Community Economic Localization (Colorado)

Updated Friday March 7, 2008 1:47 AM | Bart Weller

CEL is developing an action program to encourage stores in the Roaring Fork Valley (Colorado Central Rockies) to eliminate plastic bags and encourage customers to switch to reusable bags. Besides their visual impact on our environment, plastic bags have terrible effects on wildlife, particularly in the oceans. Help us in this effort by writing letters to your local newspaper and to the management of the local grocery stores.

Table of Contents

• Articles
• Bans
• Biodegradable and Compostable Bags
• Health Impacts of Plastics
• North Pacific Central Gyre
• Resources
• Reusable Bags
• Store Actions
• Kroger
• Safeway
• Whole Foods

Articles

• Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait | Chris Jordan Photography
  Search on "Plastic Bags, 2007" -- these images are about three-quarters down the page. While you're at it, take a look at the set on plastic bottles. Chris Jordan has other images from his past exhibits on his home page at www.chrisjordan.com.
• Plastic Ocean: Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we? | BestLife Magazine
  This is one of the best articles that I have run across on this subject. If you have time to read only one article, read this one. It is well written and well researched. / Bart
• Plastic bags are killing us | Salon News
  The most ubiquitous consumer item on Earth, the lowly plastic bag is an environmental scourge like none other, sapping the life out of our oceans and thwarting our attempts to recycle it.
• Are Plastic Grocery Bags Sacking the Environment? | National Geographic News
  Between 500 billion and a trillion plastic grocery bags are consumed worldwide each year, according to some estimates. Cheap, sturdy, lightweight, and easy-to-carry, the bags use a fraction of the resources to produce as their paper counterparts. But the disposable bags also litter oceans and landscapes, harming wildlife.
• One-Pager on Plastic Bags (pdf) | Worldwatch Institute
  
• No Bags, Thanks! - Features - The Lab - Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Gateway to Science
  With all due respect to Kermit the Frog, it's easy being green. Although we may be overwhelmed by the environmental catastrophes that seem to occur around us with alarming regularity, Karen Pearce says there is a simple way each and every person can make a difference. It doesn't involve travelling the world to clean up oil spills or standing in the path of bulldozers to prevent land clearing. It actually involves shopping.
• Plastic bag revolt spreads across Britain | USATODAY.com
  Spurred by a filmmaker's documentary, the English town of Modbury became the first in Europe to ban them outright.
• Profile: Rebecca Hosking | The Guardian
  Happiest behind the lens, Rebecca Hosking is now having to endure the spotlight. "She has changed the national perspective about plastic bags in a few months. She should be prime minister."
• Bagsintrees.com | Baltimore, MD
  Bagsintrees.com is a website dedicated to showcasing the beauty of the omnipresent plastic accessories that adorn the trees of Baltimore, MD.
• Plastic bags: the burden of our consumer lifestyle | RK'S RESPONSIBLE LIVING (blog)
  

• Bans

  • Chicago considers restrictions on plastic bags - 2/5/08 | chicagotribune.com
    Two aldermen introduced an ordinance Monday [2/4/08] that would require hundreds of Chicago stores to take back - - and then recycle - - the carry-out bags they dispense. "Clearly, we are not here to punish retailers," said Ald. Margaret Laurino (39th), a co-sponsor of the measure. "We're responding to what I consider a public demand."
  • China boosts global war against menace of the plastic bag | The Guardian
    Ban and taxes to curb blot on landscape that threatens health and causes floods
  • World asks town that banned the plastic bag: how can we do it too? - 5/7/07 | The Guardian
    Traders and customers say boycott will stay after six-month experiment.
  • Growing Global Movement to Ban Plastic Bags | Common Dreams News Center
    The ubiquitous plastic shopping bag, so handy for everything from toting groceries to disposing of doggie doo, may be a victim of its own success. Although plastic bags didn't come into widespread use until the early 1980s, environmental groups estimate that 500 billion to 1 trillion of the bags are now used worldwide every year.
  • San Francisco bans traditional plastic grocery bags -3/28/07 | cbc.ca
    San Francisco has become the first city in North America to ban the use of traditional plastic grocery bags, a step that municipal leaders hope will spread across the country.
  • San Francisco Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance Facts - March 2007 | reusablebags.com
    Helping advance the adoption of reusable shopping bags and reduction of plastic bags as a lifestyle choice.
  • Pressure Builds to Ban Plastic Bags in Stores - 7/24/07 | New York Times
    In Annapolis, Md., a bill aimed at protecting marine life would ban plastic bags from all retail stores.
  • Should stores bag plastic for good? - Framingham, MA | The MetroWest Daily News
    In April, 2007 the Boston City Council proposed a ban on disposable plastic bags at most retail stores, citing the environmental degradation and general eyesore caused by discarded bags.
  • Should we ban plastic grocery bags? - 1/23/08 | Baltimore Sun
    Baltimore City Councilman Jim Kraft says he plans to introduce bills in March [2008] that would discourage stores from giving out plastic bags, and ban styrofoam containers.
  • Support a Plastic Bag Ban in Los Angeles County (petition) | ThePetitionSite
    This is an example of an online petition to ban plastic bags.

• Biodegradable and Compostable Bags

  • Do plastic bags really take 500 years to break down in a landfill? - By Juliet Lapidos | Slate
    Starting July 1 [2007], most large grocery stores in the state of California will be legally required to recycle plastic shopping bags. In Europe, even stricter anti-plastic measures are gaining traction. Retailers in Modbury, England, for example, recently committed to an outright plastic-bag ban. News reports have cited a statistic that the ubiquitous receptacles take 500 years to break down in landfills. How do we know?
  • ReusableBags.com - Eco-friendly reusable bags, plus facts & news on plastic bag issue
    One supplier of reusable bags
  • Bag Confusions - 5/2/07 | conserveplasticbags.blogspot.com
    * A biodegradable bag must be able to naturally degrade on a chemical level; this process may (or may not) result in toxic residues.
    * A compostable bag must be able to naturally degrade on a chemical AND physical level; this process cannot result in toxic residues.
  • biodegradable plastic bags | Google Search
    

• Health Impacts of Plastics

  • Plastics Unwrapped | Body+Soul magazine
    Rumors about plastic's detrimental impact on our health have circulated for decades. Though the FDA, CDC, and other official agencies issue periodic reassurances, other experts believe that this miracle of modern alchemy may be lacing our food with chemicals.
  • Get Plastic Out Of Your Diet | mindfully.org
    When you eat or drink things that are stored in plastic, taste it, smell it, wear it, sit on it, and so on, plastic is incorporated into you. In fact, the plastic gets into the food and food gets into the plastic and you.

• North Pacific Central Gyre

  • Flotsam Found (online video & slide show) | Wired Science | PBS
    What 29,000 Lost Toys Have Told Us About Our Oceans: There are as many as 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in each square mile of ocean, threatening the health of our seas, especially the marine wildlife inhabiting them. Check out the links on this page. (Click the rectangle in the lower right corner of the Adobe video player for full-screen mode.)
  • Alphabet Soup - plastic in the Ocean (online video) | VideoSift
    Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita set out to quantify the amount of plastic pollution in the pacific ocean. They visit the North Pacific Central Gyer, AKA the Eastern Garbage Patch.
  • Plastic Ocean: Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we? | BestLife Magazine
    [Also linked under the main heading] A vast swath of the Pacific, twice the size of Texas, is full of a plastic stew that is entering the food chain. Scientists say these toxins are causing obesity, infertility...and worse.
  • Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita (blog)
    
  • Trashed: Across the Pacific Ocean, Plastics, Plastics, Everywhere CHARLES MOORE | Natural History
    "It was on our way home, after finishing the Los Angeles-to-Hawaii sail race known as the Transpac, that my crew and I first caught sight of the trash, floating in one of the most remote regions of all the oceans..."
  • The trash vortex | Greenpeace International
    The very thing that makes plastic items useful to consumers, their durability and stability, also makes them a problem in marine environments. Around 100 million tonnes of plastic are produced each year of which about 10 percent ends up in the sea. About 20 percent of this is from ships and platforms, the rest from land.
  • Background : Wind-Driven Surface Currents- Gyres | NASA: Ocean Motian
    Learn about the ocean in motion and how ocean surface currents play a role in navigation, global pollution, and Earth's climate. Also discover how observations of these currents are crucial in making climate predictions.
  • North Pacific Gyre | Wikipedia
    
  • Pacific wildlife 'threatened by sea of plastic' -11/6/06 | The Guardian
    Old toothbrushes, beach toys and used condoms are part of a vast vortex of plastic rubbish the size of Texas floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, threatening sea creatures that get tangled in, eat it or ride on it, says a Greenpeace report.
  • Beach Bums | Terrain Magazine, Summer 2007
    "On a dark, gray San Francisco afternoon in late April, a group gathers around a white-and-black art installation at Civic Center Plaza. It looks like a Zen garden, with sand groomed mindfully into neat furrows and black rocks placed in careful chaos. But as you draw closer to the 18-by-44-foot piece, you realize that isn't sand, and those aren't rocks."

• Resources

  • Algalita Marine Research Foundation
    This page has links for the 2008 Gyre Voyage, videos, and handouts on plastics in the environment for teachers.
  • Ocean Research Vessel Algalita: Ship to Shore Education Program
    Join ORV Algalita on a research voyage to the North Pacific Gyre to research Marine Debris on the open ocean. ORV Alguita departed Hilo, Hawaii on January 20, 2008 for a month long winter voyage through the North Pacific Gyre. During this extended voyage, the vessel's research team will collect samples to help answer questions about the growing amount of plastic debris in the world's oceans.
  • plastic bags | Google Search
    
  • Plastic bag | Wikipedia
    

• Reusable Bags

  • Reusable Bags - Facts and figures regarding the true cost of plastic bags
    Helping advance the adoption of reusable shopping bags and reduction of plastic bags as a lifestyle choice.
  • The Rage Diaries: Start looking for those tote bags
    Prattling about the petty with great pique.
  • Not All Reusable Bags Are Created Equal! = 1/27/08 | YourHub.com
    Concerned about global warming and the harmful over-consumption of paper and plastic bags, Denver resident Jan Ramos founded BaggyShirts LLC in July of 2007.

• Store Actions

  • Kroger

    • Kroger (City Market)
      Enter "plastic bags" in this website's search tool. "Our stores offer reusable bags for sale and many divisions have incentive programs in place for our customers who choose to use them."
    • Paper or plastic? Or neither? - 1/28/08 | Roanoke Times
      Stores are pushing more environmentally friendly and reusable alternatives such as cloth bags.
    • Kroger Joins Environmental Partnership in Fort Wayne - 12/4/07 - Inside Indiana Business
      "Kroger's Central Division on Wednesday will give away 50 of its reusable cloth bags to reduce consumption of plastic bags."

  • Safeway

    • Safeway
      A search on the Safeway website for "plastic bags" does not return any results, as of 3/7/08
    • Whole Foods sacks plastic bags; Safeway not yet ready - 2/1/08 | East Bay Business Times:
      Whole Foods sacks plastic bags; Safeway not yet ready
    • Whole Foods vs. Safeway | DC Audubon Society
      Annapolis’ environmental champion, Alderman Sam Shropshire is taking a lead in this movement and challenged Safeway to change its policy on plastic bags. Here is what Safeway had to say...

  • Whole Foods

    • Whole Foods banning plastic bags at all stores - 1/23/08 | Austin American-Statesman
      After Earth Day on April 22, you'll never hear \"paper or plastic?\" again at Whole Foods stores. That's when Whole Foods Market Inc. will ban disposable plastic bags at all 270 of its stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Instead, shoppers will be encouraged to use recyclable paper bags, a canvas bag or a new reusable Whole Foods tote that costs 99 cents.
    • Whole Foods getting rid of plastic bags in all stores | St. Louis Business Journal:
      Whole Foods is the first U.S. supermarket to commit to completely eliminating disposable plastic grocery bags. The company first eliminated disposable plastic grocery bags last year (2007) at stores in San Francisco, Toronto and Austin. "Central to Whole Foods Market's core values is caring for our communities and the environment, and this includes adopting wise environmental practices," said A.C. Gallo, co-president and chief operating officer for Whole Foods. "
    • Bring Your Own Bag | Whole Foods Market
      Whole Foods Market is a retailer of natural and organic foods, with stores throughout North America and the United Kingdom. This page tells about their recently announced BYOBag program. A new Whole Foods store will open in the Roaring Fork Valley, in Willits (near El Jebel), 2010.