- Reuse plastic bags. Forgetfulness is the reason behind why we use over 500 billion plastic bags every year – or rather a million a minute. It will take over a millennium for these to degrade in a landfill site.
- Use a clothes line. Reduce tumble-dryer use with a clothes line. Whether you use an indoor drying rack or an outdoor clothes line, natural drying is better for your garments (look at the lint on your tumble-dryer filter, which fills up with every load – this is your clothing being worn away). Plus, drying your washing on a line is cheaper and doesn’t waste energy.
- Use the cold-water wash Using the cold-water option on your machine – opting for 30C over the hotter options on your machine will save 80-90 percent of the energy costs from washing. The detergent you use is what really makes the difference in wash results, not the temperature of the water.
- Consider CFL light bulbs. Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) are the funny-looking swirly bulbs. They may cost three times as much as a normal energy-saving bulb but they use a quarter less electricity and lasts for years. Remember to recycle them, though, as they contain 5mg or mercury, so they aren’t supposed to end up in a landfill.
- Reuse containers. Why buy kitchen storage containers when you can reuse old packaging such as large yogurt pots, glass jars and ice cream containers? At the same time, reuse old plastic bags, an estimated 3 billion kilograms of plastic bags, wraps and sacks enter the waste stream each year.
- Don’t replace – use it up. You may be tempted to go all out and be green in every aspect of your home life, but before you ditch all your old cleaners, and white electrical goods (fridge, washing machine etc), bear in mind the waste you are creating. It’s greener to use up what you have first than replacing everything and throwing goods aways, even if they aren’t eco-friendly!
- Avoid leaving the fridge open. Each minute the fridge door is open takes three minutes of the energy to then cool the food down again.
- Use less paper. Every year 900 million tress are cut down to provide materials for paper mills. Help lessen the load by using both sides of the paper you print on, recycling all paper products and thinking about the packaging you buy your products in.
- Use a microwave to cook Cooking with a microwave is faster and more efficient than using an oven and will reduce your energy usage by about 75 percent. But do check on the safe levels of microwaving before nuking your food till there is no more nutrition left.
- Dim your lights Dimming your lights by 25 or 50 percent with a dimmer switcher saves energy by the same amount.
- Put your air con on a timer Set a time for your air conditioner to switch off at the bedtime and back on in the mornings if needed and you could save on your electricity bills and even more in terms of energy.
- Don’t buy bottled water Buy a water filter and simply filter your water instead of buying water that’s bottled in plastic bottles.
- Recycle all your drink cans The energy saved by recycling one diet cola could run a television for three hours!
- Don’t charge your mobile phone overnight. Most phones take only an hour (or less) to charge. If you keep them plugged in all night, all you are doing is drawing electricity for no reason. So unplug the charger and while you’re at it switch your phone off. Are you really going to take a call at 3am?
- Take your DVD off standby. 85 percent of energy used by a DVD player is wasted when it’s on standby.
- Use rechargeable batteries. 600 million batteries are used in the UK alone every year – most end up as toxic components of landfill.
- Change your light bulbs. Only 10 percent of the input power in a traditional light bulb is converted into light, the rest is lost in heat. Lighting from an LED bulb is more efficient as it can convert 50 percent of input energy into light. According to a United States Department of Energy report, the report estimated that if LED bulbs were used widely by the populatio of the United States it would have alleviated the need for 133 new power stations in the U.S.
- Open your windows. Air your house when it’s chilly outside and open the windows wide when it’s hot. Turn off the air conditioning and/or fans – you’ll feel better and save energy.
Compiled by Janet Lee. Source: The Lazy Girl’s Guide to Green Living by Anita Naik
Here are some of the energy-using steps involved in making plastic bags from oil and transporting them to the grocery store:
- Oil needs to be pumped from the ground with large fuel-burning machinery.
- The oil is then delivered by truck or pipeline to a refining facility. It takes energy to build the pipeline and to drive the truck.
- The refining facility, which usually runs on electricity, makes the oil into pellets.
- A component of oil called polyethylene is used to make plastic bags. A machine heats the polyethylene to a very high temperature—this takes heat energy.
- Other energy-using machines cut the bags, cut holes for handles, and print things on the bags.
- Then trucks use energy to deliver the bags to warehouses and stores.
If you throw plastic bags away, it takes energy to get them to the dump or landfill
- “It works.” – The Australian (Australia’s national daily newspaper)
- “…surprisingly popular” – Plastic News
- “I think it’s a cracking good idea.” – UK Environment Minister, Michael Meacher
In March of 2002, Republic of Ireland became the first country to introduce a plastic bag tax, or PlasTax.
Designed to rein in their rampant consumption of 1.2 billion plastic shopping bags per year, the tax resulted in a 90% drop in consumption, and approximately 1 billion fewer bags consumed annually.
To complete the win-win scenario, approximately $9.6 million was raised from the tax in the first year, which is earmarked for a green fund established to benefit the environment.
Several other countries and cities around the world are now considering implementing a similar tax, including UK, Australia and New York City.
How does it work?
First of all, the purpose is to change consumer behavior, not to generate revenue, moving habits from mindless consumption, to reducing and reusing.
In a nutshell, it’s a simple market-based solution in the form of a consumption tax. Individuals pay a tax of $.15 per plastic bag consumed at check out.
Retailers save money since they only have to stock a smaller quantity of bags (in Ireland, on average they were spending $50 million a year on single-use plastic bags before the tax). Many retailers are also now benefiting from selling reusable bags.
Administration is straightforward and retailers keep simple records on purchasing and receipts, while the government monitors retailer compliance and collects revenue.
What is exempt?
In Ireland, exemptions from the tax include heavier weight reusable plastic bags; bags used for meat, fish, or poultry; bags for unpackaged produce, ice, or other foods without packaging.
What are the results?
Consumption has dropped approximately 90%, from 1.2 billion to 230 million per year.
Litter has been dramatically reduced.
Approximately 18,000,000 liters of oil have been saved due to reduced production of bags.
Reusable shopping bags, rather than paper, are taking the place of plastic disposables.
Weaker plastic bag companies went out of business, while others have benefited by seizing the opportunity to make reusable shopping bags.
Summary
The PlasTax is a major success. Consumers have widely adopted using reusable shopping bags and retailers no longer incur the costs associated with giving away free bags.
Source: http://reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=20
Introduced just over 25 years ago, the ugly truth about our plastic bag addiction is that society’s consumption rate is now estimated at well over 500,000,000,000 (that’s 500 billion) plastic bags annually, or almost 1 million per minute.
- Single-use bags made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) are the main culprit. Once brought into existence to tote your purchases, they’ll accumulate and persist on our planet for up to 1,000 years.
- Australians alone consume about 6.9 billion plastic bags each year, that’s 326 per person. According to Australia’s Department of Environment, an estimated 49,600,000 annually end up as litter.
- In 2001, Ireland used 1.2 billion disposable plastic bags, or 316 per person. An extremely successful plastic bag tax, or PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%.
- According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. An estimated 12 million barrels of oil is required to make that many plastic bags.
- Four out of five grocery bags in the US are now plastic.
- Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistake them for food.
- In a dramatic move to stem a tide of 60,000 metric tons of plastic bag and plastic utensil waste per year, Taiwan banned both last year.
- According to the BBC, only 1 in 200 plastic bags in the UK are recycled.
- According to the WSJ Target, the second-largest retailer in the U.S., purchases 1.8 billion bags a year.
- As part of Clean Up Australia Day, in one day nearly 500,000 plastic bags were collected. Unfortunately, each year in Australia an estimated 50,000,000 plastic bags end up as litter.
- The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store.
- Each high quality reusable bag you use has the potential to eliminate an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime. The bag will pay for itself if your grocery store offers a $.05 or $.10 credit per bag for bringing your own bags.
- Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC one group harvests 30,000 per month.
Source : http://reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=4
