Sack Plastic Bags and BYOB
Bring Your Own Bag to the grocery store
Use reusable grocery bags. Why?
- Reusable grocery bags will reduce the number of plastic shopping bags deposited in landfills and incinerated or littered on Maine's highways and roads, in Maine rivers, lakes and streams and along the seacoast.*
- Manufacture and transportation of disposable plastic shopping bags consume approximately 12 million barrels of oil each year in the United States.*
- Manufacture and incineration of disposable plastic shopping bags contribute to increased greenhouse gases*
- Plastic bags represent a hazard to wildlife when disposed of improperly.
- Plastic bags, conventional or "biodegradable," do not readily biodegrade in a sanitary landfill.
Put your reusable bags with your groceries on the check-out counter and you'll eliminate the need to choose between paper and plastic, a difficult choice when determining which is better for the environment. Most plastic bags are produced in a process involving crude oil and natural gas, nonrenewable resources. However, even though paper bags come from a renewable resource, it takes four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag than a plastic one.
Opt for the alternative with little impact. Stash a reusable bag or two in your vehicle for that next trip to the store.
* 123rd Maine Legislature's Joint Resolution Encouraging the Use of Reusable Shopping Bags
Sponsored by the President's Council for Environmental Sustainability