Dec. 18th: Day Without a (Disposable) Bag

A Los Angeles county organization called ‘Heal the Bay’, which aims to clean up the Santa Monica Bay in California, has declared tomorrow, December 18th, ‘A Day Without a Bag’. Holiday shoppers and retailers are being asked to forgo single-use, plastic shopping bags in favor of reusable bags to raise awareness about personal choices. Even if you don’t live in LA county, you can participate in ‘A Day Without a Bag’ and help keep disposables to a minimum during the busiest shopping time of the year.

From Heal the Bay, via Fake Plastic Fish:

The event’s short-term goal is to educate Southland shoppers to adopt more sustainable practices during the holidays and coming year. The event’s long-term goal is to reduce the use of single-use plastic bags throughout California by empowering shoppers, and the community at large, to take simple and direct actions to eliminate unsightly debris and save taxpayer dollars.

More than 6 billion plastic bags are used in L.A. County each year. Disposable bags cost our fiscally strained cities up to 17 cents per bag for disposal (this does not even include the environmental costs). Plastic bags are made from fossil fuels. Americans use over 380 billion bags every year, throw-ing away this precious, non-renewable resource.

Why not make this a national – or even better, international thing? Granted, we should be using reusable bags as often as we can, but this is a great opportunity to get more people involved. Buy a set of reusable bags (Delight.com, BrightandBold.com and ReusableBags.com have great selections) and give them away to your friends and family as an early holiday gift. Tell them about the goal to keep plastic bags from littering the environment and ask them to use the bag for their holiday shopping.

Link [Heal the Bay] via [Fake Plastic Fish]

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