Paper or Plastic?

"Paper or plastic?" It's the question that's asked at every grocery store today. But is it the right question? How would things change if the cashier asked, "Did you bring your bags today?" Here are some statistics taken from an article in Delicious Living in the November 07 issue. There are more than 88 billion plastic bags used each year in the United States. It takes 12 million barrels of oil to produce the bags that the U.S. uses annually. Less than 1% of the plastic bags get recycled in the U.S. It takes an estimated 1,000 years for a plastic bag to decompose. Paper bags aren't necessarily better. They take more energy to produce and to transport because they're bulkier.

Here are more sad facts from http://www.chicobag.com/ The average American uses between 300 and 700 plastic bags per year. If everyone in the United States tied their annual consumption of plastic bags together in a giant chain, the chain would reach around the Earth not once, but 760 times! According to the American Forest and Paper Association, in 1999 the U.S. alone used 10 billion paper grocery bags, requiring 14 million trees to be cut down. Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photo-degrade—breaking down into small toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food-chain when mistaken for zooplankton or jellyfish.

The good news is that some grocery stores are selling their own version of reusable shopping bags for an average cost of .99 cents. One of the grocery stores in our area offers a 3 cent refund when you bring your own bag. We were lucky, we received our reusable Chicobags as birthday gifts from our daughter, Kristen http://vandervortacademy.blogspot.com/. They fold up into a little pouch and fit nicely in my purse so they're easy to carry around. They come in a variety of colors, are machine washable, and are very reasonably priced. Check out the websites below and go GREEN!

http://www.chicobag.com/

http://www.reusablebags.com/