Several major food and merchandise retailers have already pulled or plan to pull their reusable shopping bags off their shelves. The action comes after laboratory tests found potentially dangerous levels of lead in the bags. The bags are sold as a greener alternative to disposable “paper or plastic” bags provided at major stores. Of the 71 bags tested from 44 major retailers, tests found that reusable bags from 21 major chains contained lead levels above 100 parts per million–the maximum permitted by many states.
For example potentially harmful lead levels were found in select bags from Safeway, Walgreens, CVS (CVS recalled the bags in question in November) and other chains. Disney-themed Safeway bags contained levels 15 times higher than federal limits, according to USA Today.
The strongest lead concentrations were found in the bottom liners used in the non-woven polypropylene bags and it is recommended that you remove the insert from reusable shopping bags that you continue to carry.
See a list of tested bags at www.consumerfreedom.com the organization that led the research on the bags.
My Green Mind recommends the use of either corn based grocery and produce bags or the European net style cotton shopping bags as an alternative to polypropylene bags. Because we believe in full disclosure, we sell both corn based and cotton grocery shopping bags, but our recommendation is based on a concern for the reported exposure to high concentrations of lead.
People ask which plastic bags are the most green. Seems like a simple question, but it isn’t.
Q: What plastic bags harm the planet least?
A: Overall, biodegradable seems to be the greenest solution, though degradable bags offer important green benefits too. In either case, the answer is more complicated that it might seem. Here’s why:
There are four kinds of basic plastic bags:
Conventional plastic
Compostable bags
Biodegradable bags
Degradable bags
Conventional Bags vs. Biodegradable Bags: The city of San Francisco recently banned the use of conventional plastic bags in grocery stores within the city limits. Many states including Rhode Island are now considering similar legislation. Anticipated new legislation has sparked questions about the four kinds of bags and their relative greenness.The term “biodegradable” is misused and misunderstood because everything biodegrades given enough time. Plus Packaging Inc points out the even the Titanic is biodegrading on the ocean floor. The fact that it hasn’t completely decomposed in over almost 100 years is the best indicator of how inadequate the term “biodegradable” is. Even a conventional plastic bag made from natural gas (U.S.) or oil, will biodegrade – given enough time and the right conditions.
To be considered biodegradable, the decomposed remnants must be ingested by bacteria and microorganisms. These complete a process that produces CO2 and H2 O.
The key issues in the biodegradable debate are time and conditions. Even polyethylene plastic bags will degrade over time with enough heat and light. But the time, heat and the light needed for common plastic bags do not satisfy our need for resource management. On the other hand mandating “compostable” bags like San Francisco did, misleads the public because compostable bags are only biodegradable if sent to a proper composting facility. If discarded on the side of the road as litter or sent to a traditional landfill, compostable bags will not biodegrade because these environments lack the proper conditions. A special organic composting facility is required for compostable bags decompose.
Degradable Plastic Bags: Degradable bags use a technology that accelerates the degradation process of polyethylene bags. These bags use additives that makes the bags turn brittle so that they fragment in about 18 months. Within 30 – 36 months, depending on the amount of oxygen and heat, degradable bags decompose into very small fragments of polyethylene powder—a kind of “polymer sand.”My Green Mind is unaware of any science that supports that the resulting “polymer sand” is small enough to be ingested by micro-organisms that finish the degradation cycle, making these bags truly biodegradable. However, the manufacturers of these additives argue that they will fully biodegrade–but to date California and others have rejected these claims. As a result we are left uncertain as to whether these bags actually biodegrade or simply fragment. The question is still open.
When litter is a concern, and given that we’re dumping 2 billion pounds of plastic bags annually, degradable bags are actually better than conventional plastic and compostable bags because degradable bags left clinging to trees or thrown along the roadside actually fragment must faster.
Credit: Article by Plus Packaging Inc.
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The good news is that we are starting to collect reusable bags as a plastic bag alternative at the grocery store. The bad news is that we aren’t using. At least not consistently.
Use them, and a single tote can replace on average 520 plastic bags in a year. But if we don’t use the millions of totes were collecting, we compounded the environmental problem, because most totes are more harmful and energy inefficient to produce than thin plastic produce bags.
The problem with totes-when we do not use them-is that they are often made of woven plastic which sits longer in landfills. And they frequently use toxic dyes for color. Because the weave is generally Chinese polypropylene, on average it takes 28 times as much energy to produce a tote compared to the standard thin plastic bag or, eight times as much energy as a paper grocery sack.
KPIX TV in San Francisco polled 500 viewers and found that 58% of them never take the reusable bags they own to the store. Nationally that figure would poll closer to 90%. Hilex Poly Company research suggests that about the same number of people reuse old plastic produce bags as those who bring along and reuse their totes—and its only about 10% of all shoppers.
The solution involves changing human habits, never easy, but as our green consciousness grows, habit change will come.
Heading to the grocery store? Tote your tote.
Source: Credit Ellen Gamerman’s article in The Wall Street Journal
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Ok, so the country that’s scurrying to clean up its air for the summer Olympics (and not having much success we hear at doing so) is hardly the one we usually look to for green advances. But to give credit where it’s due, My Green Mind notes that China is ahead of the U.S. in one important green area—bags. Plastic bags. Until recently, China used 3 billion plastic bags a day—at an annual dump rate of some 3 million tons–that took a reported 37 million barrels of oil to make.
But not after June 1 of this year. China banned the bags, joining Banladesh, Uganda and South Africa in this progressive legislative action. China banned the bags on public transportation and that means you won’t see them on trains, in airports and on buses. Since the new law, supermarkets can no longer give them away with the result that China is seeing a reduction in thin bag use of 90% as shoppers shift to heavier, re-usable bags that merchants may sell to replace plastic disposable bags. The new law has teeth by the way—with stiff penalties for companies that break the law and the possible confiscation of their merchandise.
In the US, the bags continue to flourish although San Francisco became the first US city to outlaw plastic checkout bags at supermarkets. Rhode Island is considering the move—or enacting a law requiring supermarkets to charge for thin plastic disposable bags while at the same time refunding customers a small amount for carrying their own shopping bags.
While the US is busy importing what we once manufactured from China, how about we import its bag legislation too? How about banning disposable plastic bags and requiring supermarkets to use corn-based biodegradable bags? And why not reward shoppers who carry their own cloth bags or a wire basket alternative?
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News from TIME MAGAZINE -According to market-research company NPD’s Accessories Tracker, the hottest accessory in the U.S. over last year through May 2008 has been reusable shopping totes. During that period, sales for these bags rose 72%. NPD’s chief consumer analyst, Marshal Cohen, says consumers clearly see the environmental benefit reusables have over plastic. They bestow green-pop-culture "bragging rights," especially because celebrities use them, says Colleen Ryan, an analyst at market researcher Mintel.
Eco-Bags started in 1989 when Rowe asked a friend to bring back a string shopping bag from Europe for her. Light and scrunchable, woven bags — long a staple on the Continent — could easily be tossed into handbags for impulse purchases. Rowe’s friends liked her new find and wanted their own. Rowe, then a sales executive, found a supplier in Germany, trademarked the name ecobags and began to sell to natural-food stores..
Reusables may even be too hot. "[They] are becoming a commodity market, and the business is getting increasingly competitive, with new companies popping up every week," says Keller, who’s concerned that if the bags are priced too low, people will treat them as disposable, defeating their purpose. For now, reusables are hip. Whole Foods, which stopped using plastic bags this April, has "sold in excess of 2 million reusable bags in many styles," says Michael Besancon, who heads Whole Foods’ green initiative. The Container Store introduced a reusable made of recycled billboard material for $29.99. "Sales have been amazing," says Mona Williams, who oversees the buying department. "Consumer attitudes toward reusables have radically changed. It’s not a fad. It’s a lifestyle change." Rowe would agree. Reusables are "the poster child for the green movement," she says. It’s her payoff on a nearly 20-year-old goal to clean up the planet, "one bag at a time." See the product Time Magazine is talking about at My Green Mind here .
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