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How many plastic shopping bags did you use last year? If you're like most of us, you don't have any idea. Although it's a bit difficult to estimate, the Wall Street Journal took a crack at it and came up with a total U.S. consumption of plastic shopping bags of some 100 billion each year. That's almost one bag per day for every person living in this country...even our cute little baby niece.
As our bag obsession grows, so do the impacts on the world around us. A rarity in the world's oceans only fifteen years ago, plastic bags are now found at almost every latitude around the globe. Each year, hundreds of thousands of marine mammals like sea turtles and whales mistake these bags for food and die as a result. On land, billions of bags end up blowing around as litter.
Plastic bags don't biodegrade. They photodegrade. Light helps break them down into ever-smaller toxic bits that make their way into the soil, the water, and animals' bodies.
What can we do?
In cities and countries around the world, the plastic bag problem is starting to be taken seriously. San Francisco is instituting a ban on disposable plastic shopping bags in large retail stores, and other cities such as Boston are considering following suit. This is great, but even replacing the usual checkout fare with biodegradable plastic or recyclable paper bags leaves a lot to be desired.
In 2002, Ireland instituted its "PlasTax," a consumption tax on many types of plastic shopping bags. Consumption has dropped dramatically, if 90% qualifies as dramatic in your book. It does in ours! Other benefits? A lot less litter. A savings of some 18 million barrels of oil. And a new culture of using reuseable shopping bags.
At World Totes, we believe in being out ahead of the curve. We don't need government incentives or bans to tell us that using plastic shopping bags is a huge, and hugely unnecessary, waste. We're not waiting around—we're taking our gorgeous, limited-edition, reusable and incredibly durable tote bags to the grocery store today. Tomorrow, we'll use them to carry home our library books. And then, the day after that, we'll throw a good book, a big towel, and some sunscreen in one and head off for a well-deserved day at the beach.
Care to join us?
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