Disposable! This word has become synonymous with single use or use once and throw away. In fact, some might argue it has become rooted so deeply into our societal perceptions that we have become a civilization of planned obsolescence. Combating this mindset should be the business of every business.
Businesses supplying customers with buying their products are often faced with providing some means for them to conveniently transport these purchases. Today, this is most often done via a plastic bag. First introduced on a widespread scale in the 1970’s, plastic bags quickly became a paper replacement. They were inexpensive, easy to stock and offered an estimated 40% savings of energy and 50% reduction in air pollution to manufacture.
However, going ‘less-paper’ by choosing plastic over paper has resulted in another set of concerns. Experts estimate that 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed and discarded annually worldwide—more than a million per minute.
Each disposable plastic shopping bag is typically used for less than one hour. U.S. households dispose of tens of billions of plastic bags annually. Besides the fact these bags are from a family of products derived of petroleum, the sad truth is each year millions end up littering the environment posing potential harm to creatures on both land and sea.
At this point you might be thinking customers have to have a way to transport their items out of the place of purchase. So, what choices do we really have?
A number of organizations are turning to more ‘eco-friendly’ alternatives than plastic bags by adopting biodegradable bag technology made from corn. The corn-based bags cost several times more than plastic bags, but are produced using much less energy and will break down in landfills or composters in four to 12 weeks.1
Meanwhile, one of the easiest ways available right now is to simply encourage the reduction of plastic bag consumption. According to The Green Book; “By reducing plastic bag consumption by just two bags per week, you’ll throw away at least one hundred fewer bags per year. If tied together handle to handle, [all] these plastic bags [saved in the U.S.] would make a rope long enough to wrap around the earth more than 126 times.”2
Encourage employees and customers to not be so fast in throwing out those ‘disposable’ bags. Support reusing them. Provide a container on-site to make recycling easy. Small choices can have a big impact!
Learn more about alternative choices:
Reusable bags
Biodegradable bags
1. About.com [http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/reusablebags.htm]
2. Rogers, E., & Kostigen, T. (2007). The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet one Simple Step at a Time. New York: Three Rivers Press. Page 71
