I was watching the Oprah show today and it was all about Going Green. In other words, making changes that will effect our planet for the better. They encouraged watchers to choose 1 or 2 things they could do after watching this show to make a difference. I have, for years, tried to be earth friendly in my own little un-knowledgeable way. After watching her show I really wanted to share what I learned, so I will be doing some of my blogs on the info I gleaned from this episode.

The first thing Oprah asked was “When you go to the supermarket and they ask you if you want paper or plastic, what is your answer?” Most people said paper, but even I knew that taking your own reusable bags was the answer. Somewhere along the way I had heard or read this and had wanted to do it but never put it in to practice. The Oprah people have made canvas bags that they are selling (oprah.com) for cost ($9.50) for those who want to use those. They said that we should also get reusable produce bags so we don’t use those plastic produce bags. Plastic bags take 1000 years to decompose in the landfill. That is a lot of years! We use 14 million trees to make 10 billion paper bags each year, too! That is a staggering amount of trees!

I paused the show on my Tivo and got on the internet. I found a cite called reusablebags.com and found some bags I like better than Oprah’s “grOcery” bags. They fold up really small and I can keep them in my purse. Okay they are not cotton canvas, but they are reusable! I got produce bags too! I try to go through the self-checkout so I can use my bags, but can’t always do that , so I decided when I have to use those plastic grocery bags I will just put them all together and take them back the next time and put them in the recycle thingy at the store.

Speaking of those bags I happened to see that reusablebags.com has a photo gallery of pictures people have taken of places bags are found (stuck in trees, or on banks of rivers, etc), and I started noticing all the bags just flying around, especially here in Vegas! I see them flying away high up in the sky like it is a balloon!! Reusablebags.com has a button and bumpersticker that says, “Plastic bags blow…BYOB, bring your own bag”.

Here are some pictures I have taken while driving around town:
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The first time I saw this tree it had 2 bags stuck in it.
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Then the next time I noticed, it had 3 stuck in it!
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Then this one right next to where I work! Vegas has them EVERYWHERE! All over the empty lots with lots of other garbage that blows with the wind. Sometimes I see them just blowing down the middle of the road!

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