Store offers biodegradable bags 2/16/2009 10:03 PM
By HALEY HUGHES Staff writer
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.
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Comment Title: Flushable dog poop bags
I flush my dog's poop down the toilet with a flushable doggy waste bag. Most eco-friendly way to get ride of dog poop. The company is called Flush Doggy. There are flushable dog poop bags. The best answer probably because dog poop can get treated just as your poop is. FlushDoggy, is a fully biodegradable, flushable(water soluble) dog waste bag that is very eco-friendly. Dog doodies are best to be flushed down the toilet and degrade naturally , just as our own doodies. Stop destroying our earth and start educating the public, one poop at a time. Be a responsible owner and go green for our pets.
Posted by: On: 2/17/2009
Comment Title: Why not reusable fiber bags?
As usual, profligate Americans come up with a "new" solution to a problem, where a better solution already exists -- but those Americans are too fat, dumb, and lazy to implement it. Why shouldn't shoppers be expected to bring their own canvas-type reusable bags to the store? And, why shouldn't those who do so, be given a discount for making the effort? Plastic bags are a huge environmental problem -- ask anyone who has been to sea and seen them floating everywhere. We are talking about literally trillions of those non-biodegradable bags being introduced into the environment every year.
Posted by: AD On: 2/17/2009
Comment Title: Even better...
You could just bring your own reusable cloth bags, and have the store put your purchases in them. Everyone is selling them these days.
Posted by: Guy On: 2/17/2009
Comment Title: Bio Bags!
What do you think paper bags are! It is a recycleable resource, biodegradable and it helps people keep jobs. We switched to plastic because of a few tree-huggers who could not see past the end of their nose! Paper bags come from trees, plastic bags come from oil. Bio-Bags come from corn, why not trees?
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