Think Outside The Bag!
January 17, 2006
- Reusing bags saves trees and lessens the damage caused by plastic bag litter.
- Each MOMs reusable bag you use has the potential to eliminate an average of 1000 plastic bags over its lifetime.
- Worldwide, consumers use 1 million plastic bags per minute or 525,600,000,000 bags a year, that’s alot!
- Is paper better? It depends. While they decompose faster, much more energy is used producing the bags. Think of forests being mown down to give you a fresh bag every time you shop.
- Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade: the bags break down into small toxic fragments contaminating soil, waterways and ultimately the food chain
- Paper bags are made by cutting down trees that take more than 20 years to grow.
- Sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.
- Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris found most often in coastal cleanups, according to the Center for Marine Conservation.
So would you like paper or plastic?
NEITHER! because….
- Both use up valuable natural resources for a single-use, disposable product.
- Both have negative impacts on wildlife and pollute our environment.
- Both create significant toxic by-products during their lifecycles.
- Neither is effectively recycled.
The Daily Compost has a new look!
