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It is time for BYOB! Yes, bring your own shopping bag! While we keep on our path through a busy 2010, it’s crazy to think about the amount of shopping we traditionally carry out here in America and world-wide. Whether it's everyday visits to the supermarket as we keep our kitchen’s stocked for wonderful meals and tasty goodies or those sometimes dreaded (yet skillful) "6 bags on each arm" walks through the neighborhood shopping mall, it all adds up to a great deal of unnecessary 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 frequently end up in rivers, ponds, lakes, streams or in the ocean, where animals can swallow or become tangled in them. Bearing in mind the amount 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, the majority of us want to give back to our families, friends and communities as often as possible. Adopting a BYOB strategy in our individual shopping habits is a simple method to do just that. If we can raise awareness at this time, the positive impact for the environment is immeasurable for 2010 and well into the future. Quite a few metropolitan areas have already made gradual but significant progress in endorsing the usage of eco friendly bags in recent years. Motivating consumers with plastic and paper bag bans, savings 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 only just approved one of the nation’s strictest bans on plastic and paper shopping bags. It 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 kind 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 truly jump-started the ban, an additional great example of the power of one person. 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 annual report on the most garbage-strewn sites in the area further demonstrates the need for BYOB. The 50-year-old environmental advocacy group focused on 10 explicit bay-area sites where almost 15,000 plastic bags were retrieved in a single day last year in their account. Here’s an excerpt 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 cities have banned plastic bags to date, 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 now faces the realities of effective enforcement, which isn't simple while the Mexico City Chamber of Commerce estimates there are 35,000 vendors in Mexico City’s downtown vicinity alone. Bans on plastic bags aren’t really the only valuable way to reduce dangerous waste the result of disposable bags. PlasTaxes, which tax customers at the register for using plastic bags while shopping, were being primarily introduced by the Irish. John Roach of National Geographic reported in 2008 about the worldwide momentum that’s been building from the time when Ireland instilled a PlasTax in 2003. The Irish showed they could cut down plastic bag utilization by 90% or more. Momentum is increasing the world over, predominantly in America. From Washington, DC to Edmonds, WA to North Pole, AK, communities and governments are creating an international trend to scale back the hurtful 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 make use of SUP bags. Even major retail stores like Target and CVS are taking action by enacting savings at the register for customers who choose to BYOB or just carry-out their items without a bag. For those naysayers, it’s opportune to ignore 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 the way smoking is becoming taboo in America. Indoor smoking bans have caught on like wild-fire. In a similar way, who is to say using disposable bags won’t become taboo one day within the (hopefully near) future? The use of eco-friendly recycled grocery bags is definitely picking up steam. Our individual choices to bring our recycled shopping bags can go a whole lot farther than we imagine. That’s what BYOB is all about. Obviously, plastic and paper bags ought to be recycled and it’s crucial to take into account a bunch of large 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 easier because there is no longer a need to accumulate that cabinet full of plastic bags or figure out what and when to handle it. Keeping a couple of eco bags inside your car or backpack is a great way to ensure you possess 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 change for our environment and help lift knowledge one transaction at a time. In the fight to eliminate disposable shopping bag waste, 2010 is our moment.
Article Source: http://www.gambling-articles.org
Albert Jefferson is a highly experienced author conversing about green and reusing dilemas and spreading the ideal to companies to employ reusable grocery bags and other eco promotional products to promote both their trade name and recognition for our environment.
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