DID YOU KNOW?

Plastic bags tend to “fly away” out of cars, trash cans, and landfills, littering our roadways, land and sea. Because of their light weight, plastic bags fly easily in wind and get tangled up in trees, fences, signs, bushes, and block water drainage in the rain. In fact, did you know that plastic bags are the fifth most collected item during coastal clean-ups? Yuck.

Plastic bags are a nuisance at the landfill, blowing around in the wind and causing staff to set up trash fences to collect them. When the trash fences fail to catch the bags, local residents living near the landfill have neighborhood clean-up days like the one listed on this sign.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. An estimated 12 million barrels of oil is required to make that many plastic bags.

The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags from 4 trips to the grocery store alone.

When you BYOB or Bring Your Own Bag every time you shop, you can save using over 300+ plastic bags per year! According to ReUseIt.com:

Each high quality reusable bag you use has the potential to eliminate an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime. The bag will pay for itself if your grocery store offers a $.05 or $.10 credit per bag for bringing your own bags.