Mom Writes Stuff » The Green Room

Plastic Bag Overload

Mom — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:55:16 +0000

How many plastic shopping bags have you got stored under your sink, in a drawer, or in a specialty container right now? If you’re like me, there are way too many to count and they take up valuable space. But what do you do with them? Most people know how bad they are for our environment, which is why a lot of us hang on to them hoping for the best.

Why not just not use them at all? I was pretty surprised to see our local grocery store selling their branded reusable bags. More and more stores are doing this, but I figured it would be a while until anyone in this area would catch on (very small town). They are priced at 89 cents, so I plan on buying at least a handful of them to start with. However, they are pretty basic and plain.

There are several companies that are selling “trendy” reusable bags. One of the best places I’ve found is ReusableBags.com because they truly have an impressive selection. The picture here is one of the many products they carry; they have shopping bags, totes, lunch bags, produce bags, and more! Nice, huh?

Plastic bags are not biodegradable and take an extremely long time time to break down, and even when they start to, they are only breaking down into smaller pieces. Many ocean dwelling animals mistake them for food, resulting in their death.

Eco Mama talks about her choice of reusable bags, and her struggle with a husband that just doesn’t “get it” yet here.

Plant Trees While You Search the Internet!

Mom — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:03:57 +0000

There are numerous ways that individuals can have a huge impact on our growing environmental issues. However, many people tend to think that making one small change isn’t going to affect much at all. That one person’s actions may not be enormous, but if everyone would change one small thing each week, it would really add up. I think I’ll post about some of these things from time to time, and thought I’d start with that right now…

I understand that Google is the probably the most popular means of searching the internet today, but there are many who still have been hesitant make that switch from Yahoo! or MSN. Personally, I like Dogpile because it combines all of them. That’s another story, though.

Ecocho is something I will be trying to remember to use daily from now on. What in the world is Ecocho? It’s a new search engine powered by Yahoo!, but there’s more to it. For every 1,000 searches performed on their site they plant two trees to offset carbon pollution! You’ve probably heard how important trees are to our environment, and how we are dangerously losing them everyday.

Next time you need to search for something, why not do a couple of those searches on Ecocho and help save our earth at the same time?

Photo courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/mwest/156701831/
Considering it is “public”, I assumed it was ok to use it! If you find it isn’t please contact asap.