Plastic Bags
Did you know that the average consumer uses about 500 disposable plastic bags per year? I remember not so long ago justifying taking the plastic bags from the stores because they were so useful for household garbage. Well I am not letting myself use that excuse any longer. If I am shopping and I have forgotten my cloth reusable bag, I use a cardboard box for my groceries or I carry it out by hand and akwardly throw it all into the car. I consider this as my punishment for being such a putz about not remembering my reusable bags!
Back to the number – 500 bags per year, staggering. I recently went to premier (in Vancouver) for The Clean Bin Project (cleanbinmovie.com) and met a women who made a dress out of 500 shopping bags. I can tell you it was a lot of bags and she made quite the rustle when she walked around. The visual of 500 bags is actually quite sobering and a wake up call for me.
The poll question for the month of July will be: Do you remember your reusable shopping bags?
My answer is “most of the time”.
Dress made of 500 shopping bags! Wow.
Apathy on personal waste reduction
I am feeling a little out of sorts these days. I am feeling that more people need to take a good hard look at their personal consumption habits and think hard about going on a diet. I don’t mean food, I mean the junk you buy and the junk you through way every day. We as a society in the western and industrialized world need to take a serious look at what we consume in lifetime vs others that grow up in a non industrialized setting. Actually it is staggering! Did you know that the average industrialized nation baby (is that even a phrase?) consumes more resources in the first six months of life then a child growing up in a non industrialized country. That is insanity.
It starts with the disposable coffee cup or drink container you buy. When you think about it, you are buying a product that will be used and consumed in less than 15 minutes (on average) and then thrown out. A product that has use for only 15 minutes and then done – crazy. As a consumer we need to make a serious commitment to not purchasing products that have virtually no life span. We need to purchase products that can be used and re used and reused for a lifetime. A refillable coffee container or a refillable water thermos are a great start and they need to be part of your zero waste kit or bag that you take with you everywhere you go.
Kids certainly pose a great challenge to any family wanting to get serious about their watse. My kids want to buy stuffies or plastic toys that I know will be disposed of in no time at all. It is so frustrating but no amounts of explaining have managed to make much of an impact on my 8 and 6 year old. Their vision of what is necessary and what is wasteful is not very clear yet – and unfortunately their sense of reason has not kicked in. I am look ing forward to the day, where they might see the merits of reducing their consumption and not just fulfilling their retail therapy urges!
We need to get serious about it now. Boy is it hard making some see the merits of the changes!
Green Thoughts Poll
Waste Free Lunches
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