How Recycled Shopping Bags Can Slow Down Time

Factory Direct Promos keeps track of the number of plastic bags being consumed in the United States.  The number is not only huge, but it increases rapidly.  If we were to show it to you in real time you would see a number that increases more quickly than the average heart-beat.  We want to make that number slow right down.  We want to convey the message about how many plastic bags are continued to be used in a thoughtless manner and then discarded with even less thought.  We look forward to the day when the American number for the amount of plastic bags being used slows down and we really cannot wait for the day that it stops altogether.  That will be the day when everyone uses recycled bags!

The excess garbage being created by the plethora of seemingly innocuous plastic bags is staggering, creating actual hills of garbage in lesser developed countries, and cramming the landfills in developed ones.  We must become responsible for what we use as well as what we discard.

Let’s think back to the life cycle of products one hundred years ago.  The ‘cradle to grave’ mentality was a way of life; it was common sense and thriftiness.  Never mind that people didn’t have much choice then - recycled bags were the only option in bags!  An item of clothing was worn until it weakened and tore or started to break down.  Then it was mended.  Later, when it could no longer serve as that piece of clothing, it became re-fashioned into a carrying bag or pillow case.  This gave it a second life which it lived out until wear and tear prevented further use.  And then it was used yet again, this time as a rag.  The life-cycle stretched over more lives than a cat has.  It was a ‘waste not, want not’ mentality where less was consumed and every item was respectfully reused again and again.

It would be an understatement to say that times have changed.  Today, pollution and environmental damage caused by plastic bags jouncing around our world like tumbling sage-brushes of the Wild West wreak havoc such as:

-blocking drains and sewers, leading to sewage backups and overflows: Some major floods have been blamed on this happening.  Results have included loss of life, loss of property, contamination of soil and water systems

- Intrusion into animal and marine life habitats where they corrupt the fragile ecosystems, tangle and entrap wildlife and are mistakenly eaten as food

-creating artificial and impenetrable barriers for the proliferation of insects, most dangerously malarial mosquitoes

-placing further strain on energy resources to maintain demand, thus strengthening our dependence on oil, further depleting this resource as well as stressing our electrical grids

-perpetuating a careless, disposable mentality that is not in touch with the global eco-system and not respectful of the inter-connectedness of all living things (including the planet)

Let us support the movement to reduce, reuse and recycle.  We may not be able to turn back time but we may be able to slow it down some by using bags made from recycled material like recycled shopping bags. Surely, we can slow that darned number down at the very least.