Archive for the ‘Go Paperless’ Category

INFORM is an environmentally conscious group “dedicated to educating the public about the effects of human activity on the environment and public health. Our goal is to empower citizens, businesses and government to adopt practices and policies that willsustain our planet for future generations.”

INFORM has put together a series of videos called the “Secret Life Series” that remind us about the life cycle of products that we use everyday and how the choices we make can affect the outcome of the impact these products have on our environment and our health.

Take a look:

bibi

Post a Comment

And the winner is Reusable Bags… Have you ever put any thought into the implications of your answer? Now you may say to yourself, what’s the big deal, its just a couple of bags. But the big deal is that millions of bags, paper and worst yet, plastic bags end up in the landfill and rivers and oceans . Not to mention the natural resources that are being wasted in order to make these bags that will more than likely be used only once. Let’s look at the statistic: (source WallStreet Journal/ SFGate)

• A family of four in the US goes through 1500 plastic bags a year
• All together we discard 100 Billion plastic shopping bags in a year
• Less than 1% being recycled
• Plastic bags can take up to 1000 years to decompose
• 490,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million non-degradable plastic bags
• 4-5 trillion Plastic Bags used Worldwide
• Making paper bags consumes millions of trees and it actually takes more energy to make paper bags than plastic.

Now some cities have started to do something about this problem, by just simply banning the use of plastic bags altogether. San Francisco and Oakland in California, were the first cities in the US to do this, and now a dozen other cities are planning the same. Internationally, Taiwan has banned both the use of plastic bags and plastic utensils. Here’s a list of cities and countries that have already banned the use of plastic bags or are planning a ban. (source: cbsnews.com)

• IN THE UNITED STATES

Cities that have adopted a plastic bag ban:

• Oakland
• San Francisco

Cities Considering action on plastic bags:

• Annapolis, Md.
• Austin, Texas
• Baltimore
• Berkeley, Calif.
• Boston
• Fairfax, Calif.
• Maui, Hawaii
• Malibu, Calif.
• New Haven, Conn.
• Portland, Ore.
• Phoenix
• San Jose, Calif.
• Santa Cruz, Calif.
• Santa Monica, Calif.
• Seattle

• INTERNATIONALLY

Countries that have adopted a plastic bag ban:

• Bangladesh
• China
• Rwanda
• Taiwan
• Tanzania
• Uganda
• Zanzibar

Cities or countries considering action on plastic ban:

• Australia
• Singapore
• London

What about “Reusable Bags” as the first option?

No it’s not a new idea, it’s an old idea, we just went away from it because we became a society of convenience. But it is still a very practical, and a very “good for the environment” idea.

If you pay attention, all the business are jumping on the bandwagon of selling reusable shopping bags. Everybody has them, from your local supermarket, to Home Depot, Lowe’s, Ikea, and other smaller companies that have taken off with the idea of reusable shopping bags and put a twist on it like Chico Bag, who makes them small enough to fit in your purse or glove compartment. Or people like Cyndi at MyRecycledBags.com who takes the time and effort to recycle those plastic bags and turn them into something beautiful and useful. On her site she also teaches people the Craft of making Bags out of recycled materials.

Plastic bags have been around for about 25 years. Which means that our mothers and grandmothers can still remember going shopping, with their own Reusable Bags. If they could do it, I think so can we…

paper bags paper or plastic? plastic bags recycle reusable bags

bibi

Comments (15)

Think about all the paperwork that is involved with your finances. If you didn’t have all this paperwork to go through and check and double check you might have more time to make your money grow and help the environment at the same time. You’ll get rid of a lot of clutter in your house and spend less time shredding and filing. You’ll have more room in your recycle bin too.

Find ways to go paperless:

• Bank statements: If you participate in On-Line banking already, why not have all your accounts go paperless. Most banks have that as choice for you in the On-line banking menu. It will save the banks money too and maybe they’ll stop Nickle and Diming us to death. (unlikely, but worth a try)
• Brokerage statements: As with the banks, the brokerage houses are more often than not on-line now, so ask your broker to stop sending you statements. You can access the same information on-line and you can always print something out that you have to have in black and white.
• ATM receipts: The ATM machine always asks you if you want a receipt. JUST SAY NO! you can always go home and check the transaction on-line.
• Yearly Reports: Again, this information is available on-line if you really want read it. Let’s face it most of us barely get through the summary, all we want to know is is our stock/mutual fund doing well, the rest is just too technical.
• Credit card Statements: Also available on-line along with ability to pay your bill, so why bother waiting for your bill to come in the mail, when you get the bill the information is old already. On-line you can get up to the minute info on your credit card usage.
• Utility Bills: most Utility companies and also City Utilities are going on-line. Same as with the credit card companies you can access your bill, pay it, look at usage, add or turn off services. You can even save on phone calls and do your business with them on-line.
• Mortgage Statements: On-line you can get info on your balance, payment, escrow account payouts, customer service.

I remember when computers started becoming common household fixtures, the “word” was that we would become a paperless society. But, it hasn’t happened yet. We seem to have an addiction to paper, as if, if it is not in black and white then it’s not real.

But let’s really examine what we actually do with all this paper. Why we save it.

1. If we’re organized: we’ve thought about going paperless, but we think we are going to need it someday, so we file it, then we shred it six months or a year later. And it ends up in the recycle bin or the trash heap.
2. If we are not organized: we haven’t even thought about going paperless, so we leave it laying around till one day we get tired of looking at it, or the pile just get’s too big . And it ends up in the recycle bin or the trash heap.

Either way we all know where that paper will end up, wouldn’t it be easier if we just didn’t have all that paper to deal with?

GO PAPERLESS!!!

Go paperless paperless recycling

bibi

Comments (2)