DO SOMETHING DRASTIC CUT THE PLASTIC!
Data release by the Environmental Protection Agency revealed that somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year.
Less than 1% of bags are recycled. It costs more to recycle a bag than to produce a new one. There's harsh economics behind bag recycling: It costs $4000 to process and recycle 1 ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32
Then, where do they go?
A study in 1975, showed oceangoing vessels together dumped 8 million pounds of plastic annually. The real reason that the world's landfills weren't overflowing with plastic was because most of it ended up in an ocean-fill.
Bags get blown around to different parts of our lands, and to our seas, lakes and rivers. Bags find their way into the sea via drains and sewage pipes. Plastic bags have been found floating north of the Arctic Circle near Spitzbergen, and as far south as the Falkland Islands.
Plastic bags account for over 10 percent of the debris washed up on the U.S. coastline.
Plastic bags photodegrade: over time they break down into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers which eventually contaminate soils and waterways. As a consequence microscopic particles can enter the food chain. The effect on wildlife can be catastrophic. Birds become terminally entangled. Nearly 200 different species of sea life including whales, dolphins, seals and turtles die due to plastic bags. They die after ingesting plastic bags which they mistake for food.
So What do we do?
If we use a cloth bag, we can save 6 bags a week. That's 24 bags a month. That's 288 bags a year. That's 22,176 bags in an average lifetime. If just 1 out of 5 people in our country did this we would save 1,330,560,000,000 bags over our lifetime.
Bangladesh has banned plastic bags. China has banned free plastic bags. Ireland took the lead in Europe, taxing plastic bags in 2002 and has now reduced plastic bag consumption by 90%. In 2005 Rwanda banned plastic bags. Israel, Canada, western India, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Taiwan and Singapore have also banned or are moving toward banning the plastic bag. On March 27th 2007, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic bags. Oakland and Boston are considering a ban.
Plastic shopping bags are made from polyethylene: a thermoplastic made from oil. Reducing plastic bags will decrease foreign oil dependency. China will save 37 million barrels of oil each year due to their ban of free plastic bags. We need to find viable alternatives such as potato or corn starch instead of plastic.
IT IS POSSIBLE!!!
DO SOMETHING DRASTIC CUT THE PLASTIC!
Data release by the Environmental Protection Agency revealed that somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year.
Less than 1% of bags are recycled. It costs more to recycle a bag than to produce a new one. There's harsh economics behind bag recycling: It costs $4000 to process and recycle 1 ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32
Then, where do they go?
A study in 1975, showed oceangoing vessels together dumped 8 million pounds of plastic annually. The real reason that the world's landfills weren't overflowing with plastic was because most of it ended up in an ocean-fill.
Bags get blown around to different parts of our lands, and to our seas, lakes and rivers. Bags find their way into the sea via drains and sewage pipes. Plastic bags have been found floating north of the Arctic Circle near Spitzbergen, and as far south as the Falkland Islands.
Plastic bags account for over 10 percent of the debris washed up on the U.S. coastline.
Plastic bags photodegrade: over time they break down into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers which eventually contaminate soils and waterways. As a consequence microscopic particles can enter the food chain. The effect on wildlife can be catastrophic. Birds become terminally entangled. Nearly 200 different species of sea life including whales, dolphins, seals and turtles die due to plastic bags. They die after ingesting plastic bags which they mistake for food.
So What do we do?
If we use a cloth bag, we can save 6 bags a week. That's 24 bags a month. That's 288 bags a year. That's 22,176 bags in an average lifetime. If just 1 out of 5 people in our country did this we would save 1,330,560,000,000 bags over our lifetime.
Bangladesh has banned plastic bags. China has banned free plastic bags. Ireland took the lead in Europe, taxing plastic bags in 2002 and has now reduced plastic bag consumption by 90%. In 2005 Rwanda banned plastic bags. Israel, Canada, western India, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Taiwan and Singapore have also banned or are moving toward banning the plastic bag. On March 27th 2007, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic bags. Oakland and Boston are considering a ban.
Plastic shopping bags are made from polyethylene: a thermoplastic made from oil. Reducing plastic bags will decrease foreign oil dependency. China will save 37 million barrels of oil each year due to their ban of free plastic bags. We need to find viable alternatives such as potato or corn starch instead of plastic.
IT IS POSSIBLE!!!
It may seem like a trivial thing, but those "free" plastic bags we get at the grocers, department stores and restaurants are actually contributing to a world wide pandemic of plastics waste. We need to find viable alternatives such as potato or corn starch or simply start using cloth bags.Having some kind of an award system to house hold who make an effort on maintaining a free polluted environment.
Please take the steps to ban the commercial use of plastic bags in Massachusetts now!
A ban on plastic bags in the USA would be a giant step forward! Eva M
Get stores to charge for bags and give credit for bringing your own.
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4:39 am PST, Dec 6,
NICK DAVIS, Canada
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I believe that plastic bags need to stop being made by the manufacturers and certainly the stores and shops could stop using them for their products. I think leaving the problem up to the end-user, the consumer, is not going to work. It does, of course, greatly help for the end-user to totally stop using plastic bags but I believe stopping the problem at the origin is the best solution.
Stop manufacturing plastic in the quantities that we do. It has to be regulated by the govt. authorities and heavy penalties must be imposed. It's that serious an issue.
Severe restrictions should be placed on the use of plastic bags. All that we have to do to solve this problem is make them economically unattractive (tax their use?) and the public will seek less expensive options.
Let's eliminate single-use plastic bags and educate consumers about BYOB, bring your own bag. They can purchase a re-useable bag at point of sale if they don't have a bag with them.
ban the use of plastic bags and create insentives for companies to recycle the plastic bags already in circulation into worthwhile products.
I want to see plastic bags banned entirely from the country.
Our American Farmers care about the land they live on and farm and manage. They care about their animals and this country's resources. Farmers protect their land and the life of it, while having to struggle at times to make a living and survive the rising cost of continuing in the industry of farming. Help our American farmers be able to grow more corn, potatoes, soybeans, and Cotton so Our Country will have enough of our own resources for alternatives to oil and gas and these plastic products that cause so much damage to all of us. Use our wood products more wisely and replant trees so we will always have enough. Put leaders in office who care about this. Most of all, Use More Common Sense.
Ban plastic bags.....
Completely banning plastic bags would be nice but we're stupid scared Americans so i don't think that will happen any time soon. So adding a tax per bag would at least get people thinking about whether they want to use a bag or not.
ban plastic bags!
i don't understand why we cannot all use our own fabric bag, but to kill the environment with plastic.... if we start using our own bag, the world would be better, greener, cooler, no more global warming....
One way we could resolve this is by simply using paper rather than plastic. You can also use cloth bags as well. Make a difference, help the environment, and the rewards will be great!
Use alternatives, such as organic/eco-friendly cloth bags.
Don't use plastic bag and/or recycle use other forms of bagage.
Less animals harmed.
cut the plastic bags
The resolution should be, like in Ireland, a complete ban on disposable shopping bags. However, a 'bag tax' is a step in the right direction.
Ban Plastic shopping bags altogether, WE CAN LIVE WITHOUT THEM!!!
I would like to see only biodegradable bags offered at all store checkouts (all retail and grocery stores) for a fee of 15 cents per bag. If people are unhappy with the charge, they will bring their own, or carry very small orders of 1 - 2 items in their hands.
Alternatives! I prefer paper, or incentivize for bringing your own.
Stop making these products and replace them with biodegradable ones.
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4:43 am PDT, Jul 27,
Leiah Sariell, Finland
One of the most important incredients to make plastic is oil...I thin we have a big oils crisis in a couple of years...so don't make plastic bags anymore. This pollution is very easy to solve...and more. Don't make small packages...make them of cartoons or people may take something with when they buy loose stuff. I was OK old times why not now? |
Use paper bags!!
The use of plastic bags should be banned. We need to find biodegradable alternatives to plastic. Stores and businesses which fail to comply should be subject to severe penalties, and incentives should be offered to consumers for using reusable bags for carrying groceries.
Recycle, recycle and recycle. Use only reusable materials.
By using reusable bags and totaling eliminating the option of using plastic ones.
By introducing alternatives and reusing bags.
