Plastic Grocery Bags
Does your local grocery story provide plastic bag recycling bins? If not, please send an e-mail to local management about it. If you do write them and receive a response please forward it to me so I can post it. The City of San Antonio was considering banning plastic shopping bags. I haven't decided what I think about this. When I go grocery shopping I use the reusable bags that many stores now offer for $.99 about 95% of the time, but sometimes I do use the plastic bags. I know many people use the bags to line trash containers in their homes or find other uses for them. If we are recycling the grocery bags or reusing them in our homes are we not then following the recycler's mantra: reduce, reuse, and recycle? If the city bans them some will have to buy plastic bags instead of getting them for free. Is banning plastic grocery bags good for city dwellers as a whole? Should we work to educate the public about reusable bags instead so they will voluntarily opt out of using plastic bags? What do you think? I do want to reming you that plastic grocery bags stay in landfills for 1,000 years. That means that it takes that long for them to decompose; that's why environmentalists have targeted them.
You may want to start by visiting www.earth911.org to find out where to recycle your items or listen to Sierra Club radio's "Ask Mr.Green" segments (you will find these links on the right of this screen under "Links to Favorite Environmental Sites"). These are great places to find out more about recycling issues.
