The Cerritos City Council on Thursday approved plans for a massive, stainless steel shopping bags decoration that will adorn the main entrance of Los Cerritos Center mall at Gridley Road and South Street. The sculpture will be 20 feet high, 16 feet wide and 9 feet deep, and will glow with LEDs (light-emitting diodes) that project a range of colors.
Officials said the custom printed bag is expected to be completed by next May, just in time for the unveiling of a newly-renovated Nordstrom and 36,500 square feet of new shops and restaurants - all part of a $95 million mall expansion project.
Although it is hard to get an exact number on how many custom plastic bag are used per year worldwide, environmental groups have estimated that the number is between 500 billion to one trillion and it takes about 60-100 million barrels of oil to make the world's plastic bags each year. It can also take anywhere from 400-1000 years for these bags to biodegrade. Why such a rough estimate? Well, no one has been here long enough to see it happen.
Are these plastic custom bag really necessary and at what point do people decide that sheer convenience is not worth the environmental impact? Many have begun to carry cloth bag printing with them when they go grocery shopping, but not enough people have looked to their dry cleaner. Not only are those giant strips of plastic a suffocation risk for children and animals, but most people only use their custom printed shopping bag to take the clothes home and then toss them out.
One drycleaner estimated that his one dry cleaning store used between 50,000 to 100,000 plastic custom bags a year. This concerned business owner decided to make a difference. One Earth Day he passed out cloth garment custom printed bags to his customers free of charge. Not only would he get free advertising when customers carried the custom paper bags, but he was doing something good for the environment. About 300 million pounds of dry cleaning custom plastic bag are thrown out annually. To his amazement 60% of his customers have been returning with their plastic custom plastic bag. Although making the switch is about seven times the price of custom printed plastic bags at some point his cost will go down and he can feel good about what he is doing.
Dry cleaners cover the clothes after cleaning to keep them free of dust. It is a necessity for them to do their job properly, but unfortunately not all business owners can or will make the switch to cloth garment bags. If change is to happen customers need to make it happen. It can be as simple as bringing a garment bag from a department store and convincing your dry cleaner to use the bag. Many companies are now selling cloth bags that convert to garment custom plastic bag. It is the lack of convenience that may make some cleaners as well as patrons frown. They will actually have to match up the custom promotional bags to the clothes and their customers will have to remember to bring the bag. In the end, though, this little extra effort can make a big difference in our world.
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