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Amazing Facts

• In 1974 the first single use plastic bags were introduced to stores and presently over One Trillion bags are used each year.
• If you placed one year’s worth of plastic bags end to end, they would go around the Earth almost 36,000 times.
• For you Southerners, you could put a year’s worth of single use plastic bags flat on the ground it would cover all of South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida each year.
• Those from the North, you could cover with a year’s single use plastic bags Maine, Massachusetts, Delaware, Rode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, New Hampshire, West Virginia and Washington DC, each year.
• If you placed one year’s single use plastic bags end to end, they would go to the moon and have enough bags left to circle the moon several times each year.
• There are 14,000,000 trees cut each year to make paper bags for consumers.
• Single use plastic bags cost the store ¼ of one cent (.0025) but it cost the store five cents to recycle them (.05). What do you think the majority of stores are doing even if they are collecting the bags?
• A family of four uses approximately 1,500 single use plastic bags each year.
• There is an ever-growing patch of discarded plastic in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas and ships must navigate around it. View a video about the Pacific garbage patch here.
• Fish in the Ocean confuse plastic pieces for plankton and scientists have found that they eat more plastic than plankton. Wildlife also die from becoming entangled in plastic.
• In the US alone, it takes 12 million barrels of oil to produce one year’s worth of single-use plastic bags.
• If 1,000 sets of Earth Bags were used regularly in your community, it would save 1,000,000 plastic bags each year.
• Many cities in California have banned one time use plastic bags and put a small charge on paper bags, North Carolina has banned the use of plastic bags in the Outer Banks of the state and Seattle, Washington charges .20 for paper or plastic. China and India have also banned single-use plastic bags.

You'll feel good about making a commitment to use only plastic bag alternatives when you shop.

In conclusion, one must ask the question; “Does charging a fee on single-use bags really work?” The answer lies in our Nation’s Capital. In January of 2010, a .05 fee was placed on single-use plastic bags and in six month’s time, use of those bags has decreased by 65%. Consumers in Washington say it is not the .05 fee but the “guilt” associated with using plastic bags at the check out counter.