David Letterman Discusses the "Patch" of Trash (Twice the Size of Texas) Floating in the Pacific Ocean

Captain Charles Moore with the Algalita Marine Research Foundation makes an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. Moore speaks on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located in the Pacific Ocean, and the masses of plastics entering our ocean's ecosystems. Moore touches on marine life eating plastics that look like food. Ever thought about how closely a plastic bag resembles a jelly fish?
We're delighted to see someone in the spotlight speaking on such important issues. If you want to learn more about how you can take action, visit the ChicoBag Take Action Center! Or, leave a comment here. A major goal of this blog is to facilitate discussion around the reusable bag movement. We want to hear from you - so does everyone else!





Related: Captain Charles Moore on the Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert

Win a ChicoBag™ Brand Bag of Your Choice!

It is the mission of the ChicoBag™ Company to help humanity kick the single-use bag habit. We do this by providing solution oriented products designed to fit every lifestyle - but we know that’s not enough. We want to provide organizations and communities with education about the reusable bag movement and the harms of single-use bags. With education comes activism and with activism comes change!

The Bag Monster® blog not only tracks Bag Monster® whereabouts but also gives weekly updates on bag bans, legislation and action! Staying informed takes effort and we want to reward those of you keeping up with the reusable bag movement.

Follow the Bag Monster Blog and be automatically entered to win a ChicoBag™ brand reusable bag of your choice! We will randomly select 3 of our followers (using random.org) on Thursday April 1st 2010 to win!

HOW TO ENTER

Follow this blog and tell us what you want!

1. You can follow the Bag Monster® blog by clicking the ‘follow’ button on the right side-panel of this blog. It’s at the top of this page, see it? Yeah that one in the grey box… It’s super easy. Once you click ‘follow’ you can use your Google, Yahoo, AIM, Twitter or OpenId account to follow.  
2. Once you’re following, leave a comment here telling us which ChicoBag™ brand reusable bag you want to win and why. You can pick from any of our reusable bags! Remember – you have to be a follower and the product must be a ChicoBag brand bag!
3. On Thursday April 1st 2010 we will contact 3 lucky winners! Be sure to visit www.bagmonster.com and sign in to see if you’ve won your reusable bag! If you are a winner and a follower you will have a message waiting for you!

Green Cities CA Releases Master Environmental Assessment on Single-Use Bags!

Green Cities California (GCC) released a Master Environmental Assessment (MEA) on single-use bags on March 8th, 2010. MEA’s are a means to organize information and can be one-stop reference documents. This MEA is intended to be used by cities and governments looking to act on the harms of single-use bags via bans, fees or other actions. It does not offer final recommendations but is a valuable source for organizations to turn to pull legitimate scientific information on the matter. Cities looking to address the over consumption of single-use bags can use this document when creating the Environmental Impact Reports (EIR) necessary for legislation. The comprehensive report includes information about single-use bags, greenhouse gas emissions, persistent litter, bag life-cycles, environmental harms/impacts and reusable bags. The report also studies the effects of fees and bans. Up to 90% of bag use drops when stores charge for them!

“We’re not going to recycle our way to a sustainable society,” said Dean Kubani, GCC Steering Committee member and Director of Santa Monica’s Office of Sustainability. “We need to orient away from single use and towards durable products. We are confident that this report will provide the documentation local governments need to adopt policies that encourage the use of reusable bags and phase out single use bags.”

LESS THAN 5% RECYCLED!!!

Overview of Findings

Single-Use Plastic Bags: Nearly 20 billion single-use high density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic grocery bags are used annually in California, and most end up in landfills or as litter. In fact, of the four types of bags considered, plastic bags had the greatest impact on litter.

Single-Use Paper Bags: Kraft paper bags are recycled at a significantly higher rate than single-use plastic bags. Still, over its lifetime, a single-use paper bag has significantly larger greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and results in greater atmospheric acidification, water consumption, and ozone production than plastic bags.

Single-Use Biodegradable Bags: Although biodegradable bags are thought to be an eco-friendly alternative to HDPE plastic bags, they have greater environmental impacts at manufacture, resulting in more GHG emissions and water consumption than conventional plastic bags. In addition, biodegradable bags may degrade only under composting conditions. Therefore, when littered, they will have a similar impact on aesthetics and marine life as HDPE plastic bags.

Reusable Bags: Reusable bags can be made from plastic or cloth and are designed to be used up to hundreds of times. Assuming the bags are reused at least a few times, reusable bags have significantly lower environmental impacts, on a per use basis, than single-use bags. Some of the reviewed LCAs indicate that use of the non-woven plastic reusable bag results in particularly large environmental benefits.

Effects of Policy Options on Single-Use Bags: In other regions of the world, fees and bans on bags have resulted in dramatic drops in consumption. For instance, the Irish plastic bag tax immediately resulted in a greater than 90% reduction in use. Due to California law AB2449, no fee program on plastic bags can be introduced. However, bans on single-use plastic bags, as well as fees on other single-use bags, may be implemented to minimize use.
Read Full Report


A special thanks to Green Cities California for putting this together. Your efforts will benefit us all.

Learn More Facts about Single Use-bags or start a reusable bag movement in your city!

Santa Monica's, Team Marine, Gets Out of the Classroom!

On February 10th and 11th, 2010 Team Marine, a Santa Monica High School student group, conducted a lab study in a classroom aquarium to determine what happens to ten common plastic products/pollutants when they enter the ocean.
“The results of our study generally supported the results obtained by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation (Eriksen, 2005) in terms of which plastics are supposed to sink and float based on their densities. Furthermore, our study assessed the proportion of a plastic object’s dry weight needed to sink that plastic object. This was done in order to (a) find out what mass of colonizing (fouling) organisms and/or sand would be needed to sink different kinds of plastics and, (b) to predict where different kinds of plastics would accumulate in ocean water. Our results below show that density is not always a good indicator of whether plastics float or sink, and that different plastics will need different amounts of weight to sink them, which will affect how far from the shore they travel and whether those plastics will end up on the surface, in the middle, or on the bottom of the ocean.”


Plastics Tested (Categorized into groups A,B and C):

Findings:
In conclusion, Categories A and B will most likely be carried further offshore, while Category C will most likely sink to the near-shore benthic communities. Category A and B plastics which are less dense should accumulate in major oceanic gyres and pose a greater threat to top communities. They also have the potential to transport organisms from one habitat to another, which could become invasive (Moore, 2008). Although Category C plastics are most likely going to be more abundant in the near-shore benthic communities, they may be carried along the ocean floor by water currents, until they get stuck in rocks, kelp, corals, or covered by sand.

What’s even cooler about Samohi (Santa Monica High) other than their super nifty acronym/initalism …?! 

Last month Santa Monica High School students brought their passion out of the classroom and hosted an ocean water quality testing workshop for Lincoln Middle School students as part of a Surfrider Foundation Teach and Test Program. The goal of the program is to teach students about how to keep our beaches and oceans clean with hands on, real world activities. On site, Lincoln Jr. High students were taught how to do water quality testing and habitat assessment. Data was then brought back to a lab to process using marine biology equipment. Zack Gold, Surfrider co-president stated, “teaching kids about the issues of marine debris and poor water quality encourages them to make differences in their daily routines and benefit the community.”

Bag Monster Week in Review

Florida Re-thinks Plastic Bag Ban

A year ago Florida Department of Environmental Protection officials discussed a 5-year phase out of plastic bags state-wide. A bold draft to say the least – but the final version delivered to legislation earlier this month proved to be much less. The DEP has opted for a softer final report that suggested solutions ranging from more public education to a flat out ban.  Read more

Santa Cruz, CA City Council Endorses a County-wide Bag Ban

The Santa Cruz city council unanimously endorsed a county wide bag ban on plastic bags AND a reduction on paper bags. Reduction of paper bags is an important element to this endorsement as paper bags often get left out of the equation. “by working with other officials around the county on a model ordinance rather than drafting its own, at least Santa Cruz could share the cost of vetting any proposed regulations with the public, Nelson said. The draft rules, which the county hopes to release in time for Earth Day in April, would be subject to an environmental impact report that could cost up to $100,000 to produce. The county's four cities would then be asked to approve similar regulations.” Read more

Kids at Rhodes Junior High in Mesa are taking steps against those petroleum filled plastic bags.

Students at Rhodes Junior High are taking their “Project Citizen” project straight to city council. After learning the harms of single-use bags a student group has met with Mesa, AZ city council to discuss a plastic bag ban or 5 cent fee. 14-year old Travis Haggard said, “We wanted to ban plastic bags starting with Mesa and ultimately in Arizona and the United States.” Read more

Got inspired by all this bag legislation? Learn how to take action in your community!

Using Single-use Bags is Worse Than Keeping Your 1994 Bowl Hair Cut

So we all know the harms of single-use plastic bags. After the average American uses their 300-700 single-use bags per year they typically end up blowing into our Earth’s precious eco-systems. Once they’ve littered our rivers they float their way out to the ocean killing thousands of marine animals who mistake them for food – and you have to admit a floating plastic bag does look like a jellyfish. If this is all news to you, you need to learn the facts. Have some serious knowledge dropped on you about single-use bags and the pacific garbage patch at, learn the facts.

Recently, we’ve been collecting single-use bags that feature warnings (below).

Warning: To avoid danger of suffocation, keep this bag away from babies and children. Do not use in cribs, beds, carriages or playpens. This bag is not a toy. Discard bag and any other packing materials immediately after removing product. DO NOT REUSE THIS BAG. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. These warnings should definitely be printed because the dangers are serious - but perhaps a few more warnings should be included.



Warning: This bag will photodegrade into millions of tiny pieces and end up in the ocean’s food chain. Next time you eat your surf n’ turf think twice!

Warning: This bag will live under your kitchen sink. It will grow and spawn intimidating the friendly common household items that also live under the sink. Eventually you will have to deal with the situation.

Warning: Single-use bags were sooo two decades ago. Using them is worse than keeping your 1994 bowl hair cut.

Perhaps we should just ditch the single-use plastic bags all together. Get a ChicoBag™ brand reusable bag - Assured to be hazard free and safe for children.

A Week in Review

Oregon Proposes a Plastic Bag Ban



Earlier this month Senator Mark Hass drafted a bill that would ban plastic bags from all grocery stores in the state of Oregon. Read the full bill SB1009. The bill is designed to encourage shoppers to bring their own reusable bag or use the more traditional alternative, paper. The bill is said to be a long shot and some residents feel this is a good thing. Claiming, while it is clear plastic bags are incredibly harmful to the environment, switching to paper doesn’t necessarily resolve our problems. According to the EPA, paper bags generate 70 percent more air pollution and 50 times more water pollution than plastic bags (learn more). Many advocates of the reusable bag movement feel the only answer is to switch to reusable bags. Read more




Surfrider Hosts Two Valentine's Beach Cleanups with Kokua at Sand Island and Malaekahana

The Surfrider Foundation Oahu Chapter hosted two simultaneous cleanups, one at the park on Sand Island and one at Malaekahana State Park., on February 13th 2010. The Clean-up followed a Rise Above Plastics Rally that was held at the Hawaii State Capitol just days before. More than 70 individuals supported the rally which supported legislation to ban or impose a fee on single-use plastic bags. Senator Hooser and Senator Gabbard also supported the fee bill (HB2125). Read more


Coastal area looking at ban on plastic shopping bags

The sight of plastic shopping bags fluttering in the breeze or impaled on fences and bushes in the Laguna Madre area may one day be a thing of the past. Thursday evening commissioners and aldermen from the cities and towns of South Padre Island, Port Isabel, Laguna Vista and Los Fresnos met in a joint session at Port Isabel City Hall to discuss several items of mutual interest, including a possible ban on point-of-sale of plastic shopping bags. Read full article