plastic bags

Plastic bags are the poster child for mass one-use consumption. Because they are not easily recyclable, they make us more guilty than PET bottles, grocery containers and other items produced to have a very short lifetime. Bag ban legislation—successful and not—has been sparked in cities and states across the country,… Read the rest

(Portland Mayor Sam Adams with Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen from Algalita Marine Resource Foundation, presenting the mayor with an actual sample from the North Pacific Gyre)
Beyond my duties at Wend, I’m the chair of my local Surfrider Chapter In Portland. We’ve been working on a Ban The Bag… Read the rest

3.8 billion plastic bags are used in the Bay Area every year, and of those, millions end up in the Bay, causing harm to local marine life. And it’s not just wildlife that’s at risk, it’s the economy too.

“The plastics industry is putting profits over the health of San … Read the rest

60,000. That’s the number of plastic bags used in the United States every five seconds. In his current collection Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait, artist Chris Jordan aims to visually examine standard statistics, that may be hard to comprehend when it comes to just numbers. “… I hope to… Read the rest

We’ve been working hard in the last few weeks with our friends at Surfrider on the Ban the Bag… Read the rest campaign, and our local Patagonia store is taking part as well. If you’re in the Portland area you’ll want to swing by the Patagonia store and check out the display that

Using plastic bags is becoming more and more of an environmental crime. That’s especially true in India’s capital, Delhi, where the government has decided to ban the use, storage and sale of plastic bags. Anyone who doesn’t abide by the ban could face a 100,000 rupee (about $2062) fine as… Read the rest

Hopefully you are already diligent about never using disposable plastic bags; have we mentioned how much we hate those things??? But if you’re not as committed to being anti-plastic as we are, take the time on December 18th to make a concerted effort to not get a disposable bag. Organized… Read the rest

Add L.A. to your list of big cities doing good things; the L.A. City Council voted Tuesday to ban plastic bags in stores beginning July 1, 2010. Starting that date, shoppers will have to shop with their own bags or pay 25 cents for a paper or biodegradable bag. L.A.… Read the rest