45 replies to this topic

[The Average Joe]

I'll mention it to a manager next time I'm in. I'm glad Walmart is at least making an effort to cut down on packaging (5% in 5 years seems like a very modest goal though)...

I usually only go to management if a product or service is really good or really bad. I just thought this particular "green" push was "small potatoes" in the much larger picture.

And I encourage everyone to take the "stats" listed and apply a little logic. 4-5 trillion bags a year works out to around 800 bags per person, or more than 2 bags a day, every day, for every man, woman, and child on Earth. From the deserts of Africa, to the slums of India, to the agricultural areas of China to the arctic circle. The 'average" person uses 2 bags a day? Everyday? I find that...implausible.

You may want to read this article all the way through and reconsider your "billion" birds and mammals a year claims... seems more likely that,

"The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags.

Fifteen years later in 2002, when the Australian Government commissioned a report into the effects of plastic bags, its authors misquoted the Newfoundland study, mistakenly attributing the deaths to “plastic bags”.