TUCSON, Ariz. - Almost 3,200 plastic bags are used per second in the United States, according to CORE, an environmental nonprofit organization.



Plastic bags are made with carbons developed from petroleum and contain polymers that are harmful to the environment, according to the American Chemistry Council.

Reusable bags, however, are made of sustainable materials, such as burlap, and some have lifetime warranties. They save trees and prevent animals from ingesting plastic bags that have been thrown in the trash and end up in the ocean.

From T.J. Maxx to Trader Joe’s, more stores are offering Tucsonans reusable bags for their shopping needs.

Sunflower Farmers Market’s new location at First Avenue and Limberlost Drive sells about 200 reusable bags a day, said store manager Jeremy Hawkes.

“I can easily say that at least half of our customers come in and bring their reusable bags,” Hawkes said.

Customers at the Broadway Boulevard and Campbell Avenue Safeway are also warming up to the reusable bag trend. Store manager Bill Bailey thinks that customers are starting to become more green and want to use reusable bags.

“We do sell a lot of them, and (customers) bring in some. The Trader Joe’s bag is pretty popular,” Bailey said.

Safeway also has a plastic bag recycling bin where customers can put their old plastic bags to be recycled. According to John Rodriguez, the second assistant store manager at Safeway, the bin fills up two or three times a week.

Customers are becoming more aware of the plastic bag recycling system and are starting to recycle their plastic bags more often.

Hank Stephenson, a University of Arizona journalism junior, saves his plastic bags and reuses them instead of spending the extra money to purchase a reusable bag. Stephenson might consider using reusable bags, “if I didn’t have so many plastic bags,” he said.

“I think that until we use up all the plastic bags we don’t need reusable bags,” Stephenson said.


According to the EPA, plastics in municipal waste increased to 12.1 percent in 2007, from less than 1 percent in 1960. Plastics make up as much as one-fifth of the trash in landfills in the United States, according to government and research estimates.

The amount of post-consumer recycled film for 2007, which includes plastic bags, was 830 million pounds, according to a 2007 report by the American Chemistry Council. Fifteen percent of that total was made up of plastic bags from grocers and retailers.

Customers are not limited to buying reusable bags from grocery stores where the logo is pasted all over the bag. Many Web sites offer plain or even patterned reusable bags so people don’t feel like a walking advertisement for a store.

“Any one you get, they’re all going to last you awhile. The long-term effects of it definitely outweigh the cost,” Hawkes said.


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