When we first moved here, Valparaiso offered a recycling bin to each household for newspapers, cans, plastic, etc. Having that bin made it easy to do our part. A few years ago, the city did away with them so we're not as good about that as we should be.

One thing we have started doing is using Publix's reusable shopping bags. At only 99 cents a piece they hold a tremendous amount and if one tears, Publix will replace it at no charge. Today I read the following facts on the cost of using plastic bags. It made me glad that we've switched.

1. 14 plastic bags contain enough petroleum to drive your car 1 mile.
2. It can cost your city 17 cents per bag to dispose of it.
3. One plastic bag takes 450 years to biodegrade. Imagine 10 billion of them!
4. The production of paper bags causes 70% more pollution than plastic.
5. When plastic bags finally degrade, they end up on the ocean floor, appearing much like plankton. Fish mistakenly eat it and then you eat that fish. NOT healthy!
6. Plastic bags are made of 1 part pulp to 400 parts water. That is a huge waste of clean water!
7. If every person who lives in NYC used just one less grocery bag, it would reduce waste by 5 million pounds and save $250,000 in disposal costs!

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