We all go into grocery stores and shopping malls every day laden with gifts, purchases and necessities usually placed in plastic bags. We take our items home, put the plastic bags away and reuse them for a later time. We don’t think of them any more beyond that. It is estimated that we use between 500 billion and 1 trillion bags per year and it takes approximately 1000 years for each individual plastic bag to break down and decompose.
We have all become more globally conscious and many of us now try to reduce, reuse and recycle plastic bags whenever we can for garbage waste, food items, during a move, storage, etc. but unfortunately only less than 1% of bags go back into the recycling system. Recycling plastic involves essentially re-melting the bags and re-casting the plastic. It is a time consuming and expensive process and also encourages our dependency on oil, as plastics are a by-product of the oil-refining process, accounting for about four percent of oil production around the globe.
Globally, plastic bags have become hazardous to our wildlife. Over 80% of marine debris is land based. Animals try to ingest plastic bags thinking that it is a source of food only to become lethally entangled in them or die from intestinal blockage from ingesting it. According to Planet Ark, an international environmental group, they state that about 100,000 whales, seals, turtles and other marine animals are killed by plastic bags each year worldwide.
With such a widespread problem and dilemma with the use of plastic bags, many communities and countries have begun to adopt strict use of or ban plastic bags altogether. The country of Bangladesh that is susceptible to flooding has banned plastic shopping bags because they can clog drains preventing water flow and increased flooding.
Ireland has reduced plastic bag consumption by 90% from taxing the use of plastic bags. Small towns and communities in Britain are more proactive in reducing or banning plastic bags altogether. France will ban plastic bags altogether taking effect in January 2010. In the United States, San Francisco is the first America city to ban plastic bags. Plastic bags are being replaced by paper bags with many shops recycling newspapers into shopping bags.
This is a good start, but it is simply not enough. Why wait until a mandatory ban to take effect? If you use one recycled cloth bag, you can eliminate 6 plastic bags per week. That’s over 22,176 bags in an average lifetime.
Take a canvas shopping bag every time you go shopping and use a refillable water bottle while you are at it, to stop the stem of disposable plastic bottles. Thankfully, many grocery stores now offer recycled cloth bags for purchase at the check out stand. Some give them away for free as a promotional item, but most stores charge a nominal fee for them.
The trick is to purchase or collect a few recycled cloth bags and keep them handy and ready in your vehicle for the next time you go shopping. I’ve caught myself in the grocery store at the check out without my recycled cloth bags. I simply run back to my car and get them, the cashier was more than understanding, and so you wouldn’t be odd in doing it yourself.
Help to solve this global problem by giving up one little convenience. Something that will cost you no more than a few dollars but will pay back dividends and rewards for many, many years to come. So just say no to plastic bags!
Soapy
29 / Male
Comments: 3
Posted on January 6, 2009, 2:31 am
But how will I carry my groceries home when I forget to bring my re-usable bags?
