Plastic bag anniversary

The folks of Modbury, on the Devonshire coast in England, have just finished their first year of banning plastic grocery bags in their town. The result: The village hopes to turn the rest of the world away from the bags that clog waterways, end up in the stomachs of sea creatures and create a blight on any landscape they're used in.

The campaign started with a BBC producer's trip to Midway Atoll, where thousands of birds had died from ingesting bits of plastic. She went home, to her home village, and convinced the merchants to give plastic the heave-ho.

A year later, the reports from Modbury are good and available online at plasticbagfree.com While most storeowners switched to compostable-biodegradable bags made from cornstarch, even more shoppers decided they'd just take their own re-usable canvas bags to the stores with them.

This bag-free revolution was joined recently by Whole Foods and Wild Oats market.