March 2004

Plastic Bag Overload Handled

Chicago, IL— Introduced merely 25 years ago, plastic bags are accumulating in our environment at an alarming rate. They’re everywhere: strewn along roadways, stuck in trees, and piled up beneath our kitchen sinks. ReusableBags.com — a proactive, eco-conscious website — is helping battle this growing problem by offering effective, affordable, high-quality products for sale that help reduce plastic bag consumption.

An estimated 500 billion to one trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide every year. In the U.S. alone, an estimated 12,000,000 barrels of oil are required to produce the 100 billion bags consumed annually. Retailers spend an estimated $4 billion on their plastic store bags, passing their costs on to consumers.

A grass roots movement is gaining momentum worldwide as individuals, environmental groups, governments and visionary retailers pursue the common objective of reversing this nasty trend. The goal is to reduce consumption and encourage the use of reusable bags.

“After researching the issue, I was amazed by the sheer volume and the growing negative impact on our environment,” said Vincent Cobb, founder and owner of ReusableBags.com. “I realized that using reusable shopping bags was a simple yet effective way to dramatically cut down on consumption, but it was impossible to find any place that offered a wide selection of durable ones that also looked good.”

ReusableBags.com’s Facts and Newsroom sections inform consumers that although single use plastic bags are free to shoppers, the cost to society is enormous. Each year, billions of plastic bags end up as litter.

Forward-thinking environmental groups and governments suggest reusable shopping bags as an important part of the solution. ReusableBags.com makes finding the right reusable bags easy and convenient by offering consumers a hand-picked selection of the best available — from ultra-compact ‘ACME’ brand bags that easily fit in your pocket, to stylish hemp totes and organic cotton string bag sets complete with stuff sacks for neat storage and transportation.