COTTON canvas bags are environmentally friendly and are designed to be reused for grocery and household shopping. They reduce the impact of single-use plastic or paper bags on the environment. Everyone wants to go green, and Guyanese should not be excepted.

But embracing a greener lifestyle isn’t only about helping to preserve equatorial rain forests or supporting the Low Carbon Development Strategy. It can also mean improving your personal environment, improving your health, and ultimately improving your overall quality of life.
Plastic bags, distributed at shopping outlets, are creating all sorts of environmental problems. They are left to linger on planet Earth for the next 1,000 years in landfills, trees, rivers, oceans, and everywhere in between. However, we can all do our part in the fight against environmental degradation by adopting the use of one of the great eco-friendly products – reusable shopping bags.

The best way to avoid contributing to the problem of environmental degradation is to invest in some reusable bags, and use them for all of your shopping needs.
Locally, the thrust for a national switch to reusable shopping bags is being spearheaded by officials of the Georgetown Solid Waste Management Project (GSWMP).

Guyenterprise Advertising Agency, responsible for the public relations aspect of this project, is now targeting shops and business places in Georgetown and on the East Coast and East Banks of Demerara to package goods, wherever practicable, in reusable bags.

The scheme is at the stage of being fine tuned.

“We want shoppers who get the bags to reuse them, and not just take them home and leave them in a closet or cupboard,” an official explained.

The reusable bags to be distributed are being acquired with funds obtained from the Government of Guyana/Inter-American Development Bank (GoG/IDB) loan agreement on the GSWMP.

“The issue of sustainability of the project after the funds run out next year is also under active consideration,” the officer further explained.

Guyenterprise says that it is looking at the possibility of encouraging some grocery stores to offer ‘credits’ or discounts to customers who come shopping with their own reusable bags. This will account for the increases grocers have to add on to their prices in order to cover supplying ‘free’ plastic bags. So, over time, it is envisaged that reusable bags would pay for themselves and help save money on shopping expenses.

So think about it: how many plastic bags do you bring home on a weekly basis? Five? Ten? It all depends on how much shopping you do and how many people you’re shopping for; but a family of five can easily use 60 bags in a month. That’s 720 bags a year.

Allegedly, a set of four reusable would easily be able to handle that family’s shopping for a year; would not pollute the environment; would not kill any animals, and would not consume finite resources. Moreover, that set can be reused for many years.

Going green is the ‘in thing’ nowadays. Get or make an environmentally friendly reusable bag today.
Written By Clifford Stanley