What started out as a simple jog ended up as a journey. On my trek around the neighborhood I “ran into” a startling problem hanging from trees and literally blowing in the wind. I saw too many plastic bags littering in areas that they should not have found a home. As soon as I got home I shared my experience with my wife Suzanne. “When Chris came through the door after his run insisting that we had to help people recycle their plastic bags, I knew our lives were about to change.”

My wife and I began our journey the next morning. Our first call was to our local grocery store to find out what they were doing with the plastic bags customers were bringing back to the stores. A few hundred calls, emails and research hours later Go R.I.S.E Up was born. A simple solution to a complex problem.

Thank you for taking the time to visit our site and taking your first step on the journey to Go R.I.S.E Up! What does it mean to Go R.I.S.E Up? We chose this phrase as our mantra for many reasons, one being that Recycling Is Saving Earth. Recycling has been a huge success for certain material all over the world. We hope to continue this level of success into Go R.I.S.E Up.
Another reason why we choose the name was that we wanted people to go rise up, take notice, and action about events in their lives that they could control every day and that would have an immediate impact on their environment. Less than 2% of the 100 billion plastic shopping bags used annually in the United States are currently being recycled. The Earth is not getting any bigger but our population as a planet is growing at an ever increasing rate. An increasing population with a limited amount of natural resources presents a major challenge for food, trade, and sustainability in the coming decades. Small steps such as this mission are one way to keep us moving in the right direction.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." - Lao-Tzu

Take your first step and Go R.I.S.E Up!