Durango's Bag It Campaign - Bolstering Leadership in Durango

Learn more about Bag It:

• Visit the Durango Bag It  Website
  
• Sign the Durango Bag It Petition
• Visit the Durango Bag It  Facebook page. "Like" Us on Facebook to receive regular updates about the campaign.

Ways to get involved and take action: 

• Come join us! Contact the Sustainability Alliance or Erich Bussian to learn about upcoming meetings
• Attend a Durango City Council meeting and voice your concerns about why you want to see this happen
• Write "letters to the editor" to the Durango Herald and the Durango Telegraph
• Join us on our Durango Bag It Facebook page for more conversations, sharing, and brainstorming 


Communities in Colorado Banning Plastic Bags:  

• Telluride
• Boulder
• Aspen, Basalt and Carbondale
• Nederland
• Steamboat
• Breckenridge
• Fort Collins

• Seattle
• Los Angeles County

Plastic Bag Bio: The Story Behind the Bag

We go through 380 billion plastic bags a year, costing us 1.6 billion gallons of oil a year, oil that would be better served for other more vital things. We then throw the bags in a landfill--the ones that stay there, that is. Billions of bags end up blowing around as litter and end up in our oceans, killing millions of sea creatures every year. An estimated 90% of all debris floating in the world's oceans is plastic. It comes from many countries, but a lot less now comes from such nations as China, Ireland, and Italy, which have banned retail plastic bags.  In the U.S., there is a budding but rapidly growing movement to "ban the bag."

Like the ban on smoking, which started in local communities and went national, the banning of plastic bags will follow a similar path, though much more quickly. A few examples of cities that have already 'banned the bag' are San Francisco, CA, Telluride, CO, and Brownsville, TX. Let's be a community that helps lead this important local and global issue.

A FEW FACTS ABOUT PLASTIC BAGS THAT YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

• Approximately 380 billion plastic bags are used in the United States every year. That’s more than 1,200 bags per U.S. resident, per year.
• Approximately 100 billion of the 380 billion bags are plastic shopping bags.
• An estimated 12 million barrels of oil is required to make that many plastic bags.
• Only 1% to 2% of plastic bags in the U.S. end up getting recycled.
• Thousands of marine animals and more than 1 million birds die each year as a result of plastic pollution.
• Plastic bags are often mistakenly ingested by animals, clogging their intestines which results in death by starvation. Other animals or birds become entangled in plastic bags and drown or can’t fly as a result.
• Even when they photo-degrade in landfill, the plastic from single-use bags never goes away, and toxic particles can enter the food chain when they are ingested by unsuspecting animals.
• At least 267 marine species are known to have suffered from getting entangled in or ingesting marine debris. Nearly 90% of that debris is plastic. 
  
  

SO WHAT ABOUT PAPER BAGS?
They're perhaps a little better, perhaps not, depending on what you look at:

• Paper production requires hundreds of thousands of gallons of water as well as toxic chemicals like sulphurous acid, which can lead to acid rain and water pollution. 
• Americans consume more than 10 billion paper bags per year. Approximately 14 million trees are cut down every year for paper bag production.
• Most of the pulp used for paper shopping bags is virgin pulp, as it is considered stronger.
  
  

THE BETTER OPTION?
Bring your own reusable bags, and help cut down on the resource use and overall waste. 

Want to find out more about what's happening locally? Check out the recent Durango Herald article "Is it time to bag plastic?"

Interested in what's happening internationally? Watch the YouTube CNN interview with Philippe Cousteau.