Plastic bags used to haul away purchases from groceries and other retail stores have a 15 second lifespan in terms of how typical customers make use of them. Multiply that usage by 1 million bags a minute worldwide and the plastic starts to pile up. Consider these easy come easy go bags take 10 or 20 years to decompose in a landfill and many of course get jettisoned into the environment where they blow around the landscape or float away in streams, rivers and oceans.

Lori Lawrence, of Bag Free Wichita, and Sheila Regehr, of Dillons Food Stores based in Hutchinson, outlined on the Kansas Reflector podcast strategies aimed at taking a bite out of demand and supply of plastic bags.