Still using plastic bags?

My good friend Billy loves tote bags and exfoliating. Here's a nice looking tote that comes in two sizes, available at Whole Foods for just 79 to 99 cents. The toddlerish quote, complete with funky ellipses ("I love my home... planet Earth") is from Sheryl Crow.

Sometimes it can be difficult to use reusable bags at every trip to the store -- they're not always in the car, after all, and we don't exactly plan every trip to pick up essentials. I suggest forcing yourself to buy a bag or two every time you walk through those glass door and realize you've forgotten your lovely reusable bags at home. Of course, it'd be just as bad to have a million or so of these handsome sacks junking up our landfills, but doing this once or twice could remind you to keep your bags in the car (or near your bike!).

If you'd like to shift your consumer votes away from big oil (yes, they make those plastic bags, too!) and toward your community, pick out one of these gorgeous totes on Etsy, and be proud of your commitment to the planet, to local commerce, and to the arts all at once.

Extra credit: Your proud bag transition can serve as an example for yourself: what other decisions can you make to divert your dollars from big, heavy, dirty industry, to nimble, clean, local purveyors?

This year, China banned the use of plastic shopping bags nationwide, and San Francisco also became the first U.S. city to ban the use of these wispy disposables. If China and San Francisco can agree on something, surely we can abide within our own households, eh? Here's an interesting summary from the AP concerning various public policies on plastic bags in the past several years:

Cities around the world are moving to ban plastic shopping bags to protect the environment. A roundup:

• In April 2007, Leaf Rapids, a town of about 550 people in Canada's Manitoba, became the first municipality in North America to adopt a law forbidding the use of plastic bags by shops. The law calls for fines of as much as 1,000 Canadian dollars, though no one has yet received one, a town official says. Local businesses offer reusable cloth bags as an alternative.

• In March 2007, San Francisco became the first city to ban common plastic shopping bags. At least 30 villages and towns in Alaska have followed suit.

• In January, the New York City Council voted to require large stores and retail chains to recycle plastic bags.

• The following U.S. cities are considering fees or bans of plastic bags: Austin, Texas; Bakersfield, Calif.; Boston; New Haven, Conn.; Portland, Ore.; Phoenix; and Annapolis, Md.

• In Germany, stores provide consumers with the option of a plastic bag or a canvas- or cotton-made tote — for a fee. Many German consumers carry their own bags when doing the shopping and it's not uncommon to see some using wicker baskets or wheeled carts. Stores that offer plastic bags have to pay a recycling fee.

• In January, China announced a ban on stores handing out free plastic shopping bags. The ban takes effect June 1, two months before Beijing hosts the Summer Olympics. The measure will eliminate the flimsiest plastic bags and force stores to offer more durable bags.

• Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania's Zanzibar islands have banned flimsy plastic, introducing minimum thickness requirements. Many independent supermarkets in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, now charge a small fee for each plastic bag but also give away a free, reusable basket with a minimum purchase.

• In 2003, Ireland introduced a 22-cent levy on every plastic shopping bag. That, the government said, resulted in a big drop in the number of bags that stores were handing out. Some switched to paper bags; others stopped handing out bags completely. In July 2007, Ireland raised the fee to 32 cents.

• Shopkeepers in the English town of Modbury, which has about 1,500 residents, eliminated disposable plastic bags, while some of the country's big grocery chains have offered customers money-saving incentives to reuse old bags.

• The Swedish government is encouraging plastic bag producers to continually develop greener bags. Two of the Nordic country's biggest grocery chains have made biodegradable paper bags and reusable cloth bags available to shoppers.

From the Associated Press

Thanks to AlternativeConsumer.com.