SAFEWAY SHOWS ITS SUSTAINABLE STUFF

March 3rd, 2010

Some impressive news came over the transom yesterday– in the form of this article in Progressive Grocer. The article announces that the major grocery chain, Safeway, has decided to be a founding member in the new “Sustainability Consortium,” described as a “science-based group of companies working to develop a more sustainable global supply chain.”

In other words, Safeway has decided to take major steps in reevaluating how it purchases, ships, and disposes of its goods. This is no small thing. Safeway has 1,725 stores in the U.S. and Canada– so any changes it makes to its overall environmental impact will immediately cause many positive ripples.

Apparently, the Sustainability Consortium project will be co-administered by Arizona State University and the University of Arkansas. The schools will be researching and publishing life cycle studies on Safeway and other involved retailers, which will provide the companies with a sort of road map for decreasing their environmental impact.

Find out more about the new Consortium here.

Here’s hoping that the process will inspire Safeway to start carrying our biodegradable plastic trash bags! (And if you love us as much as we love us, tell that to their sustainability blogger, Amy, on the Safeway blog!)

The Bag Lady This blog post was written by The Bag Lady on March 3rd, 2010 at 11:00 AM
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OXODEGRADABLE = NOT SO BIODEGRADABLE

February 25th, 2010

Rather than a full-on post today, I’ll just send you to an article we came across on one of our fave green sites, Mother Nature Network. MNN provides lots of great practical green advice, and we’re happy to have been mentioned in their piece about greener trash bags.

The piece also talks about oxodegradable products though, which are part of a troubling trend. Increasingly, you’re going to see the word “oxodegradable” on plastic products, which of course, makes it sound like they break down into innocuous, natural parts. Not quite.

Scroll down to the comment section of the piece for my explanation of why when we went down the oxodegradability path with our bags at first, we eventually came running back, yelling and wildly waving our arms. When you read the comment, forgive me, if you’d be so kind, for referring to the ultimate biodegradability standard currently in place as ASTM DS11 (it’s actually ASTM D5511, and it specifically tests anaerobic biodegradability, as in, biodegradability in landfills).

The products mentioned in the article, aside from ours, are already being sold in Home Depot stores– which means they’ll likely stand out as the greenest option on the shelf. But are they?

The Bag Lady This blog post was written by The Bag Lady on February 25th, 2010 at 4:25 PM
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PLASTIC BAGS: NUISANCE TO NEW ENERGY SOURCE?

February 24th, 2010

Todd Habicht holding jars of used motor oil (right) and diesel fuel made from it (Image by Joe Bryksa of the Free Press)

Let’s take a break from the paper-or-plastic debate for a moment, and consider an aspect of the plastic bag waste problem that has garnered little attention. And that is– what to do with all of the plastic bags that are actually recycled? You know what I mean– there’s that goofy looking collection bin at your local grocery, advertising that it accepts used plastic bags. Ever wonder what happens to them?

Well, in Winnipeg, plastic bag waste may soon be a source of diesel fuel. Oh yes. In this article in the Winnipeg Free Press, the president of the company HD-Petroleum Todd Habicht says that the technology for this already exists– it’s just a matter of determining its economic feasability. The company already plans to convert used motor oil into diesel at a new refinery it’s building– the plastic bags would be an added waste source. >>Read the rest of the story

The Bag Lady This blog post was written by The Bag Lady on February 24th, 2010 at 1:30 PM
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SOUTHWEST WHOLE FOODS GETS DOWN WITH BIODEGRADABLE TRASH BAGS

February 23rd, 2010

Image by emceedowell

Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, how’s everybody doin’ tonite??? What’s that? I can’t hear you! I said, How’s everybody doing tonite? (Crowd roars). Yeah!!!! That’s more like it.

It’s hard to convey on a blog just how ridiculously stoked we are that Whole Foods has put Green Genius biodegradable trash bags on the shelf. Not everywhere, mind you– we’re still working on a few places (ahem, Bay Area)– but now in the Northeast, Northwest, Midwest, and most recently… the SOUTHWEST, you can stroll down the cleaning products aisle in your local Whole Foods, and see a welcoming display of our smart-but-humble looking boxes of biodegradable trash bags. Our friendly little logo… just beckoning. >>Read the rest of the story

The Bag Lady This blog post was written by The Bag Lady on February 23rd, 2010 at 5:56 PM
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POLYMERS ARE FOREVER

February 19th, 2010

Image by Andy Hughes

On this cloudy, moody Friday in San Francisco, it seems appropriate to use this space to flash back to an article that served as my personal wake-up call about plastic. I’ve always known it’s nasty stuff, but I didn’t really understand quite how nasty, until I read this piece by Alan Weisman in Orion magazine.

If you haven’t heard of Orion magazine, you should go to their website rightthissecond and subscribe. It’s a gorgeous, smart, thoughtful magazine, with no advertisements, that features some of the best nature writing, or any kind of writing, around today. It’s really great stuff. And while I haven’t read Alan Weisman’s book The World Without Us, I keep meaning to– because he’s a great writer, and that concept, while inarguably dark, is fascinating. What will the world look like if humans just self-destruct? >>Read the rest of the story

The Bag Lady This blog post was written by The Bag Lady on February 19th, 2010 at 3:43 PM
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