Each day a new city or a new state initiates legislation to ban plastic bags. Why? Because people won't stop using them voluntarily...and stores won't stop distributing them voluntarily, either. Grocery associations and plastic bag producers are up in arms. They're defending their right to continue abusing the environment with petroleum-based plastic bags and energy hogging paper bags that are so thick they don't degrade in landfills.
I've cruised around the Internet looking for a definitive answer about which causes more harm to the environment and survey says...both! So what are our choices? We can defend our right to use the plastic bags (they're necessary for lining trash cans, cleaning up dog poop and managing our daily messes) or we can find an alternative or a few alternatives and see if we can take LESS, as a start.
I have a motley assortment of Bring Your Own bags. A few polypropylene (cheap, cheap) bags that I found out are WORSE for the environment b/c they never break down, a few 100% recycled content bags that are pretty big and hold a lot, a cool six-slot bag (once again from that same plastic stuff) from Trader Joe's and a few canvas bags from Eco-Bags. They all work and they're all better than the flimsy bags that choke turtless (see above). And the serendipity of it all is that the pile of bags between my microwave and the wall is slowly going away.
So while the legislators legislate and the advocates advocate I'm making a few changes that impact my home and environment. I'm teaching my children to do the same in the process. What are you doing?
I went grocery shopping this morning and left my bags in the car...again. This time, I left my loaded cart at the service desk and ran back out to the car to retrieve them! At the checkout I got a 8 cent credit for bringing my own bags and only needed two flimsy bags for produce (gotta get some of those washable produce bags). I get a green star today :).
Posted by: Elleno | March 14, 2008 at 06:45 AM
Check out this FANTASTIC conversation about the Paper versus Plastic Bag debate. Thanks to Seil at the LA Times blog for posting this. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23358591/
Posted by: elleno | March 21, 2008 at 08:06 AM