Earth Day is right around the corner. Are you ready to Mobilize the Earth™? More than one billion people around the globe are expected to participate in Earth Day 2012, which is on Sunday, April 22^nd. It’s a dedicated day for all nationalities to voice their appreciation for the planet and demand its protection in hopes of a sustainable future.

Since Earth Day is a day for action, it’s the perfect chance to show how important the environment is to you. Individuals, organizations, and governments should all do their part.

Stumped what you can do for Earth Day? Here are a few ideas:

• Bring your own reusable shopping bags to the store. There’s no need for a proliferation of plastic and paper bags, which are so bad for our environment.
• Pledge to use paper carefully and encourage others to do so, too. Opt to go paperless wherever possible.
• Encourage healthier eating habits. Try to eat a sustainable healthy plantarian, pure vegetarian, vegan diet. Support your local farmer’s markets for fresh local produce. They usually grow organic vegetables which are better for our environment and your body as they don’t use harmful pesticides or fertilizers. Or better yet, grow your own garden and make sure not to use any pesticides or harmful fertilizers.
• Conserve water. Take shorter showers. Try to limit showers to 10 minutes or less. Also, switch off the tap while brushing.
• Conserve electricity. Turn off the lights if you don’t need them, and never leave your laptop ON when not using it. Use ceiling fans in the summer and winter months for climate control. Replace older light bulbs with energy-efficient CFL or LED bulbs.
• Raise awareness about Earth Day. Continue to educate yourself and others on how to save our resources and act green. A good resource is the Earth Day site: www.earthday.org
• Walk or bike instead of driving places if you can. It will help reduce our dependence on oil.
• Lower Use of Bottled Water/Beverages. Although it may be convenient, purchasing bottled water should be avoided if possible. Try filling reusable containers with tap water and leaving them in your fridge as an alternative.
• Finally, plant a tree. Besides producing oxygen and removing carbon dioxide and contaminants from the air, trees provide other numerous social, economic, and environmental benefits.

What will you do to honor Earth Day?

Image by Yann Arthus Bertrand Continue reading →

We drew awareness to World Water Day and the troubling statistic that 1 in 8 people do not have access to clean water. Clean water is good, but that doesn’t mean we need to infiltrate the environment with plastic water bottles. Unfortunately, the growth of plastic pollution continues to devastate our earth in alarming rates. Sadly, every square mile of ocean has about 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in it.

Here are a few sobering facts regarding just plastic bags. Yikes.

Fast Facts on Plastic Bags

• Over 1 trillion plastic bags are used every year worldwide. Look at this link http://plasticbagbanreport.com/ that counts the number of plastic bags consumed this year (as of this writing, almost 113 billion).
• About 1 million plastic bags are used every minute. The U.S. goes through 100 billion single-use plastic bags. This costs retailers about $4 billion a year.
• Plastic bags are the second-most common type of ocean refuse, after cigarette butts (2008).
• Plastic bags remain toxic even after they break down and a single plastic bag can take up to 1,000 years to degrade.
• An estimated 3,960,000 tons of plastic bags, sack and wraps were produced in 2008. Of those, 3,570,000 tons (90%) were discarded. This is almost triple the amount discarded the first year plastic bag numbers were tracked (1,230,000 tons in 1980). (EPA)

So what does this mean?

The extremely slow decomposition rate of plastic bags leaves them drifting on the ocean for countless years. According to Algalita Marine Research Foundation, these plastic bags then cause the death of many marine animals (fish, sea turtles, etc.), when animals mistake them for food.

Moreover, when plastics break down, they don’t biodegrade; they photodegrade. This means the materials break down to smaller fragments which readily soak up toxins. They then contaminate soil, waterways, and animals upon digestion.

In order to stop this growing environmental hazard, we need to limit our plastic bag use and encourage a cultural shift away from use-and-toss culture. We encourage starting using re-usable bags since each reusable bag can eliminate thousands of plastic bags.

Finally, encourage your home state, similar to California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and Washington, to enact plastic bag bans, or impose a tax for those who need to use a plastic bag.

We can all make a difference with just these little steps. Let’s ensure the ocean and our marine animals are safe! Continue reading →

A Los Angeles City Council committee recommended last Wednesday that single-use plastic bags be banned from food store checkout lines across the city and that paper bags be phased out.

The council’s five-member Energy and Environment Committee unanimously passed a recommendation for a three-phase ban that would, if enacted, become “one of the most-far reaching measures in the nation,” according to Heal the Bay, a non-profit organization that advocates this ban.

The three phases of the ban are:

Phase 1: For the first six months a ban would be enacted for plastic bags only. These six months would be used to educate the public about the ban.

Phase 2: For the following six months a 10 cent charge would be placed on paper bags.

Finally, Phase 3: After 12 months, there would be an outright ban in all of Los Angeles on both single-use plastic and paper bags.

The recommendation was favored by the committee and supported by environmental groups, although some believe such a ban would be more destructive than helpful, citing a loss of jobs.

According to Councilman Dennis Zine, “The City would provide time to work with retail businesses to help them adjust, and consumers would need to adapt. People will adjust. They’ll adapt … and learn to take [reusable bags] with them.”

A vote on the recommended ban is expected in the full City Council in the coming weeks. We hope this decision will embolden other cities, counties and states nationwide to take action. The time has come to eliminate plastic pollution at its source in order to protect our environment and economy.

Here are some great totes that can replace those plastic bags!

OBEY Full Speed Bag
Sku No: OLBGFLSNAT
Price: $20.00

BILLABONG Oshun Lover Bag
Sku No: JAHBTOSHCET
Price: $24.50

QUIKSILVER WOMENS Gusty Tote Bag
Sku No: A03018SND
Price: $32.50

ROXY Big Buddy 2 Bag
Sku No: 452N90NAT
Price: $42.00

Image Source: theintelhub.com Continue reading →