Do You Ever Feel Like a Plastic Bag Floating in the Wind
Plastic bags are a convenient fashion to carry our purchased appurtenances when we go shopping. They are a role of our modernistic lives, and we don't tend to think much well-nigh them. In fact, it is estimated that up to 10 million plastic numberless are used every minute around the globe [i].
300 to 700 plastic bags laissez passer through the hands of an boilerplate American in just one twelvemonth [eight] and a survey of the Section for Surroundings, Food and Rural Affairs concluded that the average household in the United Kingdom stores effectually twoscore plastic shopping bags at domicile [ii].
What about you? Exercise you also have that overflowing kitchen drawer full of plastic numberless you bring from your shopping trips?
If the answer is yes, you should know that this inadvertent overconsumption of unmarried-use plastic carries with information technology a very high cost to the environment, which in turn also negatively affects our wellness.
How? Well, allow's have a look at the near of import reasons why single-use plastic bags should be banned correct now.
Quick Navigation for Reasons Why Plastic Shopping Bags Should Exist Banned
10 Good reasons why are plastic bags bad for us and for the environment
#1 Plastic numberless pollute our country and water
Plastic numberless are everywhere. Wait around and you lot will detect that plastic numberless are the almost common litter. Tangled in copse and fences along roads, floating in h2o, lying on the basis in parks and forests, surrounding garbage bins, done off on beaches…
Considering they are so lightweight, plastic numberless get easily picked up past air current and travel long distances past wind and water to pollute the nature.
Plastic purse litter has even caused great problems in some areas. For example, millions of discarded plastic numberless clog water drainage channels and sewers in urban areas of Bangladesh. When the monsoon rains start, streets get waterlogged just afterwards the first few minutes because the water cannot pass through clogged sewerage pipes.
For many of us information technology is hard to imagine that something as pocket-sized every bit a plastic bag can really cause flooding, only residents of some cities in Bangladesh have been struggling with this problem every monsoon season for the past 2 decades [3].
The Pasig River in the Philippines is another scary example of the negative effects of plastic bags on the environs. Some tributaries of the river take been filled with plastic waste to the level that y'all could almost walk beyond them without getting your feet wet. Unfortunately, such a high level of pollution doesn't come without consequences. The Pasig River is the eight worst source of ocean plastic pollution in the world.
#two Plastic bags are made from not-renewable resources and contribute to climate change
We hear everywhere effectually u.s. that we need to save energy. It is skillful for our environment, wellness and global climate. But only a few of us realize that each time we accept those disposable plastic grocery bags at store checkout, we actively participate in wasting energy and depleting non-renewable resource.
The majority of plastic bags are made of polyethylene, a substance that is derived from crude oil refining and natural gas processing.
Oil and natural gas are not-renewable fossil fuel-based resources and through their extraction and production, they emit greenhouse gases, which contribute to global climate modify.
The product of these bags is very energy intensive. Globally, 8 to 10 percent of our current oil supply goes to a plastic bag manufacture [4]. In the The states lonely, statistics reach upward to 12 one thousand thousand barrels of oil that are used each twelvemonth to produce even more than plastic bags – 100 billion more, to give y'all the precise number [5].
To produce nine plastic bags, it takes the equivalent energy to drive a car i kilometer (more than 0.5 miles).
Using these non-renewable resources to brand plastic numberless is very short-sighted, considering that the typical useful life of each plastic bag is about 12 minutes and that the world's oil reserves comprise plenty oil to cover our needs through 2050, as the U.S. Free energy Information Assistants estimates.
#iii Plastic bags never break down
Petroleum-based plastic bags are composed of very resistant synthetic polymers that may take up to 1,000 years or never until they completely degrade in natural environments [6]
What does occur in most instances is that when out in the environment, the plastic breaks up into tiny microscopic pieces that get deposited in soils (where nosotros grow nutrient) or contaminate waterways. These pieces can be then small that they are invisible to our eye.
You can exist sure of one thing, though. Fifty-fifty when you don't see it, these indestructible particles are everywhere around us, including in the food chain.
Already in 2001, researchers institute that the mass of microscopic plastic fragments in the North Pacific Key Gyre was 6 times higher than of plankton. The subtropical gyres of the North Pacific Ocean are likewise documented to incorporate the highest concentrations of plastic. It'due south because Asian and U.s. coastlines release large amounts of plastic waste in the ocean [vii].
But this comes forth with many unanswered questions. We exercise not know the total impact of microplastics exceeding the mass of plankton in the ocean. We don't know how it will in the long term affect plankton-feeding species and their predators.
Scientists have recorded some species of zooplankton eating tiny plastic particles. Considering what important source of food plankton is for many other species, information technology is clear that plastic gets distributed beyond the marine ecosystem.
The truth is that we do not know nevertheless the total scale of negative impacts plastic waste tin take on marine and terrestrial environments considering information technology hasn't been around long enough to allow usa to appraise possible scenarios of its influence on natural cycles.
However, one thing we know, is that past introducing a pollutant that may never break downwards in the environment can have implications that will far exceed any of our predictions.
#4 Plastic bags are harmful to wild animals and marine life
Have you ever seen endangered body of water turtles hatch? They are tinier than a palm of your hand and announced and so frail when struggling across the beach to make it to the sea.
Even human footprints left in the sand represent mountain-like obstacles in their path and waves washing up on the beach are another challenge, as they thrust them back on the dry country to try in one case again before finally existence picked upward past a return electric current and start pond for their life.
Since their birth, babe turtles take but ane goal – to get to the sea and swim into deep waters where they will feed and if successful grow into adult turtles. On their long journey, they will encounter many difficulties and only a small portion of them will survive.
Sadly, i of their newly acquired enemies is created past us who should protect them instead. Plastic bags.
Plastic bags floating in the body of water resemble jellyfish, ane of the master sources of food for some species of body of water turtles, specially the critically-endangered Leatherback turtles.
According to a study carried out in 2013, up to 35 percent of turtle deaths were caused by plastic ingestion and the probability that ocean turtles will consume even more plastic increases every year [9].
Sea turtles are not the only species suffering from plastic handbag pollution of the environment.
Well-nigh 20 years ago, a expressionless pelican was institute with its stomach filled with 17 plastic bags [10]. In 2008, a crocodile in Australia died because of 25 plastic bags filling its stomach [xi]. A calf had to exist put down because of indigestion acquired past 8 plastic bags in its stomach. These examples could become on for a long time…
Plastic bags are oftentimes mistaken for food by animals, birds, and marine life. The consumed plastic congests the digestive tracts of these animals, and can atomic number 82 to health issues such as infections, painful intestinal blockage, starvation or death by suffocation.
The most heartbreaking function of this is that the affected animals are not aware they eat something that volition make them experience miserable and will slowly kill them.
Animals can also easily become entangled in this plastic waste. There were numerous cases of birds caught in plastic numberless, unable to fly and feed, eventually strangling themselves to death.
Similar fate has met dolphins, seals, cats, dogs, deer and many other animals which got severely cut on their bodies due to plastic purse entanglement.
National Geographic made a video on how helpless it feels to be caught in a plastic pocketbook. Take a expect yourself to imagine the suffering of these animals.
A last case of a true horror caused past plastic has been discovered only recently. A 2018 study of coral reefs in the Asia-Pacific has confirmed that plastic waste deposited on coral reefs promotes outbreaks of diseases that gradually destroy whole reef colonies [12]. And so, plastic waste only speeds up the destruction of these about biodiverse ecosystems on globe.
#five Plastic bags are harmful to human health
Many of you may have heard it already. Tiny plastic particles have been constitute in human feces.
But is it really that surprising?
Microplastics were found in soft drinks like Coca Cola, in tap water, in seafood… It has contaminated our food chain, and then it should not surprise u.s.a. that information technology can be tracked in our body.
In fact, according to researchers, every 2nd person on the planet could accept some microplastic in the body [13].
The reason to worry is that scientists do not know how our metabolism and immunity will react to the increased concentration of plastic particles in our system. They suspect that information technology may add stress on the liver past introducing more pathogens into the body.
Additionally, plastics in our digestive tract may impact absorption of some important trace elements (similar atomic number 26) which we need for maintaining proper health [13].
Plastic bags and plastic products overall comprise substances that are harmful to our health. The most mutual are inorganic dyes that are added to modify the colour of plastic numberless.
These dyes on their own can leach toxins, but they can also be contaminated with traces of heavy metals such as lead or cadmium, both of which bear on kidney wellness and proper performance of other organs.
Plastic fragments in the ocean such as those from plastic bags tin absorb pollutants like PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and PAHs (Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) easily. These are known to be hormone-disrupting chemicals.
Another indirect danger of plastic bags has breeding ground in the pollution they create.
Plastic waste that clogs water drainage channels and river tributaries of many Asian cities increases exposure of residents to h2o-borne diseases, as information technology creates a toxic soup that remains stranded in i identify for prolonged periods of time.
#6 Plastic bags are not easy to recycle
As plastic bags tend to get caught in recycling machinery, most recycling facilities do non take the capacity to recycle plastic bags and therefore do not accept them.
In fact, plastic bags are considered past many recycling facilities the number one contaminant and their removal from the recycling stream costs municipalities close to $1 million a year [18].
Since plastic pocketbook recycling requires a specialized equipment that can break down the plastic and mold information technology into a new product, about municipalities do non have the upkeep to include their recycling in their waste direction program. So, plastic bag recycling facilities are few and far between and transportation to one could be expensive.
As a result, the actual recycling rate for plastic numberless globally is between 5 to fifteen percent, while in the United States it makes only i percent a yr [17].
An additional trouble with plastic grocery numberless recycling is their cleanliness. Ideally, to be suitable for recycling, bags demand to be clean to be accustomed, which is often a problem, considering that we apply them to conduct groceries and potentially leaky appurtenances.
#7 Plastic numberless are costly to pay for and to clean up afterwards
If there is ane slice of advice that everyone should remember, it would be that "nothing is for free" in this world.
While we may non pay for plastic bags direct when nosotros become shopping, they are anything but "free."
On average, plastic bags cost retailers about iii-five cents each. It may not seem like much, only when you imagine how many bags they take to provide throughout a year, you volition rapidly realize that plastic bags are costly. So, retailers incorporate this cost "hiddenly" into prices of other items sold at stores.
Additionally, someone has to pay the toll of dealing with plastic numberless in the waste stream. This includes waste collection, regular cleanups to remove plastic bag litter forth the roads or diddled away from landfills and and then even processing at landfill sites.
According to some estimates, the cost of plastic bag cleanup is near 17 cents per bag [fourteen] and the cost is paid by us again.
On average, taxpayers stop up paying about $88 per year just on plastic bag waste matter [15].
So that "gratis" plastic purse isn't so free afterward all.
#8 Plastic numberless accept external costs
Across the costs associated with the production and purchasing of plastic bags past retailers, in that location are many external costs that are oftentimes not considered.
These costs include the true environmental costs of resources extraction and depletion, the loss of quality of life, economical loss from littering, and wild animals loss.
Unfortunately, such costs are typically not included in most economic analyses, as they are not easy to calculate considering the equation would take to involve many indirect variables.
However, in 2014, the United Nations Surroundings Programme (UNEP) supported the outset project to calculate the "real" cost of plastic, including adverse environmental impacts of its production, utilise and disposal.
The resulting number is staggering. Plastic use costs approximately $75 billion a twelvemonth [xvi].
#nine At that place are better alternatives available, and jobs to go with them!
The very best alternative is a reusable bag. Do you wonder why?
The explanation is quite simple. Reusable shopping numberless are very durable and can be reused many times over the course of their useful life.
This means that you are not consuming more resource every time you need to carry your groceries home. Instead, you are actually reusing a production, and that means that you are utilizing earth'south resources smartly, while at the same fourth dimension reducing waste.
For instance, a reusable jute bag should terminal at to the lowest degree iv years, during which it can preclude the utilise of 600 single-utilise plastic bags.
Once a person gets into the habit of bringing reusable numberless when shopping, it is not much of an inconvenience at all. After all, enquire your grandparents, they will remember that during their time people were used to go shopping with their own bags or baskets.
The manufacturing of reusable bags or compostable alternatives to plastic bags offers a new opportunity to create sustainable products and provide jobs that go with them.
The trend has already started. In that location are some great initiatives that strive to provide jobs for women in rural communities with limited possibilities of securing monthly income.
#ten Other governments are banning plastic bags, so yours should likewise… or at least make people pay for them
To engagement, around threescore countries and municipalities around the world have instituted plastic pocketbook bans, and boosted vii countries are planning to enforce the law in the closest future.
Some countries have decided to do so subsequently directly experiencing negative impacts of plastic bags, other countries have implemented the ban to reach their sustainability goals.
Let's come across some examples:
- The kickoff country to ban unmarried-employ plastic bags was People's republic of bangladesh in 2002 when plastic bag litter clogged drainage channels and contributed to destructive floods.
- Other state that has decided to enforce the country-wide plastic bag ban subsequently suffering of negative consequences was Islamic republic of mauritania. The state instituted the ban in 2013 to minimize livestock deaths. Prior the ban, 70 percent of livestock losses were attributed to plastic pocketbook ingestion [twenty].
- In the United States, California has banned single-use plastic bags in 2016, simply the metropolis of San Francisco has locally issued this ban already in 2012 and consumers pay a little fee for other alternatives like compostable numberless or recycled paper bags.
- Another instance of a locally issued ban is Seattle where not only single-utilise plastic numberless have been banned but also single-use compostable and biodegradable bags. This measure out should encourage people to switch to reusable alternatives.
For those governments that are opposed to total bans on plastic bags, another pick is to constitute a plastic pocketbook tax, where consumers or retailers would pay a small fee for each plastic bag.
This strategy has been adopted past some countries and municipalities then far and has proven to greatly reduce plastic bag usage by consumers.
For example, in Botswana, the consumption of plastic numberless dropped past l percent after the introduction of the tax in 2007. In Ireland, where this fee was instituted in 2002, plastic pocketbook usage decreased by well-nigh ninety pct. This means that the average consumption of plastic numberless per person dropped from 328 bags per year to just 21 [20].
While these countries and municipalities have been making strides in their part of reducing apportionment of plastic bags, in total there are 195 countries in the world [19] and the issue of plastic pollution is yet getting out of our hands. That is why the United Nations Ecology Plan Secretariat has recommended a ban on all plastic bags globally .
Steps towards a plastic pocketbook free future: How to help ban plastic bags in your community?
Plastic bags accept become such a nuisance because we as consumers use them excessively even when not needed and authorities haven't figured out effective ways of dealing with them as waste.
Until recently, the impact of plastic bags has been largely underestimated and overlooked.
Logically, the key to starting a change in your community is pedagogy.
This ways that yous need to kickoff educate yourself about the trouble. You demand to know what effects plastic numberless have on the environment and health. What is the root of the problem (consumers or municipal waste direction)?
Simply you should likewise consider the other perspective – what effect single-use bags have had on the local economy and product affordability. Y'all should examine what alternatives are bachelor and whether local retailers, who ofttimes operate with a express monthly budget, have the ability to make the switch.
By being aware nearly these issues, yous will be ready to present some strong arguments why plastic bags should exist banned in your area and answer questions of people who will go your ally if you lot volition persuade them well-nigh your skilful intentions. Which brings us to the second role…
Second step is educating others.
Assist raise awareness of fellow consumers – that means everyone when you recollect near it (unless they don't shop…ever).
Communities with expert awareness about negative impacts of plastic bags have been more successful at enforcing the ban [20]. This is because the customers voluntarily reduce their consumption of plastic bags, which in plough provides enough fourth dimension for retailers to detect suitable alternatives and switch to them.
Once the bicycle starts spinning, it leads to even more positive changes. The decrease in demand for plastic bags forces manufacturers to reduce their production and consider expanding in a supply of alternative products.
Additionally, awareness raising campaigns create a social pressure that should inspire local regime and institutions to help in making changes at a bigger scale, similar a regional ban or levy.
You as an individual have the power to make a gradual change in your customs. Start from yourself and slowly expand to your family and friends. Individual actions can atomic number 82 to commonage deportment.
How to stop using plastic bags?
The first answer to this question that comes to everyone's mind is to finish using plastic bags, correct? Simply, refuse them when offered and bring your own reusable bag when shopping.
These steps are pretty straight forrad and depend on your ain initiative.
However, we are all also familiar with situations when a cashier automatically puts your items in a plastic bag before yous can oppose it.
In many instances, it may seem too awkward for you to refuse the bag, so you have information technology this once, but you should know that information technology is fine to say no politely even at this stage if you don't desire that bag. The cashier usually understands, only had to do what instructed and what virtually customers wait (unfortunately) from him or her. Nosotros all are just trying to do our job well.
In countries with a lack of awareness about negative impacts of plastic bags, a polite refusal might not be met with much understanding. And so, yous should try to explain your reasons for not wanting your products packed in plastic bags.
Near retailers will get your point, but it tin can also happen that they volition not be willing to sell you some products without placing information technology in their plastic numberless because of having to oblige with some hygiene and sanitary standards (for example when selling meat products).
If this happens, there are a few scenarios yous can follow:
- You lot could either discuss with a shop manager a possibility of bringing your own containers for these products.
- Look for another place that does accept or utilise alternative packaging, such equally small local stores that apply paper wraps or compostable numberless.
- Or you lot may demand to accept that plastic purse this time and and so outset campaigning for a plastic handbag ban in your area 😊.
What to do with plastic bags you already have at dwelling?
The best affair y'all tin can practice with those quondam plastic bags that have been stashed in that overflowing drawer in your kitchen is to recycle them.
You cannot recycle them in the regular curbside drove of plastic, but yous should be able to find many larger food stores and retailers (for example: Target, Walmart, Tesco, Morrisons, etc.) that do collect plastic bags and other plastic films and send them for proper recycling.
You tin use some easy online locators to see the closest plastic purse drop-off. All yous demand to do is paste your ZIP code and and so see the list of stores with bag drop-off in your nearest location.
Most drop-off collection points accept plastic bags made from high-density polyethylene (plastic number two) and low-density polyethylene (plastic number 4). Information technology means that most bags can exist recycled.
This includes grocery plastic bags, Ziplock-type bags, dry out cleaning bags and bread bags.
In that location is simply one requirement – these plastic bags demand to be dry out and make clean, otherwise they contaminate the unabridged batch and your effort will exercise more impairment than good.
[one] https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/25496/singleUsePlastic_sustainability.pdf
[2] https://www.eco-business organization.com/opinion/getting-rid-of-plastic-bags-a-windfall-for-supermarkets-but-it-wont-do-much-for-the-environs/
[3] https://world wide web.thethirdpole.cyberspace/en/2018/04/09/plastic-chokes-dhakas-drainage/
[4] https://1bagatatime.com/learn/plastic-bags-petroleum/
[v] https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2935417&folio=ane
[vi] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/06/plastic-planet-waste-pollution-trash-crisis/
[7] https://iopscience.iop.org/commodity/10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/124006/pdf
[viii] https://www.mnn.com/globe-matters/animals/blogs/rare-ocean-turtles-eating-plastic-at-record-rate
[ix] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/x.1111/cobi.12126
[10] http://www.prijatelji-zivotinja.hr/alphabetize.en.php?id=934
[11] http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2008/12/plastic-bags-and-animals-making-the-wild-safe-for-wildlife/
[12] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6374/460
[13] https://world wide web.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/22/microplastics-institute-in-human-stools-for-the-first-time
[14] https://1bagatatime.com/learn/plastic-bag-clean-costs/
[15] http://www.bagmonster.com/2010/04/the-true-cost-of-single-use-bags.html
[xvi] http://www.cep.unep.org/cep-documents/unep-press-release-on-the-effects-of-plastic-waste-on-marine-ecosystems.pdf
[17] https://greentumble.com/can-plastic-bags-be-recycled/
[eighteen] https://1bagatatime.com/learn/plastic-bag-clean-costs/
[nineteen] https://world wide web.worldatlas.com/articles/how-many-countries-are-in-the-earth.html
[20] https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/xx.500.11822/25496/singleUsePlastic_sustainability.pdf
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