You may have noticed that beginning around April 2007 there was a wave of activity with reusable shopping bags. Mostly this was directed towards encouraging people to start using reusable grocery bags. That is where the average person consumes the most paper or plastic shopping bags. Why all of the sudden media buzz? Is it marketing hype, reactionary environmentalism or a meaningful campaign? And, assuming you find the premise for using them to be sound, we will provide a brief reusable bags shopping guide to help you make a wise purchase.

Is It All Just Hype?

The statistics related to the consumption of plastic and paper shopping bags are nothing short of terribly alarming. Here are just a few: Americans consume 100 billion plastic shopping bags every year. Over 500 billion are consumed worldwide and about 4 billion become general litter. It’s imperitive that we make a move to reusable shopping bags. Each ton of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4,000 kilowatts of energy and 7,000 gallons of water.

Based upon our own calculations (all types of shopping without using reusable bags) it is likely that you use more than 2,000 paper and plastic shopping bags a year for each member of your family. Consider the volume of space that this might require if you had to put all of the disposable shopping bags you acquired into a closet. For a family of four, it wouldn’t take long to need a bigger storage room. The fact is that none of this material is required to make life better or more enjoyable. Quite the opposite, it all goes to a recycling station or simply to a landfill where ultimately someone, our children or theirs at the latest, will find the consequences very disturbing.

It has become a common misconception that simply “recycling” our garbage is a sufficient response to the negative environmental impact we are having on our planet. It is much more important to eliminate things that we don’t need first! Avoiding needless waste is far better than recycling though recycling is obviously much better than indiscriminate dumping. The buzz about reusable shopping bags is definitely a worthwhile campaign to reduce needless waste. It is a simple change of habit where everyone can have a meaningful impact … one small needless shopping bag at a time.  The reusable shopping bags buzz is definitely a significant and reasonable undertaking. The production and disposal of plastic and paper bags touches upon all facets of what we are doing wrong. The raw materials, be they pulpwood or petroleum, are better reserved for other uses. The production of disposable bags creates unnecessary pollution and wastes additional energy resources. And what we have at the end of these short life cycle commodities is a great big pile of waste that needs to be dealt with.

Reusable shopping bags cannot eliminate all of the waste and energy consumption but they are vastly more efficient.

The sudden flurry of promotion for reusable bags is very simple. On one hand, there are realities being dealt with as land fills are simply filling up too fast. Many municipalities in the USA and abroad are grappling with possible legislation to ban plastic shopping bags. On the other hand, corporate public relations and marketing folks have obviously decided to get on the “right” side of this issue before being compelled or penalized.

Reusable bags are saving the world and making sure the earth is a clean and safe place for generations to c0me. It’s essential to make sure that we make these products a part of our everyday lives. They have so many benefits that there is no argument against using them. They have an important role in the personal lives of people when they go shopping. Aside from people using them at home, companies across the globe are using them to advertise. All of their uses are endless so let’s make sure we are using green bags in order to save the planet.

The next time you go shopping at either your nearest grocery store or shopping mall, there are things you need to remember to do. The first is to bring along all of your reusable grocery bags or your reusable shopping bags. This is very important and it will make a big difference in your life and the lives of others. Second, you have to remember to actually use the reusable bags that you bring along. By using these products, you will immediately be reducing the waste that the environment has to deal with on a daily basis. This waste is increasing litter, causing pollution. All of this leads to global warming as well as the contamination of the oceans and lakes around us. Lastly, it’s important you remember the benefits that you are getting from using your eco friendly bags. You will be doing something great for the environment, great for your family, and possibly saving money because many stores now offer discounts when you use your green bags.  Now that we all understand the benefits of these outstanding products and how important using them really is, the world will hopefully be a cleaner and a safer place to live.

By McClatchy-Tribune News Service

October 22, 2009, 9:37PM

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it will not be removing free plastic bags from two of its locations in California until at least January.

Signs in their stores in the California cities of Folsom and Citrus Heights had announced that shoppers would soon have to either bring their own reusable bags or buy reusable grocery bags — for 15 cents.

The two stores, along with a third in Ukiah, Calif., make up a small test program. Going plastic-bag-free is one of a variety of strategies being tried at stores around the world as Wal-Mart evaluates ways to meet its goal of cutting plastic bag waste 33 percent by 2013.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amelia Neufeld said the company decided that launching the reusable bags -only program just before the holiday shopping season would skew the test results.

“The goal of this test is to gauge customer reaction. We think we’ll get a more accurate reaction by offering these reusable grocery bags after the holidays,” she said.

Neufeld would not comment on whether recent customer reactions had driven the decision to postpone the test.

At the Folsom store earlier this week, customers interviewed by McClatchy Newspapers were roughly split on the plan.

Matthew Oliver, a Folsom resident who complained in writing at his local store after learning of the plan, said a Wal-Mart representative called him Wednesday to say the Sunday launch of the test program had been called off.

Oliver said he resented the reusable bags program because he felt it was a cost-cutting measure with a green veneer that deprived him of the right to choose how he’d like to carry his purchases.

“I just want to buy my milk from you,” he said. “I don’t want you to tell me what my political views ought to be.”

Wal-Mart is also evaluating other strategies for reducing plastic waste that don’t involve removing free plastic bags from stores altogether. It is retraining some checkers to put more items in each sack, for instance, and is considering switching to thinner bags that contain less plastic.

The company’s 15-cent reusable bags will continue to be offered at the checkout counters, Neufeld said. They are royal blue and made of a lightweight, recyclable polypropylene fabric

It’s easy to see why eco friendly bags are becoming so increasingly popular with companies as well as at home. Companies want them for tradeshows and giveaways. Families want them to bring along to the market to take their groceries home. Their uses are plentiful, their affordability is great, and their look is stylish. Reusable bags are the new “it” item in terms of promotions for companies and convenience for families. They are great at marketing a company’s brand and logo which is why they are so great for any marketing campaign. Their high quality and convenience to use is why moms and families are taking them with them to the market, the library, and just about anywhere else their day takes them. Reusable grocery bags just have a habit of finding their way into homes everywhere. Another great thing about them is the fact that they can be used over and over again making them great for the environment. Don’t wait a second longer. It’s time to go purchase your very own reusable shopping bags. It’s as easy as 1-2-3. Give Custom Green Promos a call today and your company will be going in the right direction with your logo on the side of our great and affordable green bags.

 Green bags can have such a positive effect on society because of the great things they do for the environment. The negative results of plastic bags and the pollution they cause contribute to global warming, which over time, can have such a negative effect on the environment similar to oil spills, although on less of an immediate time scale. Oil spills often result in both immediate and long-term environmental damage. Some of the environmental damage caused by an oil spill can last for decades after the spill occurs. Oil spilled by damaged tankers, pipelines or offshore oil rigs coats everything it touches and becomes an unwelcome but long-term part of every ecosystem it enters. When an oil slick from a large oil spill reaches the beach, the oil coats and clings to every rock and grain of sand. If the oil washes into coastal marshes, mangrove forests or other wetlands, fibrous plants and grasses absorb the oil, which can damage the plants and make the whole area unsuitable as wildlife habitat. When some of the oil eventually stops floating on the surface of the water and begins to sink into the marine environment, it can have the same kind of damaging effects on fragile underwater ecosystems, killing or contaminating many fish and smaller organisms that are essential links in the global food chain. Despite massive clean-up efforts following the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in 1989, for example, a 2007 study conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that 26, 000 gallons of oil from the Exxon Valdez oil spill was still trapped in the sand along the Alaska shoreline. Scientists involved in the study determined that this residual oil was declining at a rate of less than 4 percent annually. In comparison to the damage oil spills cause, litter and pollution can have negative effects on the environment through the manufacturing process of plastic bags and the gas emissions from this production. The solution would be reusable bags because they are manufactured differently and green bags are reusable so they are not disposed of. Although an oil spill has a much quicker and negative impact on the environment and the ecosystem, plastic bags can have a similar negative effect over time. This is why the use of eco friendly bags is so important to society.  It’s time to start using reusable grocery bags and reusable shopping bags everywhere we go.

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – Thu Apr 22, 7:11 am ET

WASHINGTON – Pollution before the first Earth Day was not only visible, it was in your face: Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River caught fire. An oil spill fouled 30 miles of Southern California beaches. And thick smog choked many cities’ skies.

Not anymore.

On Thursday, 40 years after that first Earth Day in 1970, smog levels nationwide have dropped by about a quarter, and lead levels in the air are down more than 90 percent. Formerly fetid lakes and burning rivers are now open to swimmers.

The challenges to the planet today are largely invisible — and therefore tougher to tackle.

“To suggest that we’ve made progress is not to say the problem is over,” said William Ruckelshaus, who in 1970 became the first head of the Environmental Protection Agency. “What we’ve done is shift from the very visible kinds of issues to those that are a lot more subtle today.”

Issues such as climate change are less obvious to the naked eye. Since the first Earth Day, carbon dioxide levels in the air have increased by 19 percent, pushing the average annual world temperature up about 1 degree Fahrenheit, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“We’ve cleaned up what you can see and left everything else in limbo,” said Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network.

Improvements took shape in the form of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and changes in the way businesses treat the environment, said Denis Hayes. Those reforms, he added, grew out of the first Earth Day, an event Hayes helped coordinate.

“It is the most powerful, sweeping, society-wide change America has had since the New Deal,” Hayes said. “The air is cleaner despite the fact that we have twice as many vehicles traveling twice as many miles.”

Nancy Sutley, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said progress in the past 40 years is about more than just laws. It’s also about innovation that made cleaner cars. And that innovation, Sutley said, “is going to be the answer for tackling climate change.”

No place illustrates progress more than the Cuyahoga River.

Cleveland’s main river used to periodically catch fire. On June 22, 1969, trash and an oil slick ignited. The river burned for half an hour, drawing national attention to water pollution nationwide.

People didn’t swim in the river at the time, and anyone who fell in needed to be checked by a doctor.

“The river bubbled like a cauldron. There were all kinds of chemicals in there, and that was what was bubbling at the bottom,” said Wayne Bratton, a boat captain then and now, and the first president of the Cleveland Harbor Conservation Committee.

On Tuesday, Wayne Bratton was aboard his boat, The Holiday. He looked over the starboard side at Collision Bend and described by telephone what he saw: “I’m looking at a lot of gulls, there’s a loon, a lot of black heron.”

People now fish in the river, which holds 60 species. There’s a spiffy amphitheater on the river bank, which never would have been built when the water had a dreadful stench, Bratton said.

It’s not just the Cuyahoga. In 1957, the Public Health Service declared the Potomac River unsafe for swimming. Now Rogers lets her children swim in it.

“I don’t even wash them off any more,” she said.

In Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s, the joke was that if you moved in during the summer you wouldn’t notice the nearby mountains until the winter. Now peak smog levels are only one-third as high as 40 years ago, he said.

“Unfortunately, it leads some people to think that we don’t have a problem any more,” said Sam Atwood, spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

The region still has 6,000 yearly premature deaths linked to unseen tiny particles in the air that cause heart and lung problems, Atwood said.

In 1970, Ruckelshaus said, about 85 percent of pollution was from places like factories or power plants that the government could regulate. Now such sites account for only 15 percent, with most pollution coming from sources like farms that are harder to control.

That makes fixing the remaining problems politically difficult, said Russell Train, chief environmental adviser in 1970 to President Richard Nixon.

“Back in the ’70s, people felt the threat of environmental mistakes and misbehavior,” Train said. “There was a real threat to your health and people knew that. Today, people will accept that as a general principal, but don’t feel any immediate threat from climate change or indirect source pollution from farmers.”

Last month was the hottest March on record worldwide. It was 1.4 degrees warmer than March 1970, according to NOAA.

The average temperatures for the last 40 years are higher than the rest of the 130 years of record-keeping, said Deke Arndt, head of climate monitoring at NOAA’s National Climate Data Center.

And, this week, German scientists published an analysis in the scientific journal Nature that says the greenhouse gas agreement reached by some international leaders last December in Copenhagen would lead to a 10 to 20 percent increase in carbon dioxide levels in 2020.

That puts “in dire peril” chances for limiting the effects of warming, the researchers said.

Still, the White House’s Sutley is optimistic.

“The Cuyahoga River is not on fire anymore, and air quality in Los Angeles is not as bad as it was 40 years ago. I think people get those connections,” Sutley said. “People get that something is changing about our climate.”