Taxes! They aren't all bad.

Check out this tax on plastic bags in our nations capital!  In the article on www.earth911.com, they give us the low down on the tax.  It has brought in almost a million dollars.  Also it has reduced the number of plastic bags by 19 million!!!!  Can you even believe that?  WOW!  Why can't we implement this all over the nation.  It is one of the taxes that I can really get behind.  Why not bring your own bag.  Let's get out of the one time use mindset!  Let's be reusers, let's be recyclers, let's all be more green.  Of course, you can get a great unique cloth shopping bag at Threadbeaur's Shop.  You don't have to wait until you are taxed for every plastic bag you use, you can start today making a difference.  Keep track of the number of bags that you have not used.  Let's count them together and see how much of a difference we can make.

PLASTIC

I don't even know where to start, I was reading some other blogs on the subject, and just started thinking. Every time I go to the grocery store and forget my old paper bags, I put my hat scarf and gloves back on and trudge back out to the car and bring them back in. I don't want anymore bags, plastic or paper. I intend to use the paper bags that I already have until they start falling apart. There are so many sites telling you the problem with plastic. Everything is plastic these days, from kids toys to water bottles to the bags we put them in. I am trying to convert to cloth reusable bags (I make my own), and so are many other people from what I can tell. However, until plastic bags have an actual price tag on them (other than destruction of the earth) people in general will keep using them. We use lots of them in the billions per year, or more, and they will take hundreds of years to decompose, if ever. So what do we do? The first action should be the consumers, stop using plastic bags, period. Then if consumers insist on using plastic bags the retailers should charge a fee for each bag. By doing that I think people would think twice about taking home yet another plastic bag. Lets all try to use a little less, we are living in a society where more is better. If everyone does a little it can make a big difference.

There are many options for reusable cloth bags. On Etsy.com there are handcrafted options, and many retailers will sell you their bag for a few bucks. I would love to have a great cloth bag for a few bucks, than any amount of plastic bags.
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On a side note, I was in Florida last weekend and the Lake County Chain of Lakes was doing their annual lake clean up, the amount of trash they collected in one day was 20 thousand pounds. That is an incredible number for the size of the project. Now just think if everyone would make everyday clean up day. Just pick up one piece of trash, it will make you feel good.