That Bag May Not Be As Green As You Think {Giveaway}

Ah, the reusable bag, one of the first changes I made on my road to greenness. To me, it was a small change that could have a huge impact. And to help you along Project GreenBag is having a giveaway for one of their awesome bags, but more on that later. hehe

First, did you know...

…that each year, approximately 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That’s over one million bags per minute.

…that the petroleum used to make only 14 plastic bags could drive a car 1 mile.

So why not just use paper bags instead? Well, they have just as high of an environmental cost and may actually be worse then plastic:

It takes 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper.

Paper sacks generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.

The worst part is that just a tiny percentage of those plastic bags are recycled; 10-15% of paper bags and 1-3% of plastic bags being recycled.

However, not all reusable bags are created equally. Those nylon, polyester or polypropylene bags are not good for the environment. For one, they’re made using oil, a non-renewable resource that kicks off some pretty funky chemicals into the air during production.

Now I admit (and you already know if you’ve been reading my blog for a while) that when I started my reusable bags journey I started with the above mentioned not-so-green bags.

I have however, started switching over to greener reusable bags, like the previously mentioned Green Eyed Monster bags, as well as ones made right here in California in San Francisco by Project GreenBag.

The bags from Project GreenBag are made from 100% organic cotton, use eco friendly inks and are sweatshop free. And did I mention made here in Cali, oh I guess I did. It just deserves to be said twice. ;)

I bought two of their bags, Clean Energy and San Francisco, some time back and absolutely love them.



They’re a great size, sturdy and too cool looking! Plus since they’re cotton they’re also super easy to clean, just toss them in the washer and dryer.

Besides their awesome bags, I also love all the great info that they have on their blog (that’s where all the plastic, paper, oil-made bags info came from). And on top of that they also use minimal shipping and never uses any plastic, which you know makes me happy!

Right now you can stop by the Project GreenBag site and tell them what type of bag you would like to see them make next. Wouldn’t you love to see your green idea on an awesome waste reducing, reusable bag?

If you'd like to check the info out yourself, here are the links for the plastic bags info and the paper bags info.

Ok, so onto the giveaway, Project GreenBag is giving away one Recycle bag to one lucky reader. Yay!

For the main entry go to Project GreenBag and leave a comment here telling me one thing you learned about them.


As always there are additional ways you can enter:

• Follow @easyecotogo on Twitter and leave your @name (1 entry)
  
• Follow Project GreenBag on Twitter and leave your @name (1 entry)
  
• Write a blog about the contest/blogiversary or email 3 friends & cc me on the email easyecotogo at gmail.com (3 entries, please leave 3 comments)
  
• Tweet about the contest (Reuse in style with a fabulous #giveaway from @ProjectGreenBag & @easyecotogo! http://bit.ly/98eoeC) (1 entry, can be done once a day. Please leave a comment for each tweet)
  
• Follow my blog in Google Friend (1 entry)
  
• Subscribe to Easy Eco To Go (2 entries, leave 2 comments)
  

Add my button to your blog (leave your site with your comment so I can stop by and say hi!) (3 entries, please leave 3 comments)

Separate comments must be left here for each additional entry!

Also, please include your email with comments or if you’d rather, after you leave your main entry comment, email me at easyecotogo(at)gmail(dot)com so I will have a way of contacting you if you win. You will have 48 hours after I contact you to send me your info or else I will choose another winner.

The contest will run from Monday March 8, 2010 thru Monday March 15, 2010 at 11:59 pm PST. Sorry, but the contest is only open to US residents.

And as always the boys will help me pick a winner which will be announced Tuesday the 16th.