Today, we’re dishing the dirty truth about plastic bags.

Each year…

• Americans use approximately 100 BILLION plastic bags
• …creating 300,000 tons of landfill waste
• The average US family takes home 1500 plastic shopping bags
• An estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide
• … Which equals over 1 million plastic bags used per minute.

We’ve all been there: Sitting at a game or park, or walking around our neighborhoods to spot a plastic bag blowing in the wind. Philadelphia has enough litter, and a plastic bag ban is crucial to Philadelphia’s green movement. Plastic bags take 1000 years to break down, they endanger wildlife, pollute our cities, ground & waterways.

Philadelphia voted and rejected a plastic bag ban in June 2009. Yet, Mayor Nutter has declared consistently that Philly is going to be the #1 greenest city in the US.
We, Green Philly Blog, were frustrated with this defeat 3 years ago, but decided to unite our amazing Philadelphia Bloggers to address this issue on their blogs, social media outlets and in person. Together, we can reach a wide audience of Philadelphians.

How can you help?

• Take 2 minutes and sign your name on our Plastic Bag Petition.

• Share the petition!
• Bring your own reusable bag whenever you shop. And just say “no thanks” to plastic. 🙂
• We’ll do a recap on Friday, July 27th and send the full list to Mayor Nutter, Director of Sustainability Katherine Gajewski and City Council.

Although this is a crucial step, we know this is step one of our initiative. Don’t worry, we’re not stopping here and will continue to fight for a plastic bag ban in Philadelphia. But we can’t do it without your support!

Thanks for reading and participating!

Greening on,

Julie & Beth

Thank you to participating bloggers who are participating today (& Visit their sites!):

• Paige Wolf
• Philly Eco City
• The Waste Space
• Beach Chair Scientist
• United by Blue
• O’Boy! Organic
• greenlimbs
• Crafty Garden Mama
• Made in USA Challenge

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Julie Hancher is Editor-in-Chief of Green Philly, sharing her expertise of all things sustainable in the city of brotherly love. She enjoys long walks in the park with local beer and greening her travels, cooking & cat, Sir Floofus Drake. View all posts by Julie Hancher