/ Reduce
Buy yourself a nice set of reusable bags to replace your own
personal intake of plastic bag garbage. Doing so will save lifetimes
of oil and greatly reduce the energy costs needed to produce them.
Consumers have the greatest amount of power in promoting change. Ask
for reusable bags at your local grocery store. If you can’t find
any locally, various websites offer them as well. Check out www.reusablebags.com.
/ Renew
Already have a mighty fine collection of plastic bags? Planetgreen.com
offers over 99
different ways in which you can reuse them. But if you
seriously don’t feel like using your spare time to make a rope out
of plastic bags (and I don’t blame you) consider visiting the recycling
sector. Plastic bags are estimated to hang around for over 1000 years
before they completely photo-degrade, containimating the surrounding
environment. So please, don't throw them out.
/ Recycle
After all is said and done, the question remains, how do I recycle these
things? Recycling by curbside pickup can vary from company
to company. Some openly state they take anything and everything plastic
bag, while others keep it a mystery for you to decode on your own.
The rest simply say “no.” The best thing to do is check your townships
local website for the anwser, or call your waste service provider.
But if that leads to a dead end, it’s highly likely that your local
grocery store will have a plastic bag recycling return program. For
grocery stores that recycle plastic bags near your location, visit www.plasticbagrecycling.org.
/ Additional websites for more information
Paper
or Plastic?—If You Have to!
Which
is more environmentally friendly
Life
cycle of a plastic product
