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A Message from Our Founder

Hello! Welcome to the Cleaner Earth Project website.

I was young in the late 60's and early 70's and was, admittedly, a bit of a hippie chick. It was a time when the people were standing up and speaking out against rampant littering, air pollution, poisoned drinking water, long gas lines and corporations that wouldn't take accountability. We wanted change. We demanded change.

We pushed hard for the creation of the Clean Air Act and then, the Clean Water Act. The passage of both was a true victory for generations of people and the planet. We were happy we had really made a difference. We believed we were on top of our problems.

What we didn't realize, was that while we were focusing on repairing the eco-problems of the day, we had already set into motion the creation of a new and bigger problem - a new industry that produced a revolutionary, modern product; a convenient time and money saver that would eventually become one of the biggest ecological disasters of all time. The single-use plastic bag.

Here is a brief timeline to show the growth of this new industry:
(View a full timeline of the plastic bag industry here.)

• 1966 - Plastic produce bags were introduced into grocery stores
• 1968 - Bread makers began to package loaves in plastic bags
• 1974 - Retail giants such as Sears and JC Penny began to use plastic bags
• 1977 - Supermarkets began to say: “paper or plastic”
• 1982 - All major grocery store chains had made the switch to “t-shirt” bags
• 1996 - More than 80% of all bags used are plastic
• 2009 - 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags being used yearly worldwide