Store offers biodegradable bags

A bag is a bag is a bag, right? Wrong.

That's the way Jeri Barrett sees things. The owner of Herbal Solutions on Silver Bluff Road has been sending her customers home with their purchases in BioBags, corn-based bags that contain no plastic and are 100 percent biodegradable. A week after the bags arrived, Barrett said customers love them.

"We're giving something good to our customers," she said. "They are very happy with them. One person at a time, we're bettering our planet."

The idea of biodegradable bags came to Barrett last summer after she watched a television show on plastic grocery bags.

"They were talking about the number of plastic bags that a family of four goes through," she said. "They made a huge, mountainous pile of them. There'd be more room on the planet (if fewer plastic bags went to landfills). I thought that because I'm giving people plastic bags, I'm contributing to that."

Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That means one million plastic bags are used per minute.

Barrett searched the Internet for eco-friendly bags and came across www.buygreen.com. Based in California, BuyGreen offers everything from green sporting goods to green furniture and green printing supplies.

"My dad is an Iowa corn farmer, and I like to think in some small way by purchasing these bags, I am also helping provide a market for his corn," she said.

Barrett said customers love the fact they can simply throw the BioBags in the compost heap they have at home like she does. And those who have never started a compost pile are introduced to the idea.

"People do care. We think it's the right thing to do," she said.

An added bonus - the old plastic bags cost Herbal Solutions about 27 cents a piece. The BioBags cost only 17 cents a piece.

Herbal Solutions, 722 Silver Bluff Road, can be reached at 649-9286.