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7 Creative Uses for Plastic                                              Home Escape Planning
Grocery Bags
                                                                         by Tanya Tanner, Goodyear Fire Department,
by Isha Cogborn, Waste Management                                        Community Education Coordinator
                                                                         According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA),
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans        your ability to evacuate a burning building depends on advance
use more than 380 billion plastic bags and wraps each year, requiring    warning from smoke alarms and advance planning. In 2014, there
a whopping 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture. When it comes       were an estimated 367,500 reported home structure fires and 2,745
to plastic bags, we have three choices: reduce, reuse and recycle.       associated civilian deaths in the United States.

Reduce                                                                   Fire can spread rapidly through your home, leaving you as little
                                                                         as one or two minutes to escape safely once the alarm sounds. A
Reusable grocery bags are inexpensive and convenient. Keep               closed door may slow the spread of smoke, heat and fire. Install
them in your car, but don’t forget to repack them for your next          smoke alarms in every sleeping room and outside each separate
shopping trip.                                                           sleeping area. Install alarms on every level of the home. Smoke
                                                                         alarms should be interconnected so that when one sounds, they all
Reuse                                                                    sound. Pull together everyone in your household and make a plan.
                                                                         Walk through your home and inspect all possible exits and escape
You probably use plastic grocery bags to line small garbage cans or      routes. Households with children should consider drawing a floor
scoop pet waste, but here are seven reuses you may not have considered:  plan of your home, marking two ways out of each room, including
                                                                         windows and doors. Also, mark the location of each smoke alarm.
1. Instead of bubble wrap, use plastic grocery bags to stuff your        For easy planning, download NFPA’s escape planning grid.
     boxes and save big on shipping materials.                           You can find it at: http://www.nfpa.org/public-education/by-
                                                                         topic/safety-in-the-home/escape-planning.This is a great way
2. Make plastic yarn or “plarn” for crochet projects like rugs,          to get children involved in fire safety in a non-threatening way.
     bags and even clothing! A YouTube or Google search will
     show you how. If you’re into DIY, you can find hundreds of          Include your guests in the plan by having an escape plan drawing of
     creative projects online to upcycle your plastic bags.              your home placed in the guest room. Have your address and phone
                                                                         number at the top of the page so, during an emergency, there is no
3. Tie plastic bags over your shoes when tracking through wet or         doubt or confusion. Remember to call 9-1-1 from outside the home.
     muddy areas.
                                                                         LPRC Summer Registration
4. When painting, line trays with plastic bags to make cleanup a snap.
                                                                         litchfield-park.org
5. Hot Arizona cars can lead to melted messes. Keep a couple of
     plastic bags in your glove box to wrap up items that can melt       Litchfield Park Recreation Center Lagartos Summer Swim
     in your car, until you can get to a trash can.                      Team registration for ages 5 to 18 opens Saturday, April 8, 2017.
                                                                         The 10-week season kicks off with an after school swim team
6. When traveling, put your shoes and dirty clothes in plastic           practice on Monday, May 8 and transitions to morning practices
     bags to separate them from clean items.                             on Tuesday, May 30 with the season concluding on Thursday,
                                                                         July 13. Show your community spirit and join the team! Summer
7. Tie up fruits and veggies in plastic bags to help them ripen faster.  program registration opens Monday, April 24 for Litchfield Park
                                                                         residents and Saturday, May 6 for non-residents. View and register
Recycle                                                                  for the majority of summer programs online at https://apm.
                                                                         activecommunities.com/litchfieldpark. Questions? Please call the
Can you put plastic bags in your curbside recycling cart? No.            Recreation Center office at 623-935-9040.
But you can return them to the grocery store to recycle. Waste
Management wants to make it easy for you to recycle often and
recycle right by focusing on these three rules:

1. Recycle bottles, cans and paper/cardboard.

2. Keep food and liquid out of your recycling.

3. Recycle plastic bags/wrap at the grocery store, not in your
     recycling cart.

   Learn more at our recycling education website
                   RecycleOftenRecycleRight.com.

8 | Apr-Jun 2017 Issue                                                   litchfield-park.org
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