Paper or
Plastic?
On How you respond to this choice at
the grocery store can have a positive
or negative environmental impact.
Most of us chose the plastic bag. Americans use billions of
plastic shopping bags a year. Millions of barrels of oil are
required to produce these and they may persist in the environment
for up to 1,000 years. Plastic bags cause hundreds of thousands of sea
turtle, whales and other marine animal deaths every year.
To discourage their use, China and San Francisco have banned
them and Ireland has imposed a tax on plastic grocery bags. Recently the
United Nations Environmental Program called for outlawing them
world-wide.
Actually, you have 3 choices- paper, plastic or reusable
shopping bag. A sturdy reusable bag has the potential to eliminate an
average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime. Cloth bags make
excellent shopping bags and have the additional benefit of being
washable.
Maybe next time you will be asked “paper, plastic, or your
reusable bag?” .
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Palm Beach County:
Florenzia Davis, PhD,MS,RD,LD/N
Senior Public Health Nutritionist
(561) 671-4000 x 4048 |
