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Stewardship Tip – The Five Cent Incentive
By Arshia | February 15, 2011
The credit appeared at the bottom of the receipt. The store refunded five cents off my total for each reusable bag that I used. My total refund was twenty five cents. It was not enough to pay my son’s tuition bill, heck, it wasn’t’ enough to buy a candy bar. The savings, though, were starting to add up over time.
Many large retailers, including Kroger, CVS, Target, and Giant Food Stores offer discounts for using reusable bags. These programs are usually straightforward. You receive a discount for each reusable bag that you bring in and use.
We’ve railed against plastic bags on numerous occasions. But any single use bag, whether made from plastic or paper, represents a tremendous waste of resources.
Paper bags often receive better publicity than plastic bags because they are recyclable. However, the effluent from the manufacture of paper can contain phosphorus and nitrogen. These chemicals can cause the eutrophication of water bodies that are adjacent to paper mills which can adversely affect populations of fish.
Plastic bags, in contrast, are recyclable but cannot be reduced to an organic state. Almost lighter than air, it is not difficult to find plastic bags littering landscapes worldwide. When exposed to sunlight, plastic bags become brittle and break in to smaller pieces. Fish often mistake these smaller pieces for food and ingest them.
The choice, at least in our minds, is clear. Reusable bags are not only practical; they are the better choice for our fish. Reusable bags save resources and reduce the amount of trash that could end up in a fish’s mouth.
Help the fish and save a nickel. Not a bad deal.
This week’s sponsor-partner: LRN2FISH.com
Recycled Fish is proud to be the conservation partner to Ice Roads Schools.
Whether you’re a seasoned ice angler, or someone who lives down South and would like to be able to scratch “ice fishing” off your bucket list, these schools are a lot of fun.
Check out the Ice Roads Schools at lrn2fish.com
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