W.W. BYOBag
West Windsor...............Bring Your Own Bag
NJDEP Plastic Ban Law Information
Just a small change in our shopping routine can safely reduce plastics pollution that harms our environment and our bodies. Avoiding single-use bags for shopping and bringing your own reusable bags - a more sustainable practice - can make a difference.
The key to both protecting the environment by bringing your reusable bag, and using a bag safely, is the proper disinfecting of a reusable bag.
Clean Bags Often - Store Properly - Limit Surfaces Touched
Clean reusable bags as often and as carefully as you can. Check the label and make sure it can be washed properly.
Consumers use between 500 billion and a trillion single-use plastic bags each year worldwide. New Jersey residents consume 4.4 billion bags, the production of which requires 12 million barrels of oil, for an average of 12 minutes’ use. These bags, which never fully break down and with present technology are not economically recycled, take up valuable and shrinking landfill space. They often end up along our roadsides, parks, waterways and oceans, where they can degrade into tiny particles, which can end up in the seafood we eat. Plastics present significant long-term environmental harm to wildlife and our food supply. Reusable bags are a more sustainable alternative.
Research has identified the importance of keeping reusable bags clean. The University of Arizona and Loma Linda University in California conducted joint research and reported that eco-friendly bags can harbor harmful bacteria that can endanger our health if not properly cleaned. The researchers learned during their survey that 97% of the respondents never washed their reusable grocery shopping bags, and found E.coli contamination in over 50% of the total tested bags. (Sources: ANJEC, NIH, US EPA, & UANEWS)
Additional considerations:
- Prevent foodborne illnesses and choose a bag that suits the purpose that you can clean. Unprotected produce, meats, and prepared foods, which can drip contents, should be carried in separate bags and should be disinfected between uses.
- Keep bags in your cart and load them yourself, limiting the number of surfaces on which the bags are placed.
- Never put the grocery shopping bags in the baby carrier area.
- For smaller orders, consider packing your items directly into the cart, and placing them into reusable bags at your vehicle.
- If you prefer mesh grocery shopping bags hand-wash them in hot water and liquid detergent. Air dry.
