California

A lovely thing to read on the front of the San Diego Union-Tribune today! Here's a link to the full article. To paraphrase: we'll be the first state to ban grocery stores from offering plastic bags starting in January 2012. We'll have to bring our own, or pay five cents a bag for paper bags. Woot!

Why should you care? Check out these numbers:

• 19 billion plastic bags are used each year by Californians (how embarassing)
• 552 plastic bags are used by EACH Californian every year (wowza)
• A measly 5-6% of plastic materials are recycled in California each year (what??)
• It takes 500-1,000 years for a plastic bag to degrade (not to mention those horrible images of the Pacific Gyre, a.k.a. the Great Garbage Patch)

What creative things have you done to cut down on the number of disposable bags you use? What other ideas can you share about reducing your plastic consumption?

One idea from my family... we store our canvas grocery bags in the car. There is no other way we have been able to remember to bring them to the store with us - because we are parents and have lost most of our brain capacity. Even when I hang them ON THE DOORKNOB OF THE FRONT DOOR to take them with me, I forget them. So now after unloading the groceries, the rule is they go right back into the car. It also helps having them there for those spontaneous shopping expeditions.