It's In The Bag

While At the Mall of America, I decided to buy a Shopping Bag. Now it was not a Cloth one like I have been Stocking up on, but a heavy duty Nylon one. The slogan on it was "Turn Over A New Leaf". I purchased it from Macy's. Their statement was...At Macy's, we are operating in ways that are more sensitive to the environment, from reducing energy use and adopting renewable energy source, to recycling more of the waste generated by our own operations. In doing so, we pledge to reduce our impact on the environment and join our customers in taking a turn for the better....
so I was carrying all these plastic bags, thought okay I'll buy one of these bags. Go up to the register to purchase it, the girl says what is it.. I tell her it's a bag I want to buy. She scans it...no price, punches in the code and then ask me if I would like it the a bag.. Plastic of course. Now I ask you How can one make a statement like Macy's made and their clerks not even know why they are selling them?

The plastic bag was introduced in 1957 as baggies, store food in them. In 1960 the plastic trash bags came along. by 2002 there were over 4-5 trillion being produced. Now we know it takes 1000 years to breakdown. Ocean-borne plastic bags kills ten of thousand ocean animals, Whales, seals, turtles, and birds. The animal decays long before the bag so it goes on to continue killing.
Place have started to band the use of plastic bags. On March 27th 2007, San Francisco banned them. Seattle ban will be complete by 2010 and many more are joining in. Some states are taxing the bags.
It really surprises me that South Australia, Israel, Canada, western India, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Taiwan, Singapore and Bangladesh have also banned or are moving toward banning the plastic bag. I have seen stores like Ikea and Whole Food not use them anymore.

I do buy the cloth bags and try to make a point to use them. Only I forget to bring them in with me or I leave them at home. Now I make a point to put them in the cars' trunk.
A challenge for you and me:

For one Month do not accept any plastic bags, take your own cloth bag.

You can buy them pretty cheap. This can really be a good Green thing to do. Perhaps I will get in the habit of carrying them with me into the stores. In one Month I will post how we did and Ask how you did.