Biodegradable Plastic Bags

Biodegradable Plastic Bags - A Good Choice for the Environment

Retail business owners need to keep up with new technology if they want to stay competitive, including using biodegradable plastic bags and lessening their footprint on the planet.

The retail industry followed the same management and customer practices for thousands of years. Consumers and merchants met face to face. They bargained and bartered then exchanged goods. The industry changed dramatically after 1960. In fact, it is changing so fast that marketing and research companies are having a hard time keeping up.

Every decade the experts claim the retail industry cannot sustain any more changes, then it explodes. Big box stores destroyed Main Street. Online shopping stores no longer limited consumers to products available at their local stores. EBay took control of Christmas shopping out of the Mall's hands and put it in home based business owners.

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The home based business industry has grown. Many cottage industries have grown into major retailers. This has brought its own problems. Packaging waste and plastic bags cause the biggest problem. All retailers need to consider the global impact of waste when deciding whether biodegradable plastic bags are worth paying a little more.

The price is less than $5 per 1000 bags, when buying for small business. But, there are a lot of reasons why using eco-friendly products makes good business sense. The first and foremost is consumer awareness. Any website, EBay, Yahoo Shopping, ecommerce site can add the familiar eco-friendly logo. There is a growing number of consumers who will patronize a website or retailer because they take the effort to be ecologically responsible.

Ecommerce retailers need to be extra careful. Their products travel to areas with no recycling or managed waste programs. This can drastically damage the local environment. Biodegradable Plastic Bags can break down anywhere, even if they are not properly handled, instead of polluting the environment and harming wildlife.

Local retail, flea market vendors, and road side vegetable sellers should consider biodegradable plastic over paper. Most of the population doesn�t understand that paper is harder on the environment than plastic.

It takes less energy to make a plastic bag than paper.

Safeway Plastic Bags: 594 BTUs

Safeway Paper Bags: 2511 BTUs

Source: http://www.reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=7

In 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year alone. This has a major impact on global warming.

Paper is also harder on the environment. A growing industry is exploding around plastic recycling. It is cheaper to recycle plastic than paper. Also, 40% of all landfill is paper, which is not degrading. There are reports of newspapers more than 70 years old that are still in perfect condition.

The plastic bag industry is adding compounds to their bags to expedite the compost process. The technology can reduce the time needed for plastic bags to decompose. This reduces the ecological footprint left by the retail industry.

Eco-Friendly is good business. A lot of businesses are increasing their loyal customer base, and attracting new clients by advertising their eco-responsible practices. Biodegradable plastic bags lets retailers advertise on the bag, as well as educate the public on how plastic bags save the environment.