Reusable Bags

Many of us have heard the numbers and know the facts, but let me refresh your memory from Reusablebags.com :

• --Society's consumption rate is now well over 500 billion plastic bags annually, almost 1 million per minute




• --High-density polyethylene bags are the main culprit, used to tote your purchases but will accumulate and persist on our planet for up to 1000 years




• --Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when the animals mistake the bags for food




• --According to the BBC, only 1 in 200 bags in the UK are recycled




• --The average family accumulates 60 bags in only four trips to the grocery store




• --Each high quality reusable bag you use has the potential to eliminate an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime

Food for Thought has a Wooden Nickle Program where customers are given a wooden nickle for each reusable bag they bring in and use in our store. Now what is the point? We have two charitable organizations at a time and the customer gets to choose where to put their nickles, and then Food for Thought matches the nickle by donating 10 cents for each nickle to the various organizations.

We currently carry several reusable bags and only use paper bags for purchases. Chico's brand of reusable bags are my favorite, mostly because you can fold them up and don't always run into the problem of forgetting them in your car or at home. We are also starting to carry our own line of reusable bags for each season, so come out and see own new Yellow, summertime Food for Thought bags!

Happy Earth Day!

Join us today in our Earth Day Celebration from 11a.m.-4p.m.  

Overwhelmed by all the green talk?  Check out the following easy ways to improve our planet!

10 steps to make the Earth a little better!

1 ) Take the time to recycle- and get your whole family involved! Check out this link to discover where you can take your recyables in Wichita!

2 ) Use one napkin when you get your morning coffee and bagel or get take out! If ordering in, request that the restaurant delivering to you not include napkins, plastic utensils or chopsticks. At home and in our lunch boxes we use cloth napkins.  They are way more effective and my children love the fun designs.  Americans use 2,200 paper napkins per year. If we all gave up one napkin a day, we could save a billion pounds of paper waste!

3 ) Change the light bulbs in your house to compact fluorescent light bulbs, which are 75% more energy-efficient than regular ones. If we all switched just one regular light bulb for a fluorescent one, we could prevent more than 30 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions and conserve enough energy to light up more than 15 million homes in an entire year. Although they do cost more, you end up saving more money on your electric bill.

4 ) Unplug electronics from wall. Get a surge protector for your computer, printer, phone chargers, tv and all other electronics and turn it off when you leave the house or go to bed at night!

5 ) Bring your own reusable bag when you go shopping. 385 billion plastic bags are used and discarded every year in the United States and can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade in landfills.

6 ) Don’t use products that contain harsh chemicals and bleach. These products are very bad for the health of your and your family, and also very bad for the environment!

7 ) Sign-up for Precycle, an organization that will cut down 70-90 % of your junk mail, which requires an estimated 100 million trees and 20 billion gallons of water every year. They also plant a tree a month for every member.   Or for free, the Direct Marketing Association estimates that listing with their mail preference service will stop 75% of all national mailings. They process 50,000 requests a month and requests are kept active for five years.

8) Stop buying and drinking from plastic disposable water bottles and buy a reusable stainless steel or BPA-free plastic water bottle and keep refilling it throughout the day.

9) Recycle your old computers and electronics (One place locally is Starkey, Inc. Electronics account for up to five percent of landfill volume and contributes up to 70 percent of the toxins found in landfills. 

10) Recycle your old, unwanted stuff on Freecycle. Freecycle is a site similar to eBay, except all of the items are free. It reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills, while enabling members to benefit.