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New non-profit tackles ‘witches knickers’
Green Today, Inc.: Plastic shopping bags a wasteful, toxic polluter

The disposable bag habit is a hard one to break, but a group of Highland Park residents is leading the charge.

With 100 billion plastic shopping bags used in the United States annually, four 22-year olds decided to form a nonprofit aimed at reducing plastic bag consumption, first in Central Jersey, then statewide. Green Today, Inc. delivered hundreds of their own reusable shopping bags direct to consumers between May 15th and 18th in Highland Park.

“Too many people vaguely know that they should not be using plastic bags, but few know how detrimental these bags really are,” said Green Today president Milo Schwab. The recent Rutgers grad teamed with three other local young adults to raise awareness and provide affordable solutions to the plastic bag pollution issue. “For something with such a simple solution, something needed to be done.”

Schwab and co-founders Ashwat Rishi, a senior at Rutgers, Dan Jobbins, a graduate of Boston University, and New Brunswick resident Yosh Talwar, a Rutgers senior, raised the money for incorporation by having a yard sale during the Highland Park fall yard sale weekend. Earlier this spring over 50 donors, primarily from Highland Park, have contributed $6,000 in contributions ranging from $20 to $1,000. A mid-May doorbelling campaign culminated in a booth and kids’ activity center at the H.P. Downtown street fair on May 18th.

Green Today plans to continue through the summer with outreach efforts at the Highland Park Community Food Pantry, as well as through press releases, regional farmers’ markets, summer camps, and growers’ cooperatives. In fall, a direct mailing and targeted programs at the elementary school are planned. A short lesson on the reasons to use reusable shopping bags will accompany more canvass bags on which the children will paint and keep for family use.

Plastic bags used in the USA each year: 100 billion bags

Barrels of oil required for US bags: 12 million barrels

Plastic bags used world-wide each year: 4 trillion bags

Percentage of plastic bags returned for recycling: 1%

Annual cost to US retailers for "free" bags: $4 Billion

Marine animals killed each year due to plastic bags: 100,000

Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups. They do not bio-degrade, they photo-degrade: breaking down into smaller and smaller bits, still toxic, which contaminate soil and water, and enter the food web when inevitably they are ingested.

Source: Green Today, Inc.

For further information on Green Today, contact Milo Schwab at 732.406-8215 or visit www.begreentoday.org.




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