Especially this time of the year when the leaves on trees are changing color and while driving out in the country coming to & from my parent’s house I get lost in the beauty of nature. I get to reminiscing playing in the woods at the end of my grandparent’s street with my brother when we were little. I also remember playing in our neighborhood with all the neighbor kids, jumping in leaf piles, playing tag, and climbing trees. Then I get to thinking about the environment. I do a little bit here and there to help out and I always feel bad when I go to the grocery store because I usually use the plastic bags, but now try to mix it up a bit & reuse the bags.
While reading Vaidyanathan & Aggarwal (2005) I realized that my employer, last week, did exactly as they described as the ‘foot-in-the-door’ technique (Snyder and Cunningham, 1975; Uranowitz, 1975; Seligman et al., 1976; Burger, 1999). My employer passed out to everyone reusable cloth bags for groceries with the hope that we would use them instead of the plastic & paper bags. My employer, like most, used that also as a way to market themselves. By us using the bags with the company name on it, they would get the company name out there more.
What do you do to help the environment?
Any tips, small or big, that can be done at home?
Vaidyanathan, R., & Aggarwal, P. (2005, December). Using Commitments to Drive Consistency: Enhancing the Effectiveness of Cause‐related Marketing Communications. Journal of Marketing Communications, 11(4), 231-246. Retrieved October 18, 2008, doi:10.1080/0144619052000345600
4 comments:
I like the reusable bags too! It is funny how such a small gesture can lead to a big result in the environment. Good blog Anne!
Keep in mind what it took to make the bag. How much energy went into producing the fabric, dies, and transportation. I feel simply recycling the plastic bags is more eco friendly. If you do use a cloth bag be sure the dies in particular are (dare I say it) organic. Many chemical processes do more harm then good. Sometimes people feel like they are saving energy and really what they are doing is just transfering the pollution elsewhere. (electric cars - the cars are not spilling
CO2 but the powerplant is trying to keep up with all the cars pluged in)
As for the company logo....I posted a similar comment on my blog. Can't we just be "green" without being commercial and green.
Good post.
Alright you little cuties...how can I possibly avoid getting into this? Okay, let's do it girls.
Cloth bag:
Con - impacts associated with dies and pollution of cloth manufacturing industry
Pro - even if the bag is not biodegradable it will reduce landfill waste. Maybe you'll use the bag 50 times before it breaks. After it breaks, you'll put it in the trash. That bag ends up in the landfill. If you hadn't used it (and used #1 plastic grocery sac) then at least 50 plastic bags would have made it to the landfill.
Very few recycling companies will recycle #1 grocery bags. This is a global problem. Landfill waste is a horrible issue - there are landfills overflowing and actually on fire (right now as I type this).
Resue the bag. Avoid plastic grocery bags. Instead of recycling your plastic grocery bags, reuse them many times until they can't be reused - then recycle them.
Good conversation Anne. Rock on.
If all plastic bags were Target bags, I'd go through maybe about 50 a year. We use them for SO many things. Mostly alternatives to large trash bags. My trash day looks like giant albino bunnies hopped through our yard.
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