I want to repost this today and see how many of you have made an effort to use reusable bags when you shop! I have made some progress! I would say I am at about 50% now, which leaves a lot of room for improvement, I know! I have started keeping a stash of reusable bags in my car at all times, I often take them into the grocery store with me, but seem to forget when I go to Target and other retail stores.
Where can you buy reusable bags? Most stores now offer their own branded bags when you checkout at reasonable prices. Here are some other options, which would make great gifts too:
Organic produce & snack bag
Dandelion Print shopping bag
Micado reusable bags, set of 5
French Dot Lunch Bag
Everywhere you go nowadays, stores are selling reusable bags. They come in every color, pattern, fabric imaginable. I seem to have a sort of fetish with these bags and have accumulated quite the collection over the past year or two. So what’s the problem?? I always FORGET to take them with me into the store. I was at the grocery store yesterday and there was an older lady in front of me and she was just SO PROUD of herself for using her reusable grocery bags! I made a promise to myself that I will start bringing my totes with me and actually USE THEM!
Did you know:
*Introduced just over 25 years ago, the ugly truth about our plastic bag addiction is that society’s consumption rate is now estimated at well over 500,000,000,000 (that’s 500 billion) plastic bags annually, or almost 1 million per minute.
*According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. An estimated 12 million barrels of oil is required to make that many plastic bags.
*Four out of five grocery bags in the US are now plastic.
*Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistake them for food.
*According to the WSJ Target, the second-largest retailer in the U.S., purchases 1.8 billion bags a year.
*The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store.
*Each high quality reusable bag you use has the potential to eliminate an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime. The bag will pay for itself if your grocery store offers a $.05 or $.10 credit per bag for bringing your own bags.
*Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC one group harvests 30,000 per month.
*In a dramatic move to stem a tide of 60,000 metric tons of plastic bag and plastic utensil waste per year, Taiwan banned both last year.
*In 2001, Ireland used 1.2 billion disposable plastic bags, or 316 per person. An extremely successful plastic bag tax, or PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%.
Do you use reusable bags when you shop? It’s a small change that all of us could easily make. Let’s do it!
Source: http://www.reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=4
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