They sit balled up and stuffed into the one that hangs from the pantry door, they line bathroom trash bins, they carry clothes to the gym, and they clutter landfills.. They flap from trees, float in the breeze, clog roadside drains, drift on the high seas and they fill sea turtle bellies. In fact, the plastic bag your groceries came in today will live on long after your gone. You can consider them your gift to future generations, or you can do something about it.
First, a few facts: ( Thanks to ReusableBags.com )
- Consumption
# Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.
# According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.
# According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)
# According to the industry publication Modern Plastics, Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year—900 per person.
# According to Australia’s Department of Environment, Australians consume 6.9 billion plastic bags each year—326 per person. An estimated .7% or 49,600,000 end up as litter each year.
- Environmental Impact
# Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.
# Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.
# As part of Clean Up Australia Day, in one day nearly 500,000 plastic bags were collected.
# Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC, one group harvests 30,000 per month.
# According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone “from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78° North [latitude] to Falklands 51° South [latitude].
# Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation.
- Solutions
# In 2001, Ireland consumed 1.2 billion plastic bags, or 316 per person. An extremely successful plastic bag consumption tax, or PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%. Approximately 18,000,000 liters of oil have been saved due to this reduced production. Governments around the world are considering implementing similar measures.
# Each high quality reusable shopping bag you use has the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic bags over its lifetime.
Click on the graphic (yup, I know it’s too small to read) and it will take you to a Washington Post article that compares the choice of paper or plastic. The cost to our planet for both make it obvious that we need a different choice. Even knowing the cost of the plastic bags, I was surprised over just how much damage they both do. Yes, paper bags are biodegradable, but the way our landfills are set up, it’s not going to happen. Plus the cost of producing them is doing major damage to our planet.
So, what are we to do. Well, since we can’t stop shopping (well, that is another story) we can at least do so using a smaller footprint. Use reusable shopping bags. A simple search on the internet shows dozens (if not hundreds) of possible links. Here is a good first stop, or until you can get that great hemp bag, you can get bags at your local grocer. (mine has them for 99 cents)
The simple step of getting a couple of reusable shopping bags can go a long way toward saving the planet. While it might be a bit more difficult to start your own compost, or too expensive to get that new hybrid car, the cost of these bags are well within reach of everyone. And its very easy to keep the bags in the car where they will always be ready for you. So, go out today and change the world, buy a reusable shopping bag and feel good about saving the planet.
Steve
Some things you can do for the earth are incredibly simple. We all go out to eat from time to time, and in most places, when you sit down the wait staff will place a glass of water down in front of you. If your not going to drink it, just say no. While living in South Florida a few years back they passed a law putting a stop to this wasteful practice. If you wanted water, you had to ask.
