Category: News

The time has come for retail outlets to abandon the disposable plastic shopping bag. Not only do plastic shopping bags end up all over the streets of towns and cities, they end up in lakes, rivers, and the ocean, where they choke marine life and birds. Whatever the convenience offered by plastic shopping bags, their destructive impact is just too much. Re-usable shopping bags are now available from most retailers for a small fee, normally around $1 per bag. Buying
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Los Angeles City is enacting a ban on all disposable plastic shopping bags for the retail sector. On 25 June 2013, City Council passed a vote approving the bill for a two-stage application. The bill applies to large retail stores from the first of January next year. For smaller retailers, the ban applies from June 2014. After applying the ban, shoppers will have to bring their own shopping bag or buy a paper shopping bag for ten cents. Quarterly reports
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Australia is a land girt by sea, and it’s Australia’s job to make sure that our surrounding bodies of water are kept in the best shape possible. From east coast to west coast and everywhere in-between, Australia is teeming with beautiful wildlife. Protecting our wildlife is easy; just follow these ten simple tips. Avoid using white coloured lights on beaches at night during Sea Turle hatching period. White lights confuse them on their journey to the water, so use a
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Despite the desire to behave in an environmentally-friendly way, it’s easy to feel restricted by the pressures of time, work and family commitments. Climate change, pollution and poverty are all issues that matter and are issues that many people feel helpless in regards to affecting change. However, there are simple ways to help the planet with little effort involved, according to Sarah Johnson, National Energy and Sustainability Programs Manager of the Australian Conservation Foundation. “People think they need to make
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Despite the pressures and demands on time that characterise modern life, eco living should be given top priority. As energy costs increase and social awareness is piqued, now is the perfect time to make your home and lifestyle more environmentally sound. Furnishings and homewares that are green and sustainable are becoming widely available and frequently used. Antiques and green homeware options can make wonderful interior design choices and can help to create a rustic or natural feel. By planting herbs,
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For many years, ‘disposable’ has been understood to mean ‘discarded after use’. Razors, nappies, utensils, cups, cameras and packaging have all been created and used in disposable forms. However, the popularity of ‘disposable’ as a marketing term is plummeting. The declining acceptability of ‘disposable’ is largely due to the fact that fossil fuels are used to make many disposable plastics, which often take centuries to decompose in landfill. As a result, initiatives to ban disposable shopping bags are gaining momentum.
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In 2003, the town of Coles Bay in Tasmania banned the use of non-biodegradable plastic shopping bags. Now, the popular holiday town with a population of less than 300 citizens is calling on the federal government to institute a nationwide ban on the bags. Not-for-profit organisation DoSomething! estimates that at least 50 billion plastic bags have been used by Australians over the last decade. Although shoppers quickly adopted the use of green bags, politicians never put the promised national ban
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50 schools across the Hunter region are participating in a Binless Playground Day campaign, where all playground bins will be removed. The purpose is to reduce the amount of waste children produce each day with their school meals. Reusable containers for lunch and snacks, along with reusable drink bottles, are being encouraged instead of disposable ones. That means no more juice poppas or sandwiches in cling wrap. Maitland Public School is just one of the schools participating in the campaign,
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According to Mat Nott of Fraser Coast Chronicle, councillors who voted against proposed plans to ban plastic bags ‘need their heads read’. Nott expressed that the choice is a denial of the area’s environmental responsibility and that those councillors who voted against the idea are anti-environmental. Nott believes that councillors denied the proposal to ban plastic bags because it would cost local businesses too much. There were also arguments that it was too much change too close to the floods,
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The Forbes Environmentally Concerned Community group (FECC) wants plastic bags gone from NSW. Members of the group have been circulating a petition that asks local residents to sign in support of ridding single-use plastic bags from NSW. Pip Perry, an active member of FECC said that the Lane Cove Sustainability Action Group have come on board with the project in order to collect more signatures for the petition. The petition will be collated at the end of the financial year
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Orange’s City Council is planning to ban plastic bags in the hopes of making the city more environmentally friendly. The City Council is unable to enforce any legislation that bans plastic bags but is trying to sway individuals and businesses to be more eco-friendly with their choices, according to Councillor Neil Jones. The Council was pleased at some company’s choices, like Aldi and Bunnings who have adopted a no-plastic bags policy. They were urging other companies to follow suit but
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Giving away promotional items not only attracts potential customers, but it also builds a solid brand image for your business. A promotional bag with your logo on it will not only be useful for the recipient, but will also be seen by other people every day. Shopping bags make for fantastic promotional items not only for their practicality, but also because they are cheap to produce and easy to distribute. However, many other companies are already using this strategy, so
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Promotional shopping bags are one of the hottest promotional items out there at the moment, so businesses need to get creative to make their bag stand out from the others. Laptop bags, conference bags and tote bags are some examples of popular promotional bags, but you need to choose one that best represents your business. For example, if you’re running a retail grocery store, then canvas shopping bags are representative of your business. Finding a bag that represents the type
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If you have a product that you think is ready to be launched, then you need to ensure that it’s launched correctly. A good design and a decent price alone won’t make your product a success, so here are the steps you need to take to get your product off the ground: Promoting your product is key for a successful launch. Use products such as promotional bags, pens and so forth, in combination with social media and other traditional forms
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These days, technological innovations have made consumers even more savvy than ever. So when it comes to marketing strategies like loyalty programs, businesses must work extra hard to please the evolving customer. To create an effective loyalty program, smart marketers should keep the following points in mind: Modern customers will consolidate their purchasing under the loyalty programs that give them the most relevant rewards, so offer options for earning and redeeming tailored rewards. Never take hard-earned points away from customers
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IKEA announced that it will stop selling plastic disposable shopping bags in its stores in Singapore, from 23 March, 2013. IKEA first announced six years ago that disposable plastic bags would be supplied for a charge, with the proceeds from the sales donated to fund eco-education programs run by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).  Since then, it has donated close to S$550,000 to support conservation programmes.  The money was raised from 18 million pieces of plastic bags that
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Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, says it’s time for California to adopt a statewide ban on plastic bags similar to ones already in place in several Bay Area cities.  He is confident that he can persuade his colleagues in Sacramento to support the nation’s first statewide ban of disposable plastic shopping bags. Newly elected Levine said that a ban is necessary because the bags are not recyclable, they were being sent to landfills where they can take up to 1,000
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According to figures from Planet Ark, Sydney’s inner-west residents are ahead of the game when it comes to finding ways to recycle Christmas lunch leftovers and unwanted presents during the holiday season. Out of the $10 billion Australians spend on food every December, more than 35 per cent is thrown away, according to its website statistics. This year, however, there were spikes in online recycling research by residents in inner-west local government areas, as residents looked for ways to recycle
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According to Environment Minister Andrew Powell, the cost implications of going bag-free are a larger concern than the environmental implications. Australians use four billion lightweight plastic bags every year, prompting a petition from Queenslanders to ban the bags at retail sale points in the state by the end of 2012. “The government does not want to be in the position of having removed one cost to Queenslanders in the form of the levy only to introduce a new scheme that
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Environmental groups on the Central Coast are optimistic about their efforts to battle marine litter. Representatives from a wide variety of environmental organisations came together recently to put on a workshop to help people find ways to fight litter in and around their local waterways. Groups such as Ocean and Coastal Care Initiatives, Central Coast Marine Discovery Centre, Take 3, Gosford Council, Kariong Eco Garden and Central Coast Waterwatch attracted large crowds. The workshops were coordinated by the Hunter-Central Rivers
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The recently announced Healthy Harbour program was set up by the state government in Queensland in order to monitor any water-quality issues that may arise from a second shipping channel. The state government has finalised its terms of reference for the Gladstone Ports Corporation to follow as it works on the environmental impact assessment for the duplicate of the Gladstone shipping channel. The project has attracted a lot of criticism, as it will involve side-scale dredging, which causes poor water
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While trade shows can help promote your small business, it is quite expensive to attend them. Fortunately, it’s possible to have an effective trade show exhibit without putting your small business into debt. Some of the major costs associated with trade show exhibits include: designing and constructing the booth, equipment, promotional items, setup costs, space rental, utilities, staffing the booth and promoting your presence at the show. Don’t let these expenses turn you off, however, because the benefits of attending
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Delhi generates almost 250,000 tonnes of plastic waste every year, according to Toxics Link, an environmental NGO. That means that over 10 million plastic bags are used and discarded daily by the 16 million residents. Not only do these bags clutter the streets and parks of the city, but they also pose health risks to animals and humans because of the toxins contained in the bags. In response to these issues, the city’s Chief Minister Sheila Dixit wants to ban
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When it comes to promoting products, especially designer clothing and accessories, no one can do it better than A-list celebrities. Toronto handbag designer Jessica Jensen experienced this first hand when she placed her products in the Tastemasters Lounge at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is where celebrities can drop by and choose free gifts or “swag.” While getting products into these swag lounges isn’t cheap, it can really pay off if celebrities then use the products, as they did
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Even if saving the environment isn’t their primary concern, Randwick residents are still helping thanks to a new recycling scheme that rewards residents when they put recyclable rubbish into their yellow bins. The pilot scheme, run by GreenMoney, hopes that $5 dollar coupons will encourage residents to recycle and reduce the amount of waste going to the landfill, such as by using reusable shopping bags. GreenMoney’s Camilla Cooke said that for each kilogram of rubbish in the recycling bin, the
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