Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Saturday, June 30, 2007

This past Earth Day, as I was winding my way through the many displays and participants at Chicago’s first Green Festival, I bumped into someone whose costume was at once outrageous and unforgettable. Right there, in the cavernous McCormick Place/ Lakeside convention center, crammed with people wanting information and affirmation about green living, where I’d had the privilege of sharing the message about simpler, more sustainable lifestyles with a large, engaged audience, I bumped up into a disturbing visual reminder of our culture of convenience: no, not a bag lady but a bag man.

Andrew Keller, owner and inventor of the reusable, lightweight nylon bags called Chicobags, was decked out in a costume that you’d have to see to fully appreciate: a body suit to which 700 empty plastic bags were affixed. (You will get to see this bag man in the next season of Simple Living.) Every inch of Keller’s body—save his eyes, nose and mouth—was covered with limp plastic bags, hanging off him like airy shingles as a visual reminder of an egregiously hideous aspect of our culture of excess.

The average American uses between 300 and 700 plastic shopping bags every year, Keller told me, which translates into 3 to 7 gallons annually of crude oil expended to support or our habit of convenience. Keller, whose company is based in Chico, California, says that if Californians gave up what he calls “the plastic bag habit,” 2.4 million barrels of oil would be saved. Further, he calls the single-use plastic bag “the poster-child of waste” and has merged his business of selling the reusable bags into an educational and environmental campaign.

In addition to selling the bags individually and in bulk, Keller offers them for fundraising tools for schools, faith communities and other purposes. He cleverly has put together a “self test for single-use bag addiction” that you can take by visiting his website at chicobag.com. In fact, unless you’re already vigilantly fighting this battle and equipped with your own reusable bags, you’re probably guilty of passive compliance.

The most telling moment for me occurred when our cameras were shooting an interview with Keller and his partner decked out in the outfit on North Michigan Avenue the morning after I first encountered him. There we were on the wide sidewalk, with Keller dressed in street clothing and his partner in the goofy outfit. When a woman approached walking her three dogs, they were so frightened of the bag man that they tried to break loose of their leashes. The woman later commented that she had never seen her dogs more frightened. Out of the mouths of babes comes the truth, we understand. On that windy day in April in the Windy City, the emotional reaction of two dogs spoke the truth about one frightening face of a culture that’s lost its way and needs a correction in course.