Billyuns and Billlyuns......

Stars? No, Plastic Bags!

This little nugget:

The Whole Foods decision is “a bold move, without a doubt,” said Allen Hershkowitz, director of the municipal waste program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He noted that Americans use 50 billion to 80 billion plastic bags a year.

came from a New York Times article on Whole Foods decision to ban plastic bags from all it's stores. A natural follow up to San Francisco's recent ban on plastic bags at larger stores, it's a welcome respite. I know that plastic bags pile up at my house mostly from my morning Wall Street Journal. But also from stores, I do my best to not get bags but they still pile up. I know from my recycling bin that paper bags add up as well so it's best to use reusables. Another interesting tidbit from that same article is:

In addition, he said, Whole Foods was given a test run of sorts when San Francisco banned plastic bags last year. The number of paper bags used in the San Francisco stores increased a mere 10 percent, he said, suggesting that some customers switched to reusable bags.

If you have high quality bags, they will get reused. Anyone who travels in New York City can attest to the tons of people who use the Bloomingdale's brown bags or the decorative "Met" bags. The probably with plastic bags is that they are almost designed to be single use. My suspicion is that the paper bags being so bulky people just end up buying a reusable one.

This is a positive move, an even better move is when you shop for an item or two and are heading to you car is simply say. No thanks, I'll carry it out in my hands.