• Command Packaging gets on board with plastic bag recycling. [Green Biz]
• Bag ban proposals are facing opposition in Virginia. [Alexandria Gazette]
• Consider green gifts this holiday season. [Des Moines Register]
• Consider buying local, while you’re at it. [Colorado Springs Independent]
• Reduce that holiday waste! [The Ontarion]
• Grocers proposing a bag tax? Well, I never. [Solid Waste and Recycling]
• Pick up an eco-friendly reusable tote at the East Brunswick library! [Central Jersey]
• Reusable bag publicity gets a boost in Rutland. [Stamford Mercury]
• Future reference: biodegradable and compostable are not the same thing. [The Peterborough Examiner]

Photo via Flickr!

• Seattle doesn’t want you to forget about your bags once the hype frenzy’s over. [NWCN]
• Connecticut continue to raise the bar on itself. [Mansfield Today]
• Meanwhile, New Jersey thinks a ban will only further the recession. [The Hub]
• Everything’s bigger in Texas, including environmental improvements. [Impact News]
• Vermont makes Fridays casual and plastic bag free! [Rutland Herald]
• Some opinions on the plastic bag debate. [lemondrop]
• Reusable bag giveways! [Momma Blogs a Lot]

Photo via Momma Blogs a Lot!

• Canada is still keen on banning the bags. [Surrey Leader]
• Glass recycling is coming back in vogue. [Guelph Mercury]
• Ontario needs your clean-up help on the 21st. [Timmins Press]
• Wow, Canada is actually all about the recycling today! [Evening Courier]
• They do get pretty miffed when you fudge the meaning of “eco-friendly,” though. [National Post]
• Meanwhile across the border, another store in Virginia goes plastic bag free. [SmartBrief]
• Free reusable bag giveaway in Mercer County, New Jersey! [Packet]
• Will the reusable bag market ever explode? We hope so! [Core 77]
• Three out of four Rutlanders agree: bag the bags! [Rutland and Stamford Mercury]

Photo via Flickr!

If approved, the ordinance would ban the use of plastic shopping bags, starting in July. The four Democrats on the council voted for the introduction of the ordinance and the two Republicans voted for the ordinance to be tabled.

“I find this bill to be very restraining to our business in particular, not only from a business perspective but from an environmental perspective,” said Philip Scaduto, vice president of administration and marketing of Food Circus Supermarkets, which operates Super Foodtown of Red Bank and nine other supermarkets.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: grocery store names on the East Coast are infinitely more exciting than on the West Coast. Let’s all go to Super Foodtown! But I digress — are we surprised that a grocery franchise operator is against a ban? Of course not.

Scaduto said recyclable bags have a second life after their initial use. “Compostable bags, which really only end up in the ground, they have no second life, no second benefit or anything that can be redeemed back into society, unlike recyclable bags, which have alternative uses,” he said.

Scaduto said plastic bags serve other purposes and can be used as garbage bags or to pick up pet waste.

“[Also], you can recycle the bag, and when you recycle the bag, we make other recyclable bags out of that or byproducts of that plastic,” he said. Scaduto said the borough might want to wait and get more information before passing the ordinance.

More than anything, I just want to say that if I have to hear the phrase “pet waste” as a major talking point in favor of disposable plastic bags one more time, I am going to scream until my voice gives out. But anyway, the debate rages on as usual, but if you happen to be in this area of New Jersey then you can make a difference: the 22nd at 7:30PM, at the municipal building at 90 Monmouth St. Be there or be square.

What would it look like if 504 plastic bags – one per student at Madison’s grades K-6 Central Avenue School – were tied together and stretched out across the school’s lawn? That’s what kindergartners through sixth graders at the school decided to discover on the morning of Monday, April 14, in honor of Earth Day.

With the help of the school’s Green Group club, the students made chains of plastic bags in their classrooms, and then gathered outside to tie them together.

The result: The bags stretched from the front door of the school to Central Avenue, and back – two and one-half times.

“This is how little things add up,” Principal Philip Kennedy told the assembled students.

Principal Kennedy followed up the lesson with a listed sermon of why plastic bags are a danger to the environment and how the correct answer to “paper or plastic?” is “neither,” but the message was abundantly clear from the start: one little plastic bag may seem inconsequential, but all little things add up and can become overwhelming astonishingly fast. (Because, really, what are five hundred bags? Fifty families’ grocery lists, at best?) The principal also stressed the importance and usefulness of reusable bags for grocery shopping, a concept that some children seemed already familiar with and eager to implement:

“My mother sometimes forgets to bring our reusable bags to the store,” allowed student Libby Johnson, a member of the school’s Green Group.

“But I’m going to remind her now.”

As icing on the environmental cake, Whole Foods Market stepped in and donated five hundred reusable shopping bags to Central Avenue School, one for every student and just a bit of an upgrade from the ones with which they walked in.