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Reusable Grocery Bags Given Away

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Roger Johnson (stock photo)

Aug 8 2007 12:00AM
http://www.nddemnpl.blogspot.com/

Via Roger Johnson's office...

FARGO – Some 2,000 Fargo shoppers were given bright green, reusable bags Wednesday, to carry their groceries home.

“This effort is aimed at encouraging consumers to help the environment by carrying their groceries home in reusable bags, instead of plastic,” said Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson, who helped distribute the bags at the Osgood Hornbacher’s Foods location. “Disposable plastic bags drain non-renewable sources of energy and are a major source of garbage.”

The North Dakota Department of Agriculture (NDDA) announced the Reusable Bag Campaign earlier this year during Earth Week. Also taking part in the project are Hornbacher’s Foods, the Office of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, Cass County Electric and Gate City Bank.

The North Dakota Soybean Council distributed environmentally friendly, soy-based crayons to kids during the grocery bag giveaway.

“We hope this event is the first of several across the state,” Johnson said. “We will work to partner with grocery stores in other North Dakota cities to organize similar events.”

Johnson said the problems caused by plastic bags are worldwide, prompting some countries and even some U.S. communities to ban them.

“More than a billion plastic bags are used every day, but only one to three percent of them are recycled,” he said. “Most of them end up in landfills, or worse, as litter. You see them all the time along roadsides and in the fields in even the most remote parts of our state.”

He also said the cost of plastic bags is serious in the short term, but the consequences are worse in the long run.

“American retailers spend about $4 billion on plastic bags every year, and those costs are passed on to consumers,” Johnson said. “Those plastic bags may take up to 1,000 years to degrade, contaminating our soil and water and endangering animal and marine life.”

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