JUST SAY NO.... TO PLASTIC BAGS!

Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot of news about how certain cities and corporations are making strides towards the reduction and even banning of plastic bags. Just last month, Santa Monica, CA’s City Council voted in favor of a ban on plastic grocery bags and instructed the City Attorney to look into the drafting of an ordinance enforcing the ban. The proposed ordinance would ban some bags and charge for the use of others.  The Council is targeting the free distribution of single-use plastic shopping bags, in particular. The ban would apply to all retail stores in Santa Monica. It could also require retailers to charge customers who request paper bags. The environmental group, Heal the Bay, said Los Angeles County circulates 6 billion plastic bags a year.

On a similar note, Whole Foods Market, the world's leading natural and organic foods supermarket, announced on January 22, 2008  it will end the use of disposable plastic grocery bags at the checkouts in all of its 270 stores in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. with the goal to be plastic bag-free by next Earth Day -- April 22, 2008.   Because at Tastybaby we love to hate plastic bags so much, we think this is pretty fantastic, and we hope all grocery stores and other businesses that use plastic bags will soon follow suit.

If you’re still not convinced about the detriment that can be caused by plastic bags, read the summary of information below on why plastic bags are so harmful to life on our planet.

 Why are plastic bags a problem?
 Because they are:
• needless waste: It's estimated that Americans use 84 billion bags annually
• non-biodegradable (even if they are ‘biodegradable’ bags they are still buried in landfills and thus not exposed to conditions in which they can biodegrade)
• a serious threat to wildlife, particularly birds and marine life (especially sea turtles, whales and dolphins) who ingest them and get caught in them
• litter – aesthetically unpleasing, as well as harmful to the environment and animals, and detrimental to our enjoyment of nature
• an ‘invisible’ needless expense factored into the cost of our food and goods
• made of petroleum, an unsustainable resource that we need to be phasing out, especially where there are viable options to its use. In the USA alone, an estimated 12 million barrels of oil are required to produce the 100 million bags used yearly.
• sources of pooled water that can breed disease
• they have become a convenience good that we no longer think of the consequences of
• Plastic never fully decomposes. Over time it goes through a process of photo degradation and breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. These substances cannot be converted by any known organisms and thus remain as plastic in landfills, rivers and oceans. In a 1998 survey of the North Pacific Ocean, 89% of waste observed was plastic products.

Why not just recycle them?
It’s definitely a great step, but it doesn’t solve everything. Remember that Reduce and Reuse come before Recycle in the three R’s! Plus, a negligible percentage of plastic bags are recycled, with that number further being reduced by bags contaminated by food and paper and by bags that are manufactured with different chemical compositions.

Why not paper?
Unfortunately, paper bags are not the solution. They consume many times more energy to create and transport (because they are heavier) than plastic. Making paper creates pollution and uses vast amounts of water.

Easy things you can do now!
• Think twice about taking a plastic bag if your purchase is small and easy to carry.
• Keep canvas bags in your home, office, bike bag and car so you always have them available when you go to the supermarket or other stores.
• Ask your favorite stores to stop providing bags for free, or to offer a discount for not using the bags.
• Don’t double-bag and don’t get toiletries or non-leaky meat products double bagged – when was the last time your shampoo actually exploded onto your broccoli???
• Encourage your local politicians to introduce legislation taxing or banning plastic bags.
• Help spread the word – talk to your friends about it, help us out – the more aware everyone is, the easier it will be to affect change!