DPL ditches the plastic

In December, Denver Public Library joined ALD in the effort to reduce plastic bag use...by offering patrons reusable bags for purchase as well as eliminating the use of plastic bags at all their branches. See their page on their new bags here!
In addition to this, four local grocery outlets – King Soopers, Safeway, Vitamin Cottage and Wal-Mart are implementing innovative measures that will reduce the use of disposable bags in their stores. How, you ask? Well the grocers have agreed to the following:

• Have cashiers promote reusable bags as customers check out
  
• Train checkers to make it as easy as possible for customers to use reusable bags, or avoid a bag altogether
  
• Prominently advertise reusable bag rebates
  
• Provide convenient recycling collection stations for plastic bags that are used
  
• Work with Greenprint Denver to document annual progress

According to studies done by Better Bags Colorado, over 50 million plastic bags are disposed of in Denver each year.
If each Denver resident reduced their annual use of plastic bags even by half, Michele Weingarden (Director of Greenprint Denver) said, "collectively we can save the amount of petroleum required to drive a car around the earth's equator more than 175 times."
Source greenprintdenver.org

Wow!