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Reusable Shopping Bags Facts

 

  •  Disposable plastic bags made of polyethylene can accumulate in our environment and take up to 1000 years to decompose.
  • Consumption of plastic bags exceed 500 billion bags each year; that is almost 1 million each minute
  • Nearly 7 billion plastic bags are consumed annually in Australia alone, that's over 300 bags per person. According to Australia's Department of Environment, an estimated 50,000,000 end up as liter each year.
  •  1.2 billion disposable plastic bags, were used annualy in Ireleand, prior to the plastic bag tax of 2002. The PlasTax was very successful decreasing plastic bag use by 90%.
  • 100 billion plastic shopping bags are consumed in the United States annually, according to The Wall Street Journal.
  • Over 100,000 marine animals die each year due to plastic bags. They confuse them as food and die sufficated. 
  • Taiwan Banned plastic bags and platic utensils last year.
  •  1 in 200 plastic bags are recycled in the UK, according to the BBC.
  • Target, Inc. alone purchases over 1.8 billion bags a year.
  • Each family accumulates, in average, over 60 plastic bags in about 4 trips to the supermarket.
  • A good quality reusable shopping bag used can possibly eliminate over 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime.
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    Top Facts/ Environmental Impact
    • Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.

    • Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade - breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits, contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest them.

    • During Clean Up Australia Day, nearly 500,000 plastic bags were collected.

    • Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up to harvest them to weave hats and even bags. According to the BBC, one group harvests 30,000 per month.

    • According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78 degrees north (latitude) to Falklands 51 degrees south (latitude)."

    • Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit center for Marine Conservation.
     

    Live Green And Save Money Go Green

    We all want to live green and save money at the same time, and we can too. Kermit the Frog was wrong when he said, “It ain’t easy being green.” It’s really easy, and highly effective too, if you know how. This article will provide you with 5 essential steps you can start taking today to live green and save money.

    1. Turn your heater thermostats down one or two degrees in winter, and turn your air conditioning thermostats up one or two degrees in summer. If we all did this, the combined difference would be phenomenal. We’d still feel warm in winter and cool in summer, so learn how to live green and save money with your heating and cooling appliances.

    2. The other appliance that needs your attention is your washing machine. Start washing your clothes in cold water. Modern powders work just as efficiently in cold water as hot. Most of the energy that goes into a clothes wash is in heating up the water, so you will save on electricity, live green and save money too.

    3. When your clothes are nice and clean, don’t throw them into the dryer. Unless it’s pouring rain, hang them out to air dry. It’s what your grandmother did, and she managed just fine. She may have liked having a dryer, but they weren’t around back then, so she just had to live green and save money. You can too!

    4. Compact fluorescent light bulbs are a dream come true for anyone who wants to live green and save money. They burn just 25% of the electricity that a standard light bulb burns, and they can last up to 10 times longer. Change your old bulbs today!

    5. Try to consume a little less of everything, from electricity, to gas in the car, to the food you eat. Take time to write out a shopping list, and stick to it. If you feel the impulse to buy something you don’t really need, get into the habit of waiting 24 hours, then review it. The chances are you either won’t want it any more, or you will have forgotten about it.

    It’s easy to live green and save money. You just have to give it some thought. Get into a routine that works and before you know it, you will find yourself in the situation where you live green and save money every day.

     
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