Paper or Plastic?

I bring my own bags on shopping day but they are bags from the competing grocers. I bought one from every grocery store I frequent but never bring the right one into the right store or use 2 different store bags. After doing some research I found there are some snazzy reusable bags out there that I can bring to all the stores without feeling "not-the-right-store" guilty.

Top Facts - Consumption

• Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.
• According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)

Top Facts - Environmental Impact

• Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.
• Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade-breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.

Check out this picture -- "bag fence" at a landfill in northern New York. The fence was built around the landfill to control plastic bags from flying away from the landfill.

The 2007 People's Choice Award Co-op America for Green Business of the Year -- Reusablebags.com. Check out their website, they even have an on-going tally of plastic bag usage in real time.

You can sign up for their newsletter too! They have Ultra Compact, Heavy-Duty, Large, String Bags & Modern Totes. Kid's have a choice on this website too.

Look at some of their different styles:

How can you make a diffference? You need to educate your friends, family & co-workers showing them how things have gotten out of control. We need to enable people to consume less by providing well designed, high quality, practical products made from truly sustainable materials and supporting fair labor/fair trade practice.

We need to move away from our bad habits and make a choice now!

Paper or Plastic? Sorry, I have my own bag!