It's time for BYOB! Yes, bring your own shopping bag! While we continue our journey throughout a busy 2010, it's outrageous to think about how much shopping we traditionally carry out now in America and world-wide. Whether it be numerous trips into the grocery store as we keep our kitchen's stocked for wonderful meals and tasty treats or those sometimes dreaded (yet skillful) "6 bags on each arm" walks through the local shopping mall, all of it adds up to a whole lot of preventable garbage. Probably the most blatant examples of this waste is disposable shopping bags.

An estimated 100 billion plastic shopping bags are consumed each year in the USA, according to the Wall-Street Journal. Most plastic bags wind up in landfills and the rest frequently end up in rivers, ponds, lakes, streams or in the sea, where animals can ingest or become tangled in them. Considering the amount of shopping bags that are consumed and wasted each year, the time is now to spread the word about the positive benefits of eco-friendly reusable grocery bags. After all, most of us want to give back to our families, friends and communities as often as possible.

Adopting a BYOB strategy in our individual shopping habits is a simple way to do just that. If we can elevate consciousness presently, the positive outcome for our environment is incalculable for 2010 and well into the future. Numerous cities have already made gradual but momentous progress in promoting the use of eco friendly bags in recent years. Encouraging consumers with plastic and paper bag bans, discounts at the register for reusable bag usage and tax motivations are a few to speak of.

Right here in America, the San Jose City Council recently approved among the nation's strictest bans on plastic and paper shopping bags. It is a great victory for the Bay Area, which has 1 million plastic bags per year accumulating in and along the San Francisco Bay. San Jose becomes the latest bay area town to endorse some type of ban on disposable shopping bags; others include San Francisco and Palo Alto. Tracy Seipel of the San Jose Mercury News reported that it was in fact ONE gentleman who truly jump-started the ban, an additional impressive example of the power of one individual. Here's a an excerpt:

"While visiting his sister-in-law in Taipei, (Kansen) Chu (elected to San Jose city council in 2007) went grocery shopping and was surprised to get charged for plastic grocery bags. The next day, he brought his own cloth bags back to the store. "I guess the question," said Chu, "was, 'Why not San Jose?' " He began a conversation with the city's environmental services staff, which later moved to council committee discussions.

Save the Bay's 4th annual report on the most garbage-strewn places in the area further demonstrates the need for BYOB. The 50-year-old environmental advocacy group focused on 10 particular bay-area sites where nearly 15,000 plastic bags were retrieved in one day last year in their account. Here's an excerpt of an article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Kelly Zito.

According to (Save the Bay's) research, Californians use about 19 billion plastic bags each year, 3.8 million in the Bay Area. The average use time for the bags - made using about 12 million barrels of oil each year in the United States - is about 12 minutes. In addition to the hundreds of years it can take for a plastic bag to decompose in a landfill, the bags also force downtime when fed into traditional recycling equipment. Typically, the bags get wound into conveyor belts or gears and must be cut out by hand.

Ten US cities have banned plastic bags so far, five within the past year. Even Mexico City enacted a ban on plastic shopping bags, which went into effect in August. The city of 20 million at the moment faces the realities of effective enforcement, which isn't easy when the Mexico City Chamber of Commerce estimates there are actually 35,000 vendors in Mexico City's downtown area alone.

Bans on plastic bags aren't the only effective way to reduce dangerous waste the result of disposable bags. PlasTaxes, which tax consumers at the register for using plastic bags while shopping, were primarily launched by the Irish. John Roach of National Geographic reported in 2008 relating to the worldwide momentum that's been building from the time when Ireland instituted a PlasTax in 2003. The Irish confirmed they could diminish plastic bag consumption by 90% or more. Momentum is growing the world over, predominantly in America. From Washington, DC to Edmonds, WA to North Pole, AK, communities and governments are spurring a global trend to cut back the hurtful environmental effects of disposable shopping bags. In the great state of Hawaii, the governing body is at this time considering a bill to ban single-use plastic bags (SUP), or to establish a small charge to utilize SUP bags.

Even chief retail stores like Target and CVS are taking action by enacting special discounts at the register for customers who choose to BYOB or simply carry-out their stuff without a bag. For the naysayers, it's convenient to ignore recent momentum in reducing disposable bag waste. But to a few, the wide-spread adoption of eco-friendly recycled bags is inevitable. Examine just how smoking is becoming taboo in America. Indoor smoking bans have caught on like wild-fire. In a similar way, who is to say using disposable bags won't become taboo at some point within the (hopefully near) future? The use of eco-friendly recycled grocery bags is definitely picking up steam. Our personal decisions to take our recycled shopping bags can go a whole lot farther than we think. That's what BYOB is all about.

Needless to say, plastic and paper bags should be recycled and it's crucial to remember most huge retailers including Albertsons and Wal-Mart will recycle plastic bags for you (just need to bring them your accumulated stash). That being said, a BYOB shopping approach can make your life a lot easier because there is no longer a need to accumulate that cabinet filled with plastic bags or determine what and when to handle it. Keeping a few eco bags in the car or backpack is a good way to make sure you possess them when needed. Thus give back this year by remembering to BYOB! No matter whether it be in a convenience store, the shopping mall, or while grocery shopping, we could make a difference for the environment and help lift consciousness one transaction at a time. For the battle to eliminate disposable shopping bag waste, 2010 is our moment.