One Less Bag at MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop)

Update (Fall 2005):  MEC has instituted its new policy.  If a customer chooses not to take a disposable bag, MEC will donate 5 cents to an environmental fund.  Also MEC has begun to use corn based plastic bags. 

However, I still think it would have been better for MEC to charge customers for the disposable plastic bags.  Whole Foods in West Van gives customers a discount for not using disposable bags.  Why is an American multi-national taking a more progressive approach than a Canadian Cooperative?  Corn plastic may be slightly better than regular plastic, but growing corn is still a fossil fuel intensive process.  And is using a food product to make a disposable bay really a sustainable practice?

Plastic Bag Facts:

• Plastic bags can take between 15 and 1000 years to break down in the environment. 
• In the marine environment plastic bag litter is lethal, killing at least 100,000 birds, whales, seals and turtles every year. When the dead animal decays, the plastic bags are freed to be re-ingested by other animals for many years to come. 
• On land, plastic bag litter can block drains and trap birds. They also kill livestock. One farmer in Australia carried out an autopsy on a dead calf and found 8 plastic bags in its stomach. The loss of this calf cost the farmer around $500. Not all litter is deliberate. 47% of wind borne litter escaping from landfills is plastic – much of this is plastic bags. 
• Plastic bags are not free to consumers – they are actually adding millions of dollars a year to our shopping bills.
• Since March 2002, Ireland has reduced its plastic check-out bag usage by 90% by charging customers for bag use 
• The average Canadian household uses  8.88 kilograms of plastic bags per year .

• Train staff to ask customers "do you need a bag?" with their purchase. 
• Offer reusable bag options such as PPE, calico and paper bags for sale to customers.
• Educate staff to promote reusable bag options to all customers by saying, "would you like to buy a reusable bag?" 
• You get to sell reusable bags on which you can make money. 
• You can create some great local PR by contacting your local newspaper and radio station to let them know that you are taking action. 
• You will help to reduce the numbers of wildlife that are injured or killed by plastic bags every year.
  

Current Projects: 

"One Less" Campaigns
>One Less Hummer
>One Less Bag at MEC
>One Less Empty Car

Old Projects:
>Boycott the Axis of Weasels
>Support the Bellingham DU 3
>Hunger Strike Against the FTAA
>Anti-War Organizing
>PWCs on Lake Whatcom?
>Stop SE-2