Eco-Effective Choices: Paper, Plastic, or Neither?
turtle, NO!: Image courtesy of The AgeWhat would it take for you to revolt against every accepting a plastic bag from a store again? A sea animal choking on one? A landfill in 2500 filled with decomposed matter, and plastic? A a shortage of oil? Having to choose between the deodorant container or the bag to take it home in…? Well, two women in Colorado desire to make this choice obvious and easy for you.
Green Endeavors is a Boulder, Colorado-based non-profit run by two women, Doreen Molk and Carly Gralak, who hope to make an impact on environmental awareness. The co-founders are working free of commission to provide a reusable bag to as many shoppers as possible. Their goal is to remove the requirement of making the choice between paper or plastic. To them the third option, neither, needs to be an obvious and widespread option. Doreen explains, “Every time a shopper chooses paper or plastic they have to make the wrong choice, but are not even offered the right one. We just want so make sure that people know of the third option!"
If we all changed the habitual declaration of our paper or plastic preference to cloth or “I brought my own," we would collectively save 4 billion dollars and 14 million trees from the industry of shopping bag production. The cofounders of Green Endeavors are not out to make a profit from this practice; they simply want to give every household the opportunity to make responsible choices. The way their organization works at the present: send an email with your order for cloth bags to greenendeavors@gmail.com. Each bag costs a wee $2.50. (That is a pretty darn good deal compared to the $800 fashion shopping bag.) You can also check out their site for upcoming events where the two of them will personally (and happily) sell you a bag.
Scientists debate over how long a single plastic bag will take to decompose but let's just put it this way- if you swallowed a supermarket plastic bag at birth, it would still be the most solid material remaining in your coffin after your body breaks down. That doesn’t seem right…or fair. Polyethylene, the most common shopping bag material, is a man-made polymer that microorganisms simply don’t recognize as food; therefore, nothing wants to break it down, so it sits in our landfill (or body) indefinitely. Paper bags will break down, but they are still disposable. The responsible option is to opt for the cloth bag that can be used over and over and over and over…
So on this date of 7 ELEVEN, when you go into that convenience store, don’t let your soda get packaged in a small polyethylene bag that will outlive the complex composition known as your body. Stuff it in your purse, in your pocket, or your Green Endeavors shopping tote (and recycle the bottle, too!).
Green Endeavors
Slate: Will My Plastic Bag Still Be Here in 2057?
Kicking the Habit: Plastic Bags
Tip o' the Day: Paper or Plastic? Bring Your Own!
July 11th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
It’s important to note that plastic bags are 100 percent recyclable. The trick is to make it easy and convenient for people to take advantage of this fact rather than throwing their bags in the garbage or much worse, littering them.
Insuring that everyone has access to at-store recycling is key. The Progressive Bag Alliance is working to make this a reality. We are currently helping retailers in California comply with that state’s new law requiring at-store recycling. We support this measure and believe it is a model for the nation and look forward to promoting it throughout the country.
http://www.progressivebagalliance.com/
July 19th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Unfortunately, we need paper bags to dispose of our kitty litter. Flushing it down the toilet is no better, in our view, than sending it to a landfill in a paper bag - at least it will all (eventually) decompose.
July 23rd, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Just for a systems analysis consideration, i encourage you to take one step back and think about whether or not you need kitty litter in the first place, what about the feline fecal matter makes it harmful enough that you have to dispose of it- why not let him/her poo in a tray and put it in the bushes…why don’t we use a natural material like dirt that we can return back to earth.
These are suggestions merely for thought just to consider who made us think we have to use litter in the first place. I just had a silly image of one dangling their kitty over the 23rd floor apartment balcony while it is ridding itself of excess roughage- this isn’t necessary. I’m just hoping to open your mind. Start with the fundamentals, creatively define your own solution that might be a more sustainable and still practical option.
Elizabeth Redmond l Sustainable Design
March 29th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
elizabeth –
cats won’t use a box that doesn’t have some sort of filler in it. their instinct is to scratch — in the wild, they hide traces of their passage this way, burying scent-traces of their droppings, to help ward off larger predators that may be scent-hunting for an easy meal. you can train them to flush a toilet, true, but most people don’t have the leisure, patience, or experience for this. would you rather see households wasting gallons of water every time a cat has to go — and they go several times a day, if they’re healthy — or using one biodegradable paper bag twice a week?
since cats are compulsory carnivores, cat poo is mostly protein — which is why dogs frequently think it’s a snack. i’m not sure how well it composts: but if you’ve ever lived with two cats or more you know that attempting to make a non-litterbox household work is not a realistic option for the vast majority of people.
i make my own grocery bags, by the way. so do most of the younger DIY- and green living-inclined folks i know: they’re too easy to make not to want to have one’s own. ^_^ i applaud your effort to increase awareness on these issues. i ride a fourstroke scooter when i don’t walk, recycle everything, et c., et c.; but i doubt i’ll stop using the occasional paperbag for kitty cleanup. there’s just no practical way to be an absolute purist about it in modern society.
great site.