brown paper & grey linen

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paper or plastic?

my friend kathryn just told me about san francisco's city wide legislation to get rid of plastic bags in supermarkets and other stores pretty much by 2008. this is incredible and crazy to me (in a good way). i really hope that other cities follow their lead since apparently  we use 4 to 5 trillion plastic bags a year worldwide. read more about it on the S.F.Chronicle website.


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this got me thinking about plastic bags in general and i wanted to know more about steps being taken to use fewer of them. now i've got to admit that I am guilty of getting them sometimes at the grocery store, but recently i've been trying to be more aware of my actions. NOW I have a .59 big blue bag from IKEA to tote my groceries around in.
recently IKEA decided to charge .05 for plastic bags and .59 for big reusable ones...i'm thankful that this huge company is taking on this issue even if  cities don't take action to reduce our plastic bag consumption.

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also, who knew that there was such a thing as a biodegradable plastic bag?
not me.
 people are actually making plastic bags using a corn starch base! i'm amazed and wonder why i haven't heard about it before? obviously if you want food that you cooked twelve years ago to stay fresh in your freezer or you're using plastic bags as a time capsule for your girl scout troop then these aren't for you, but for short term storage i'd think these would do the trick. one of treehugger.com's eco-packaging finalists is a co-op that only uses these bioplastics to package their food...snaps and props for you!

I'm not sure yet where you'd buy these kinds of bags if you wanted them, but i'll keep my eyes peeled and let you know (or you could let me know!)


update 9/12/07

look! biota is the world's first biodegradable "plastic" bottle! just like the bags above, this kind of plastic is made from cornstarch (called PLA) and apparently disinegrates in about 12 weeks.  it won't just disappear in your fridge since they only break down with the help of high heat (112 degrees) and microorganisms.  you can buy colorado spring water in these bottles here in atlanta at publix, and can also find it at their website.


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