http://www.care2.com/greenliving/plastic-bags-be-the-change.html
Plastic Bags: Be the Change
OK, by now you’ve read about the problems with plastic bags, you’ve started to explore some of the options available to you for ridding them from your life, and you’re ready to jump into the next step and go a week without ever touching a plastic bag.
Before you jump in though, I think there is one more task to be done and frankly, I think it may be the most important of them all (and ironically the easiest as well). While understanding the problem is key, and taking yourself out of the equation is important on a personal level, what we as a society need is for larger sweeping actions to help us rid the planet of the scourge that is plastic bags.
I’m talking of course about government intervention. Now I know a lot of people out there think that governments are self-serving, that they don’t have the people’s best interests in mind, and that they will be ineffective at doing anything about a problem this big. But before you click away, let’s take a look at what some governments are doing about the problem.
In March 2002, Ireland imposed a 15 cent per bag Plastax on plastic bags becoming the first country in the world to do so. The tax resulted in a 90 percent drop in plastic bag use (that’s 1.2 billion plastic bags a year) and raised $9.6 million in the first year alone which was used for green initiatives.
On June 1 of this year China imposed a ban on all plastic bags thinner than 3 mm (the worst offenders), effectively saving them 37 million barrels of oil a year.
In 2003, Taiwan passed a law requiring its retailers to charge for plastic bags resulting in a 69 percent decrease in bags during the ban’s first year.
The governments of Australia, Bangledesh, Italy, South Africa, Israel, Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, Uganda, Zanzibar, Rwanda, Eritrea, Kenya, and Hong Kong have all taken steps to stop plastic bags and an attempt is being made to outlaw them on the entire continent of Africa!
Right here in the United States, San Francisco was the first city in the country to agree on an outright ban. Seattle is taxing them starting Jan. 1, 2009, and by 2010 (better late than never) Los Angeles will outlaw them altogether unless all stores agree to start charging customers for their use.
The bottom line is this: While we would all like to think that people are going to stop taking these things on their own, as long as they are free and readily available, there are still going to be those who use them. So here’s what you can do to help.
Head over to resuablebags.com and read up on how to write a letter to your local government representative and local retailers asking them to be part of the plastic bag solution. If you live in the United States and aren’t sure of who to contact, you can find out here. It’ll only take a few minutes and if you think your voice means nothing, just imagine what would happen if 100,000 voters wrote a letter tomorrow?
So now that you’ve done your research, put your bags by the door, and written your letter to your local representative, it’s time to start walking the talk. My challenge to you for the next week is to just say NO and not touch a single plastic bag for the entire week. I think you’ll find it is a challenge, possibly more so than you thought it would be, but now that you are armed with some good tips and information, hopefully it won’t be as hard as it would have been.
Finally, I’d like to turn my next blog over to all of you next week and hear what your experiences were. Drop me a line (preferably by Sunday night as I need to get blogs in by Monday) at sustainabledave@care2.com and let me know how your experiment went, what hurdles you came across, any tips you may have for retraining yourself, and most importantly, whether or not you are going to keep it up. I’ll sift through the e-mails and post as many as I can and hopefully we can all learn a few things from each other.
Good luck.
Live sustainably.
Dave Chameides is an environmental educator and freelance filmmaker. He writes alternative fuel articles for Edmunds.com and maintains the blogs 365 Days of Trash and Achieving Sustainability. While he is presently saving all of his trash for a year to better understand his environmental impact, his main focus is sustainability through education and believes that with knowledge all things are possible.
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25 comments
add your comment »Lauren - the bag is really nice and I love the idea of fair trade but, for $26 I could only afford one or two. That certainly won't get my groceries home from the store. I need 15-30 depending on the day.
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If you're going eco-friendly, why not go fair trade too? I like this reusable shopping bag from Global Goods Partners. It's made by Cambodian artisans from recycled sarongs, newspapers, and rice bags, and comes with an oh-so-convenient carrying pouch. Here's the link:
http://www.globalgoodspartners.org/cart/Details.cfm?ProdID=23&category=0
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I reuse the plastic bags from the grocery store and Wal-Mart to line my kitchen waste basket and to scoop my cat waste into. The excess bags I take back to Wal-Mart or the grocery store for recycling. I do not buy kitchen garbage bags. What would be an alernative for disposing of my cat waste and for my kitchen garbage bags?
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I say kill two birds with one stone: you can buy these personal carbon storage systems that capture your CO2 emissions in a lightweight backpack that can also be used to do your shopping. Check out www.cou2.com
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I say kill two birds with one stone: you can buy these personal carbon storage systems that capture your CO2 emissions in a lightweight backpack that can also be used to do your shopping. Check out www.cou2.com
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I say kill two birds with one stone: you can buy these personal carbon storage systems that capture your CO2 emissions in a lightweight backpack that can also be used to do your shopping. Check out www.cou2.com
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I have some old Sierra Club bags that our local club had printed and raised money selling to us - umm I think it was it in the late 70's or the early 80's. I am still using them and have used them to move with (great way to take the important things for the bath or kitchen or to transport the sock and undies drawer).
I do still get strange looks from the cash register area but it gets to be second nature to say I have my own bags please and snatch them from the back of my wheel chair quickly. If I do get a bag when some other person picks up things for me I use it for my trash.
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I STILL DIDN'T READ EVERY THING, BUT WHAT DO WE DO WITH... OPS WE TRY TO RECYCLE, RIGHT? I WAS ASKING ABOUT CLEANING PRADUCTS, TOILET PAPER PLASTIC ... AND OTHERS WE USE DAY TO DAY. THIS SHOULD BE A WORLD WIDE CAMPAIN. I'M IN BRAZIL, AND THERE IS DIFFICULTY TO SEND FOR RECYCLE .
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I think some people see this as a fashion statement which is cool, but completely uneducated.
I went to a market I rarely go to recently and I had my bag out and ready at the register like I normally do at other stores, but the poor teenager started bagging in a plastic bag while I was conversing with my daughter. I said "No I'd like to use the bag I brought with please" and she looked at the bag and said "Well you can just put this bag in the one you brought" after giving me a look that said 'you are one weird lady'.
I of course told her that it would defeat the purpose, but she just kept looking impatiently at me to the line of customers behind me.
I regret to say that I was feeling rushed and should have taken the time to share my views, but I didn't.
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Is there any way I can get rid of spare plastic bags without throwing them? When I moved into my new house I used plastic bags from the kitchen in my flat to move all my belongings, but I won't throw them out because of the damage they do and now have a large wad of plastic bags under my bed I can't put anywhere. How can I get them out of my house without throwing them away? There are no plastic bag recycling facilities where I live.
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