green green bags of home

Everywhere you look these days, people are getting on the hydrogen train to planet organic!

It's awesome watching people opt for reusable mugs, trade in their plastic bags for recycled, reusable grocery bags, take the bus or ride their bikes instead of drive, to name a few.
There's an incredible palpable pulse of change happening in the lower mainland these days.
Of course there has always been a small percentage of people doing these things for years, but recently these simple yet environmentally fundamental changes seem to be spreading like wild flowers, positively beautiful !

This year on Earth Day (Apr 22nd) the concentration seemed to be on eliminating the use of plastics bags.

Starbucks offered free coffee and a cloth shopping bag in exchange for using your own coffee mug. Safeway offered a free cloth shopping bag if you brought in your old plastic ones. Capers/Whole Foods were giving out free cloth shopping bags and basil seeds. Everywhere you looked people were making a difference!

It's been interesting talking to people about what they've been doing as individuals. Most people seem to be right into getting rid of their plastic bags, however, one of the most common dilemmas heard from people re-using plastic shopping bags as garbage bags, has been "if not plastic, then what".

There are indeed alternatives as some of you may know, but for the average layman, they aren't always obvious or clear. And it seems that somewhere during that train ride to petroleum-free euphoria, someone neglected to blaze the sister trail to the shelves of alternative household supplies.

One of the solutions to the dilemma is biodegradable garbage bags. They can be found at most grocery stores, anywhere from Safeway to Choices, and come in all sizes for all purposes.

So, to top off all the fabulous efforts by all participating establishments and ice the organic carrot cake this Earth Day, and every day for that matter, it would have been fabulous to see a huge bin right next to those easy to reach gum and magazines, filled to the brim with bags upon bags of these biodegradable alternatives.

Perhaps then people might be more likely to reach over and pick up a green, green bag for home.

moot or hooey?

80 percent of "at the cash register pick up puchases" are spontaneous.