Last I heard, the massive load of plastic waste floating in the Pacific was the size of Texas—and at that time I was shocked. Yesterday, an article in The Independent, “The world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan,” referenced that said waste could very well be twice the size of the continental United States. And it could double in size over the next decade if we don’t do anything about it.
So what can we do? For one thing, jump on the bandwagon and start buying the reusable bags at your grocery store. Every time you either use or purchase one at Trader Joes they put your name into a lottery and award gift cards. Stop & Shop even offers insulated bags, which is great when you have to run an errand before returning home. You can also check out The Independent blog, which has already got some great dialogue going regarding the article.
Recently the New York Times and Inhabitat posted about Ireland’s implementation of a tax-based incentive back in 2002 to cut plastic bag useage. There was an advertising awareness campaign and within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Within a year, nearly everyone had bought reusable cloth bags, keeping them in offices and in the backs of cars. Plastic bags were not outlawed, but carrying them became socially unacceptable.
When I lived in Cork, Ireland the spring of 2004, after carefully scouring the aisles for the cheapest items on my first trip to the grocery store, I couldn’t believe I actually had to pay for a bag once I got to the checkout counter. It was a concept as foreign as the country to me—but it was brilliant. From then on, my roommate and I comfortably hauled the food in our backpacks, reducing waste and sparing us from those embarrassing public displays when an overstuffed plastic bag explodes half way home.
Today, the idea of bringing your own bag to the grocery store is becoming a trend in the U.S. But, according to reusablebags.com, in January almost 42 billion plastic bags were used worldwide, and the figure increases by more than half a million bags every minute.
It is time we implement the trend into our every day lives.