July 26th is Ban the Philadelphia Plastic Bag Day: Sign the Petition

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