Plastic facts

This information is taken from reusablebags.com. 

Top Facts - Consumption

• Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.
  
• According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year. 
  
• According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion) 
  
• According to the industry publication Modern Plastics, Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year - 900 per person. 
  
• According to Australia's Department of Environment, Australians consume 6.9 billion plastic bags each year - 326 per person. An estimated 0.7% or 49,600,000 end up as litter each year.
  

Top Facts - Environmental Impact

• Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.
  
• Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade - breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.
  
• As part of Clean Up Australia Day, in one day nearly 500,000 plastic bags were collected. 
  
• Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC, one group harvests 30,000 per month.
  
• According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone "from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78 degrees North [latitude] to Falklands 51 degrees South [latitude]." 
  
• Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation.
  

All the more reason for you to go green and help protect our environment with reusable sandwich and snack bags, market bags and totes.  To purchase these bags, check out my Etsy shop or contact me at fraybaby@live.com to place an order. 

Knitting Totes!

I had a fellow Etsian tell me that she loved my shop, especially my totes, and asked me if I could make a knitting tote. I had ordered some tall canvas bags awhile ago and was wondering how I was going to use them in my shop. I wanted to make something fun and funky and with her question, my canvas bags had a purpose! So I began cutting and measuring some of my new home decor fabrics and made different size pockets, had the fun task of sewing those into interior of the canvas bags and then I made beautiful and perfectly fitted sleeves for the tote to fit the exterior of the tote. Slide tote in, line it up, seam up the edges and it's finished! It was a little time consuming but after I figured out all the measurements and pocket placement the rest fell into place.
I lined the pockets with fusible interfacing for added strength and durability. I made the knitting needle pocket in a way that there is no bottom seam on the pocket so your needles, or anything else, can never poke through the bottom. And of course these totes can be used in other ways besides as knitting totes - use it as your market tote, bible study tote, book club tote, diaper tote...you get the idea.
The measurements are 16" tall, 13 1/2" wide at the opening (10" wide at the base) and 3 1/2" deep. The tall pocket is 4" wide by 13 1/2" tall and the smaller pocket is 6" by 7".

Find these knitting totes, along with other totes and cute baby accessories at my Etsy shop - FrayBabyBibsandMore!

Ribbons Zoo Knitting Tote

FREDRIKA meterware (from IKEA Regensnerg) Knitting Tote