Dear Target. Please ban plastic bags, or charge 25 cents per bag. Putting a cost on bags would make individuals value them, and hopefully reuse them, not just let them fly onto the streets and landscapes.
I get so tired of seeing plastic bags blowing on the street and fields, hanging from trees, left in bus shelters, and stuck in street gutters. These bags can last for hundreds of years, and then might only break into tiny pieces of plastic. They are made to last! It is time corporate America, Target and others, to step up and take leadership on our plastic problem. Also, each of us needs to take responsibility and always bring reusable bags shopping.
Retailers think they are doing enough by offering recycling of plastic bags. In fact only 5% of plastic bags are recycled, but according to my local recycler there isn’t much of a market for the recycling of plastic bags.
The best thing you can do is bring your own reusable bags!
Bring your own reusable bags.
Some states and cities have banned single-use plastic. Read more here
On America Recycles Day, what commitment can you make to recycle more? I live in a community where my one-sort recycle bin is picked up bi-weekly and compost every week. It is easy!! However, every community has their own rules on recycling and composting. Find recycling information for your community http://earth911.com/
It is a horrible to waste valuable resources by putting recyclables in the landfill where they might sit for hundreds of years(We don’t know how long plastic will last, maybe forever in tiny pieces!)
Shredded paper is hard to recycle, it flies around. Compost shredded paper.
Food stained cardboard(pizza boxes) should not be recycled. Again, they can be composted along with paper egg cartons.
Do not put plastic bags in your compost bin. They jam the machines! Bring all plastic bags back to the grocery store for recycling, and reuse them over and over before you recycle them.
Choose glass or aluminum over plastic. Glass and aluminum are easier to recycle.
“If everyone does a little bit, it adds up to a whole lot!” health4earth
What can you do?
We all need to take some personal responsibility to make ourselves and our planet healthier. Below are some of the things I work for everyday, and I hope you will add a few of them to your 2016 agenda. Please respond with your clean climate ideas.
My series #31daysoflesswaste continues:
1. Buy less stuff, reuse, reuse and reuse the things you have.
2. Stop idling your car, bundle your car trips together to drive less, and carpool more! Or take the bus!
3. How can Iuse less electricity?
4. How can I prepare for drought and inundation? Save water run-off by planning and building a rain garden with native plants. http://bluethumb.org/raingardens/
6. Recycle and donate your unwanted stuff “More and more people understand that there is no “away” in the finite system that is planet Earth and that we can’t keep using our precious air, water and land to dump the stuff we no longer want. If something can’t be reused, repaired, refurbished or otherwise repurposed, the next best thing is to recycle it.” David Suzuki www.earth911.com or donate to your local donation non-profit
7. How can I reduce single-use consumption of plastic bottles/containers, and reduce my consumption of plastic bags?
What do you do for our planet and yourself to be healthier?
We can all do something about this tremendous influx of trash and I will be posting ideas for 31 days on how to reduce trash and waste:
Plastic, what an amazing and awful product at the same time.! It is cheap and it is light. Unfortunately, it has become an enormous environmental problem. Many lack the personal responsibility to get single-use plastic bottles and bags to the recycle bin. Many developing nations I visit seem oblivious to it, except in tourist areas! Days 6 through 11 of #31daysofreducingwaste are going to focus on how we can have less plastic pollution.
So what is the problem with plastic? Many say the materials in plastic cause cancer. Plastic will never dissolve, but will break into thousands of pieces of litter. The plastic in the oceans will be here on earth for hundreds of years and it will be found in the intestines of many fish, turtles and birds. Plastic creates a terrible waste and litter problem. According to the http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/tag/plastic/ If left unchecked, there could be 250 million tons of plastic in the ocean by 2025 — about one pound of plastic for every three pounds of fish. We can’t let this happen.
Avoid plastic, fill your glass or metal bottles with liquid
** The best way to reduce plastic trash is NOT to drink bottled water. Bring a reusable water bottle to work, school, and for all your adventures.
**Avoid plastic bags. Always bring your reusable shopping bags.
Shop with reusable bags
** How can you avoid baggies? I love these compostable wax paper bags
** Reuse and recycle all plastic bags.
Please recycle plastic bags at grocery stores!
* Reduce packaging: Try to purchase items with no packaging or packaging that can be recycled.
From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, household waste increases by more than 25%. Added food waste, shopping bags, packaging, wrapping paper, bows and ribbons all adds up to an additional 1 million tons a week to our landfills. (Source: EPA)
This letter to the editor was printed in the Star Tribune on October 24, 2014
Are PLASTIC BAGS NEEDED?
Shop with your reusable bags
Companies like Target ought to at least ask
After a full day on the University of Minnesota campus, I stopped by the new Target Express in Dinkytown. I bought four small items — and acquired two disposable plastic bags before I could even ask for none. This avoidable pollution and waste of resources has proved to be Target Corp.’s standard operating procedure and needs to change to match the company’s sustainable practices.
Several towns across the country have adopted legislation requiring customers to purchase a plastic bag for a nominal fee if they did not bring reusable bags. Locally, students are not likely to carry around a reusable shopping bag — unless, of course, you count the backpacks they carry everyday. A majority of the Dinkytown store’s customers are students looking for minimal items that could easily fit in a backpack.
I recommend you search the Internet for “plastic bag statistics.” You will be appalled.
If Target simply asks customers if they would like a bag, people will say no. Whether it is from conscience or simple logic, it is dollars and sense. Target could reduce its pollution and costs while appealing to anyone who advocates sustainability.
This is FABULOUS news:
Today as I shopped at a Jewel Osco grocery store in Chicago, I was sick to see every item loaded into a plastic bag. I found the same situation as I traveled through New York and Michigan last week. In Minnesota I see more reusable bags and brown paper bags. This was not the case in either the state of New York or City of Chicago, plastic bags dominate!
The chemicals from these bags leach out into our waterways from the land fills where they will sit for hundreds of years. Also they litter our landscape and are harmful to wildlife. What can you do?
1. Bring reusable bags shopping. I would use washable bags that will last. Contact me and I can tell you where to purchase them. I can sell you my health4earth bags, but they are expensive
2. Wash, dry and recycle any plastic bags at most grocery stores.
3. Refuse, refuse, refuse plastic!
4. Never litter!
The following letter was printed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on April 3,
Our planet, Literally Trashed
One of the revelations to come out of the Flight 370 tragedy is the sorry condition of our oceans. One headline noted that the search for the plane was hindered by a “sea of garbage.” On a recent trip to Ohio from our Burnsville home, I was shocked to see the garbage littering the highways after the winter thaw. I saw a car bumper, a vacuum cleaner, tires, mattresses and thousands of plastic bags. Yes, global warming is a threat to this planet and the solutions are complex, but the solution to the trashing of our planet is relatively simple. We need to take responsibility for the waste that we generate. A good start would be the end of plastic-bag use on the part of our retailers. Target, Wal-Mart and others: Spend the extra 3 cents a bag and help in the cleaning up of our planet.
Don Lohrey, Burnsville
My letter in response: Printed on April 4,
To the editor:
I too have been on a road trip through the middle of our country and the plastic bags littering the landscape is disheartening(In response to Our planet, literally trashed 4/2) Personal responsibility is needed to get those plastic bags and all trash recycled. Also, businesses need offer recycling opportunities for individuals away from home. Hennepin County offers grants to businesses to improve their recycling. Look on their website.
For the next 30 days I challenge each of you to “Thirty Days of Earth Day.” Please pick up one piece of trash or more for the next 30 days. Yes, each one of us can make a difference.
Health4earth.com
For 30 Days of Earth Day, pick up one piece of trash or more everyday for 30 days https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pick-up-One-Piece-of-Trash-a-Day/267910856667805
Health4earth 