I hope I don’t sound rude, but if you want exact figures (since “hundreds of thousands” sounds like “throwing a dart at a wall”) perhaps you should look up scientific journals instead? If you want to know how much fuel and carbon emissions are wasted in order to count them, perhaps you should also seek some scholarly papers, instead of reading a blog?

For your information, Giving Hands is a simple-to-understand blog on matters concerning the environment, charity, volunteerism, etc. It is tailored for the laymen, who want and need only the most basic information.

Throwing a dart at a wall filled with numbers (ie: Hundreds of thousands) in order to attempt to make an emotional impact to make your point is blatantly misleading and should call attention to the motives, and also to what other facts are misrepresentated. If not purely ficticious.

Now, I agree that biodegradable products is by far better than plastic where the ecosystem is concerned. It’s just the figures that I find purely laughable and insulting.

For years prior to the use of plastic, the environmentalists and other groups where shoving the plastic bags onto us to protect the amount of trees being cut down. Now they’ve changed their minds?

They been shoving Bio-Fuels (from Corn etc) on us and what does it do? It causes food prices to increase as well as feed for livestock, lowers Vehicle MPG, and causes more polution to create than what it’s worth.

For the last two years I stepped it up, and I just carry as much as I can in my hands, and use no bags, and have some nice conversations with checkout folks - many are supportive, but their jobs require them to bag or double-bag everything (unless the customer requests not to).

For larger trips I bring cloth bags. I do feel much better - make a little effort and one actually feels MORE free. It seems that happiness is not lack of responsibility and freedom to do whatever, it is taking on responsibility and making choices in which you believe.