags; others comprise of San Francisco and Palo Alto. Tracy Seipel of the San Jose Mercury News reported that it was in fact ONE gentleman who really jump-started the ban, an additional great example of the influence 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 district further demonstrates the need for BYOB. The 50-year-old environmental advocacy group focused on 10 specific bay-area sites where almost 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 metropolitan areas have banned plastic bags so far, five in the past year. Even Mexico City enacted a ban on plastic shopping bags, which went into effect in August. The city of 20 million at present faces the realities of effective enforcement, which isn't easy while the Mexico City Chamber of Commerce estimates there's 35,000 vendors in Mexico City’s downtown area alone. Bans on plastic bags aren’t the only valuable means to cut back detrimental waste the result of disposable bags. PlasTaxes, which tax consumers at the register for using plastic bags when shopping, were first launched by the Irish. John Roach of National Geographic reported in 2008 on the worldwide momentum that’s been building because Ireland instilled a PlasTax in 2003. The Irish showed they could cut down plastic bag consumption by 90% or more. Momentum is increasing the world over, 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 damaging environmental effects of disposable shopping bags. In the great state of Hawaii, the government is currently taking into account a bill to ban single-use plastic bags (SUP), or to ascertain a minimal fee to utilize SUP bags. Even major retail stores like Target and CVS are taking action by enacting special discounts at the register for customers who choose to BYOB or simply carry-out their stuff without a bag. For those naysayers, it’s opportune to discount recent momentum in reducing disposable bag waste. But to several, the wide-spread adoption of eco-friendly recycled bags is inevitable. Have a look at just how smoking is becoming taboo in America. Indoor smoking bans have caught on like wild-fire. In the same way, who is to say the usage of disposable bags won’t turn out to be taboo one day within the (hopefully near) future? The use of eco-friendly recycled grocery bags is definitely picking up steam. Our individual decisions to bring our recycled shopping bags can go a good deal farther than we imagine. That’s what BYOB is all about. Naturally, plastic and paper bags should be recycled and it’s important to keep in mind a bunch of huge retailers including Albertsons and Wal-Mart will recycle plastic bags for you (just have to bring them your accumulated stash). That being said, a BYOB shopping plan can make your life a great deal simpler because there isn't a need to accumulate that cupboard full of plastic bags or determine what and when to do something about it. Keeping a couple of eco bags inside your car or backpack is a great way to make sure you have them when required. So give back this year by remembering to BYOB! Whether it be at a convenience store, the shopping mall, or while grocery shopping, we can make a difference for the environment and help raise awareness one transaction at a time. For the battle to eliminate disposable shopping bag waste, 2010 is our moment.
Article Source: http://www.onlinearticlessite.com
Albert Jefferson has been an educated author going over environmental and sustainability concerns in addition to spreading the ideal to companies to use recycled grocery bags and reusable shopping bags to advertise both their mark and awareness for this environment.
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