it's time to be green!

Let's talk about plastic bags!

according to an article i found on National Geograhic, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0902_030902_plasticbags.html.

The "paper or plastic" conundrum that vexed earnest shoppers throughout the 1980s and 90s is largely moot today. Most grocery store baggers don't bother to ask anymore. They drop the bananas in one plastic bag as they reach for another to hold the six-pack of soda. The pasta sauce and noodles will get one too, as will the dish soap. Plastic bags are so cheap to produce, sturdy, plentiful, easy to carry and store that they have captured at least 80 percent of the grocery and convenience store market since they were introduced a quarter century ago. As a result, the totes are everywhere. They sit balled up and stuffed into the one that hangs from the pantry door. They line bathroom trash bins. They clutter landfills. They flap from trees. They float in the breeze. They clog roadside drains. They drift on the high seas. They fill sea turtle bellies.

So are you still using plastic bags or have you moved onto reusable totes?

I keep a bunch of those reusable bags in the back of my car. I have a bunch and they all fit in a bigger bag that i use to hold them. So when i go grocery shopping, i just grab them and in i go. I do my own bagging since the clerks really annoy me with the 2 items per plastic bag they use. If i am just running into a store for one for two ideas, i just refuse a bag and throw them into my purse. it is wastesful. i don't need another bag - nobody does! if i find myself in a situation where i've forgotten my resuable bags (my husbands likes to take them out of the car and then i don't know they are gone.....) i will then take those plastic bags back to the grocery store and put them in the special bin they have set up for recycling plastic bags. i'm always amazed at how concerned people are when i say i don't want a bag. Big retailers, like JCPenney, told me that they HAD to give me a bag. i was not allowed to put their item with receipt in the bag i already had. next time that happens, i will ask for the manager to complain. other times, a clerk will bag my item anyway and then when i say i don't want the bag, they crumple it up and throw it away! Oh, and my favorite, if i am using a plastic bag, i ask them to fill it up as much as possible and then they double bag it! arrrrrggggg! alot of these clerks tend to be younger, so i think it's a bit of ignorance on their part of what impact these bags have on the enviroment.

I'd like bloggers, etsy artists and shoppers to start uniting in a committment to stop using plastic bags! You've seen the "buy handmade" logo for etsy, i'm going to be making a button about plastic bags that we can put on our blogs. This is something i've been big on for awhile, but then really started thinking about it a few days ago when i ran into this blog where the owner is making darling little resuable bags. (see her post here: http://rachaelrabbit.blogspot.com/2008/01/are-you-green-bunny.html) so i contacted her and asked if i could post about her bag and encourage you to purchase one and become a green bunny. stick it in your purse and start using it!(they can be found here on her etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=8823242.

keep an eye out for my "SAY NO TO PLASTIC BAGS" button for you to put on your blog and

pass around.

kEcIa