Thursday Link Round-Up?!?! 07/03/08

It’s a short week here at the office, thanks to Independence Day, and it hasn’t exactly been the most bustling news week on the reusable bags front. But that’s not to say there’s been nothing worth noting!

• Five things you wanted to know about recycling but were afraid to ask. [Recycle UK]
• No plastics bags on Manhattan Beach! [Easy Reader]
• Designer reusable bags for charity. [Charities Aid Foundation]
• Clothes made out of recycled bottles? Inconceivable! [Recycled Frockery]
• Side-by-side market comparisons are fun. [Diva McKnitster]
• It’s not easy being green in Malaysia. [Confessions of an Ex-Meat/Sharksfin Eater]
• Recycling plastics is complicated business. [Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader]
• Sound waves and plastics are all that will remain. [EpiscoVeg]
• On dumping the plastic bag habit. [Muse Machine]
• On old habits not dying easily. [Trying to Be Green]
• Oh hey, link! [a lil bit of me]

Picture via Flickr!

Friday Link Round-Up: 06/27/08

• Reusable bags get all the hot dates. [Bag Monster Blog]
• Going green: a matter of pride. [Bay Area Reporter]
• Julia Roberts is down with reusable bags. [Ecorazzi]
• Plastic bags with your newspaper? Nein, danke! [Tree Hugging Family]
• Can a Proj-Run challenge translate to real-life fashion? Welp. [Etsy]
• NEWS ITEM: your phone book is made out of paper! [Everything Jersey]
• The bag debate is heating up in the Icy North. [Business Edge]
• Have you ever seen a rain barrel? (I haven’t.) [Waldo County Citizen]
• The British Virgin Islands turn trash into treasure. [BVI Platinum]
• Environmentalism isn’t always black and white. [Bakersfield Californian]
• Art made out of trash? Yes, still fascinating thanks. [Wicked Local]

Surfrider Foundation and the Pledge Against Plastic

Have you checked out Surfrider Foundation’s web site lately? You should anyway, as it is chock full of information and environmental activism goodness. I doubly recommend it this week, however, as the site has launched a new initiative in their Action Network section: a Plastics Pledge, in the hopes of lessening one of the biggest pollution factors effecting our beaches today (and everyone else’s beaches as well, to be perfectly honest).

Plastic is forever, with virtually every piece of petroleum based plastic ever made still in existence. That’s why it’s so critical to our oceans and beaches that we dramatically reduce our use of plastics, especially single-use plastics, starting today.

You can make a difference for our world’s oceans, waves and beaches — pledge to rise above plastics today.

As of one minute ago, 2,148 have signed the pledge, and I urge you to do the same. Obviously don’t sign it if you don’t intend to meet its demands — all very impossible things, of course, like using reusable bags for shopping and using filters and reusable bottles rather than single-use water bottles — but in this day and age, how can anyone afford not to meet them?

Photo via Flickr

Australian Retailers Rage Against the Anti-Waste Machine

Australia is in hot debate over environmental policy right now — back in April, the State and Federal Environment Ministers introduced the idea of placing a tariff on disposable plastic bags that was promptly shut down, but now the Australian Greens Party is trying again. Meanwhile, just yesterday South Australian officials put forward to Parliament a motion to ban plastic bags entirely by the end of the year.

Of course, some other parties are getting quite riled up over all of this, namely the Australian National Retailers Association. (Naturally.) ANRA CEO Margy Osmond spoke out on the issue after South Australia made its legislative gesture:

“The South Australian Government’s plan to ban plastic bags is not justified and will mean confusion for shoppers and shop workers alike… Nearly all Australians re-use or recycle their supermarket bags - using them to line their garbage bins or pick up after their dogs,” she claimed. “According to government figures, about 98 per cent of plastic bags are recycled or disposed of in landfill. Plastic bags make up a very small fraction of landfill waste. All plastic constitutes just four percent of landfill.”

“In 2009, South Australians will have to buy green bags and bin liners,” Mrs Osmond added. “When Ireland banned the plastic bag, there was a 77 per cent increase in the sale of bin liners.”

I find it unendingly hilarious that the best retort anyone can ever come up with the combat a plastic bag ban is: “Oh, but I use plastic bags to pick up after my dog! That’s recycling!” Seriously, if you are all so passionate about this issue, can you not think of anything better? Oh, well there’s trash can liners, as well. Whenever one mentions the 77% liner sale increase, I feel compelled to rebuke the misleading claim.

Some Irish stores have increased their sales of kitchen bin liners by up to 77%. If you look beyond the percentages the actual numerical figures illustrate the tremendous success of the Irish bag levy:

* A 90% reduction in plastic check-out bag usage resulted in an estimated 1.15 billion less plastic bags being given away at the checkout every year.

* The 77% increase in kitchen bin liner sales only increased the amount sold by an estimated maximum of 70 million plastic bags.

Therefore there is an overall reduction in plastic bag usage of over 1.08 billion plastic bags.

So, there goes that argument. What’s left? Raining confusion down upon shoppers? I think it’s sad that the ANRA puts so little faith in the average consumer. It’s almost insulting to their intelligence, really. The method has had wild success in most countries where it has been implemented, so to think that Australian shoppers would be left helpless and mind-boggled is quite an underestimation, one should think.

That said, cheers to the Australian government for forging ahead, in the face of the horrors of possible confusion and alternative dog-minding methods, and making headway for environmental change. Here’s hoping it passes.

Photo via Flickr!

The Weight of our Waste and a Cute Way to Reuse It

In England, Premier Waste Management employee Tony Hitchens was concerned — surrounded by waste every day, it was only a matter of time before thoughts would turn to how much of it might he his own. So he did what anyone with a bit of logic and ingenuity might do: he armed himself with some trash bags and a bathroom scale, and got down to the business of finding out.

Defra (the department for environment, farming and rural affairs) figures that every person throws about 511kg of waste per year. Of this 511kg we throw away 375kg and recycle 135kg. So, assuming I live to the national average of 76 years (from the Office of National Statistics) I will have thrown away about 29 tonnes and recycled about 10 tonnes.

But is this right? How much am I actually throwing away per week. I try to shop as sensibly as possible, avoiding packaging where I can, I’ve been (mostly) plastic carrier bag free for about a year and I try to recycle as much as I can. But, the only way to find out for sure was to start weighing my waste and my recycling.

Armed with the bathroom scales and making sure that no one emptied the bin except me I decided to investigate. I started to weigh the bin bags coming out of our kitchen bin, into which all the smaller bins in the house are eventually poured. This represents the material we as a family are putting into our black bin – and that will eventually end up in landfill.

The outcome of his research may surprise you. It certainly seems to have surprised him, despite the odds and for all of his frugal living:

It turned out that my average bin bag from the kitchen bin weighed 1.8kg. We end up with two to four bin bags per week. So lets go with the worst case scenario - four bin bags per week means the family was generating 7.2kg of waste per week. […]Then I realised I had not included garden waste. A quick bit of gardening later I estimate we generate 43kg of garden waste per year from our small plot. That makes my total waste arisings about 457kg per year.

That, my friends, is a lot of trash. Hitchens promises a follow-up next week, regarding how much of his waste ends up being recycled, and I look forward to reading it.

In the meantime, just across the pond, a Brooklyn girl is seeing fit to recycle — “upcycle,” if you will, to use her terminology — some of her more nonbiodegradable goods into something chic and usable, and the outcome is actually highly cute if I do say so myself.

Recycled newspaper bags get a new life on your eco-happy wrist…keeping waste out of the landfill and your outfit coordinated.

By using many newspaper delivery bags, she manages to come up with some unexpected color combinations and I’ve got to say I dig them quite a bit. Definitely a great way to keep some plastic in one’s jewelry box and out of the landfills. Keep up the good work!

Philippines Proposes Fees for Plastic Bag Use

New legislative measures are being put forward in the Philippines, with the aim of changing the country’s usage of disposable plastics. Specifically, representative Al Francis Bichara’s House Bill 4134, if enacted, would slap a P2.50 tariff on disposable grocery bags, hopefully putting them out of commission altogether.

“While we find P2.50 disproportionate to the environmental and climate impacts of plastic bags, we welcome the proposed levy as this will regulate the unrestrained use of plastic bags and encourage consumers to switch to reusable bags and containers,” Anne Larracas of the EcoWaste Coalition’s Task Force on Plastics said

The plastic bag levies, as proposed by HB 4134, will accrue to the “Environmental Protection Support Fund” that will, among others, finance pollution prevention and reduction projects.

“The revenues from the collected levies on plastic bags, we hope, will be used to support ecological solutions to the waste and climate crisis, particularly in setting up community-oriented ecology centers or materials recovery facilities in place of polluting dumpsites and landfills,” Larracas added.

The EcoWaste Coalition reportedly looked to Ireland as inspiration for their legislation, citing their success in imposing fees on their disposable bags years ago (and the subsequent 90% drop in bag litter throughout the country) and hoping for similar results here. Though they admit that legislation will probably be slow, as it has been in most cases, they are displaying extreme optimism about possible outcomes, and not without reason — reports indicate that 76% of garbage found clogging Manila Bay and its shores is made up of synthetic plastics, with plastic bags comprising an overwhelming 51%.

“We know how slow the legislative process is and how vested interests can block progressive legislation. We hope that HB 4134 will be duly debated by the 14th Congress and even made bolder and stronger, with inputs from the civil society and other stakeholders, to effectively curb plastic bag pollution,” the EcoWaste Coalition stated.

Even now, however, while this bill is in progress, the EcoWaste Coalition urges the country’s citizens to consider refusing plastics and switching to reusable bags. Every little bit helps, after all, and the sooner the process is started, the better.

Photo via Flickr

Hey Austin: June 18th is Reusable Bag Day!

Who knew? According to Community Impact News, Austin, Texas, celebrates Reusable Bag Day from 10AM to 12PM this Wednesday.

Shop with a Reusable Bag on June 18
Paper or Plastic? No Thanks! I’ve got my own. On June 18 bring your own reusable bag.

Why Reusable Bag Day only lasts two hours in the middle of the day on a Wednesday is a true head-scratching mystery, but it’s a nice gesture nonetheless. The day is sponsored by the Keep Austin Beautiful organization, and while giving out reusable bags always seems to be a focal point, there are additional activities for the kids.

Design-a-Bag

• Parents and kids can join Walgreens, 11724 Research Blvd. (at Duval Road), to decorate a canvas bag. Free canvas bags and art supplies provided.
• Each participant gets one Free KAB Reusable Bag while supplies last.

The main event page also lists tons of reasons why disposables have got to go, and as always it’s a worthy cause. So if you’re from Austin, get on down there! (Unless you’re working or at school, of course. Then you may have to search for a reusable bag yourself.)

All Paths Lead to the Same Bag-Free San Diego

Lots of local happenings this week!

First of all, looks like our 25 Reasons to Go Reusable page got a link over at Leucadia Blog (your one-stop Leucadia information stop). This specific blog post addresses the effort to ban plastic bags in the Encinitas area, and asks a burning question: with petroleum prices rising and attitudes changing about the use of reusable bags, is a ban really necessary or is consumer culture eliminating them well enough on its own? (Also noted in burning question: why hasn’t Encinitas yet banned styrofoam cups and plates in restaurants? An equally pertinent question, to be sure.)

I would argue that a ban would certainly help move the issue along that much faster, but shifts in general attitudes and consumer culture have certainly helped. I was pleasantly reminded of this when I stopped by Buffalo Exchange (the Hillcrest location, natch) this past weekend. The shop has been in the environmentally-conscious game from the start, trading in recycled clothing and making it all look fashionable, and for a decade now they have been putting waste-reducing in the hands of their customers via a feel-good sort of incentive. While lots of stores have been cropping up with a 5-cent rebate for customers who BYOB, Buffalo Exchange instead implemented their arguably even more fantastic Tokens for Bags Charities Program:

Buffalo Exchange donates to local nonprofit agencies in the community through its Tokens for Bags program, which has generated over $265,000 in donations to hundreds of nonprofit groups since 1994, saving 5.3 million bags. Shoppers are encouraged to accept a token instead of a bag for purchases, and Buffalo Exchange donates five cents to a charity of the customer’s choice.

When I went, there were three bins for tokens: one for an environmental charity, one for an animal rescue, and a fund that provides education and aid for immigrant and refugee survivors of domestic abuse. I liked the choice, as it gives customers some control over their five cents — it seems like it would go a long way in morale to feel like you have some say in where your charity money is going, and provides a little more personal incentive toward repeat donations. I think it’s rather genius, and I was proud to receive my token and put five cents (which I probably would have wasted anyway, had it come back to me in nickel form) toward something really worthwhile.

So maybe there will still be debate over whether a ban is necessary, and maybe it will go on for some time yet. In the meantime, however, some people are being proactive and finding creative ways to save the world in more ways than one while they’re at it. Go, Buffalo!

In case anyone was wondering about those sweet finds, Your Humble Narrator bought a totally awesome black shirt-dress with an eagle head on the front and a 1989 Los Angeles Dodgers sweatshirt. Stylish!

Friday Link Round-Up!

• IKEA’s reusable bag program: raging success. [Courant]
• Office Max gets eco-friendly for a more conscious office space. [Soaring Mountains Academy]
• Would your dad want a reusable bag for Father’s Day? [Super Chef]
• Learning the Three R’s with Green Mamma’s Green Friend of the Week. [Green Mamma]
• Recycled art will never fail to be interesting. [Jerusalem Post]
• Reusable bags versus the self-checkout. [Tree Hugging Family]
• Plastic bags and a “green” beer that won’t make you sick. [Kevin’s Blog]
• Are plastic bags really that bad? In a word: yes. [Nature’s Daily Scoop]
• Seventh-grader’s artwork to adorn 1,000 reusable shopping bags. [Sea Coast Online]
• Just a friendly reminder! [Reuse This Bag]
• Behold, a devotee of our cause. [Vancouver Green Business Journal]

Seven Tips for Fielding a Farmers Market

It’s true, sometimes you get weird looks bringing a reusable bag into a Wal-Mart or an Albertsons. One shopping venue where you’ll never feel out of place, however, is a farmers market. Locally grown and heavy on the organics, they are a haven for the environmentally-conscious and a welcome relief from the wilted drudgery of the usual chain store. If you’ve never been to one, however, the endless rows of loud, bustling stands might seem a little intimidating, so the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Big Blog compiled a list of seven ways to ease into the parallel grocery world that is the farmers market.

1. Start slow. “When people come for the first time, it’s a sensory overload,” said Farhad Tyabji of Tall Grass Bakery. “They’re in a daze, walking around, and they don’t know what to do.” Taya Brown of Alm Hill Gardens has some advice: Before you pull out the wallet, “walk around a few times.” Get a feel, get acquainted, then get busy.

It’s all up and up from there. Check it out, and soon enough you too will be talking local-grown produce like a pro.