than the one use plastic shopping bag?
Millions of barrels of oil are shipped from the oilfields to make these wretched items and transported to the factory that produce them, many being produced in Asian factories. The bags are then shipped to the country and the company they have been ordered from and then distributed around the companies stores.
Once there they are handed out to the customer who (indirectly) pays for them, uses them once and then throws them out, usually paying for them to be put into landfill, but still millions pollute our towns, villages and countryside, rivers, streams, oceans and seas, killing and maiming land and sea creatures.
Is there any greater example of societies disregard for the Earth's resources than this? Please refuse them and take, if at all possible, cloth bags with you when you shop.
If you would like details of what is happening in the UK and further afield then please left-click here. It is the Plastic Bag Watch site and well worth a visit.
There is an answer to these things, please play the video.
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3 comments:
I stopped by to thank you for your visit to Becoming Me, but found myself spending quite some time reading your sound and thoughtful posts. My husband just wrote a piece he titled Faux Environmentalism on his blog, Learning About Politics (also on blogger).
I stopped using plastic bags 98% of the time about a year ago. Before that, for a couple of years, I'd try to take my 1 or two bags with me, but never remembered. And, just one or two bags.... Never seemed to make that much of a difference. Finally, I wound up making myself several more, first 4 bags, then 5, 6, finally 7 bags and I was feeling like I was actually making a difference at the grocery store. But I still couldn't remember to take them. Then I realized that we had 2 or 3 large garbage sacks FULL of plastic grocery sacks in the laundry room, AND the door-mounted container under the kitchen sink that holds the bags my hubby uses for taking his lunches to work. That was it. I just started forcing myself to take the bags with me for all my planned grocery shopping trips. I still don't always have them with me for the impromptu trips (where that other 2% comes in), but it saves roughly 5 bags a week. More than that, actually. My 5 or 6 crocheted cotton bags will hold as much as 10 or 12 plastic sacks.
I've crocheted a bunch of extra bags and have sold a couple. But I've also given them away as gifts to friends and family. And I always remind them that though it's "just one bag", this "one bag" will hold up to 25 pounds worth of groceries. My "one bag" will hold more than most of us can easily lift.
With the plastic bags, though.... I've got a coworker who collects the uniquely colored bags that she can find (few & far between in the fairbanks area where MOST of the bags are either plain white, or an ugly tan) andshe cuts them into strips then crochets those strips into stronger, sturdier tote-style bags that will last years. There are ways to reuse the plastic bags, when one must co-exist with them at all.
Thank you for your kind Comments Angela, I look forward to reading your husbands Blog.
Crocheting your own bags and selling them or giving them as gifts sounds fantastic Kati. A nearby town that has gone plastic bag free has found that the crochet cotton bags their group made at the start are now collectors items!
I like the idea of your co-worker in making bags out of strips of plastic bags... I must learn how to crochet *wry smile*.
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