April 7, 2014 – 15 Days until Earth Day…
It takes a single 15-year-old tree to produce 700 grocery bags
Facts
- The American shopper uses an average of 500 plastic grocery bags per year
- Approximately 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide every year
- Every minute over 1 million plastic bags are used and discarded
- A single bag takes anywhere from 400 to 1,000 years to decompose
- Hundreds of thousands of whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and other marine mammals die every year after eating discarded plastic bags they mistake for food
- The petroleum used to make only 14 plastic bags could drive a care 1 mile
Legal Action
However the effects go beyond just environmental; $4 billion per year is spent on the production and distribution of disposable bags by U.S. retailers. The cost of which is passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. To help combat these issues, governments both local and nationwide are imposing bans on the usage of plastic bags, or charging a fee per bag used. As of 2011 25 percent of the world’s population lives in areas with bans or fees on plastic bags. Among these areas are Italy, China, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Ireland.
Reusable Bags
To help reduce your family’s environmental impact and to help save a whole lot of trees, consider purchasing reusable shopping bags. Companies such as ChicoBag, Bags and Bows and Eco-Bags operate websites where you can purchase fashionable reusable bags, and retailers such as Target and Whole Foods sell their own bags directly at the checkout counter.
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