I realize that what I am proposing is impractical in today's disposable/convenience oriented lifestyle but it does make sense. Sam's is doing it. Most plastic (and paper) bags come from grocery stores and most of these stores issue a form of small plastic tags for store discounts. These stores would save a considerable amount of money in a short time if they gave every customer who wanted a tag a more substantial bag or even two in which to transport their purchases. Many people would not buy enough to want a bag or to bring the one that they were given. The store could then discontinue the use of all bags. If all or most major grocery stores in a given area joined in this effort, none would lose market share. When the regional store executives were shown the economic (and environmental) savings of this plan, they might be sold on its implementation. They could advertise this as their effort in combating this problem. I could site many other benefits but most of you know them. It works for Sam's. Fritz
-----Original Message----- From: Mixon Bill [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 7:56 PM To: Cavers Texas Subject: [Texascavers] plastic bags For those of you who wonder how much of the planet's resources are squandered by those plasic grocery-store bags: An article in todays' New York Times mentions that China uses 3 billion bags a day, at the cost of 37 million barrels of oil per year. Taking that at face value (always risky with newspaper reports), this computes to be 0.2 fluid ounces of oil per bag. (It is easy to get a large product when you use a large enough multiplier. This is similar to those people who write about how much power the country would save if all those TV sets really turned off. They're hoping you won't divide by 200,000,000 to see how little it would save _you_.) For comparison, a high-milage car driven only one mile to the store and back will burn 10 ounces of gasoline. I'm 10 miles from my HEB.... -- Mixon ---------------------------------------------- You may "reply" to the address this message came from, but for long-term use, save: Personal: [email protected] AMCS: [email protected] or [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
