Anne, a friend of mine here in town, is really taking the lead on banishing plastic bags through her program "Pollution Solutions", which has just received an Environmental Excellence Award. (www.resourcesforhealth.org)
Anne's motto is "Families taking action to care for their communities, the environment, and animals through service-learning projects." In a recent post regarding the use of plastic bags - reusable and otherwise - Anne writes:
"The education component that we and other nonprofits do is absolutely essential. When a store like Whole Foods hands out a reusable PPL bag, customers may use it, but do they still take a bunch of plastic bags for their produce? What I hear when we do our presentations is that people - kids and adults - are thinking about the other implications, such as what should I use to bag my garbage, pick up my pet's poop, isn't almost every product in the grocery store packaged in plastic, etc. Buying local (less packaging), gardening, and composting are the topics of conversation that almost automatically follow!"
Kudos to Anne for taking “the plastic discussion” to the next level. We all need to learn to live a smaller-carbon-footprint life. Buying local products from places like farmer’s markets and growing your own fruits and veggies cuts out a LOT of packaging. I even use reusable cotton bags for my produce and bulk item purchases. Encouraging folks to compost their food scraps and other waste materials (yes, if your compost is consistently hot enough, you can compost pet poop, etc) keeps untold tons of highly useful materials out of landfills. You may not get rid of plastic garbage bags quite yet but you'll certainly cut down on the number you use!
Jennifer – Your Guide to Green Blogger
