The seemly innocent shopping bag

    We head to the store, pick up a few items and the cashier puts them into a shopping bag for the journey home. A daily, and seemly innocent occurrence we encounter practically every day. But, there are consequences many are unaware of and are worth sharing.
    A staggering number—100 BILLION! Thats how many plastic bags people in the U.S. use each year! Just in the United States! It took approximately 12 MILLION barrels of oil to produce these bags. The problem—plastic bags are NOT biodegradable but instead they go through a process called photodegradation, breaking down into smaller and then smaller toxic particles. This process takes over 1,000 YEARS!!! This means the bags we consume today will be on this earth until the year 3012!
    How do plastic bags fit into Heath and our Wellness? Let me sum up a few important points:

• The tiny bits that the bags break down into, contaminate our soil and water. Millions of bags end up in the water and are accidently ingested by animals. Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from this. On land, the same happens to cows, goats and other animals. This obviously has an impact on our environment. 
• The toxic chemicals that are used to make the bags produce pollution contaminating the air we breathe. 
• The production of the bags requires petroleum and often natural gas, both non-renewable resources that increase our dependency on foreign suppliers. That needs no explanation.

    What can we do? One might think of using paper bags instead. Surprisingly, paper grocery bags are not a better option. 14 million trees are cut down each year to produce paper bags and the production produces more pollution than plastic bags.

    Here is what you can do. Putting a crate or bin in the back of your car to keep reusable bags in. This will keep the bags organized and in one spot so they are readily available. When heading into a grocery, convenient, big-box or department store, bring in the bag. If you only need a few items at the store, you can use the bag(s) to hold them while shopping. If you forget the bag and only have a few items, say “no bag please.”  When in a pinch, plastic is the  best choice, just try to use as few as possible.

Check out the story in the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2007/10/03/GR2007100301385.html

    These small changes will make a big impact on the environment, our health and the health of our generations to come. 

To the best of health including a clean, healthy and safe environment,
Dawn

Sources:
http://www.reuseit.com/learn-more/myth-busting/plastic-bags-are-free
http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/reusablebags.htm

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0902_030902_plasticbags.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2007/10/03/GR2007100301385.html