Should You Ban Plastic Bags From Your Life:
Six Reasons You May Want to Consider It
by www.SixWise.com
San Francisco is currently considering banning all plastic
bags from large grocery and drug stores, citing concerns that
the bags use too many fossil fuels, litter streets and harm
wildlife. If the law is passed, stores doing more than $2
million in sales a year could only offer customers bags made
of recyclable paper, plastic that can be turned into compost,
or sturdy cloth or plastic bags that can be reused. The ban
would take effect in about six months.
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Plastic bags are the fifth most common debris item
found on beaches, according to the Ocean Conservancy.
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"San Francisco is poised to be the first U.S. city to
ratchet up its response against global warming," said
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who wrote the legislation. "By
doing so, we will save millions of dollars for city coffers
and for our refuse rate payers."
Indeed, plastic bags do take their toll. The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency estimates that in the United States alone
more than 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are used
each year. Worldwide, the number of plastic bags used is anywhere
from 500 billion to 1 trillion every year. Meanwhile, Americans
throw away about 100 billion plastic bags each year, according
to the Worldwatch Institute, as only 0.6 percent to 1 percent
of them are ever recycled.
In order to reduce this excessive use, several U.S. retailers
have already begun to do their part. IKEA stores, for instance,
announced their "bag the plastic bag" initiative
this year, which includes charging customers a nickel for
each plastic bag (and donating the profits to the non-profit
conservation group American Forests). Whole Foods stores have
a similar campaign in place in which they give customers 10
cents off their bill for each plastic grocery bag that they
bring in and reuse.
Why, exactly, are plastic bags coming under fire from everyone
from legislators to environmental groups? Although convenient,
using plastic bags, they say, comes at just too high a cost.
Consider these reasons why many say plastic bags should be
banned permanently.
1. They Use up Natural Resources: The most common
plastic bags you see today are made from polyethylene. This
material is made from crude oil and natural gas -- both non-renewable
resources.
"Every time we use a new plastic bag they go and get
more petroleum from the Middle East and bring it over in tankers,"
said Stephanie Barger, executive director of Earth Resource
Foundation in Costa Mesa, California. "We are extracting
and destroying the Earth to use a plastic bag for 10 minutes."
2. They Harm Wildlife and Marine Life. Plastic bags
are now ubiquitous in our environment, and animals both on
land and in water are being strangled, choked and killed by
them. Plastic bags are now the fifth most common debris item
found on beaches, according to the Ocean Conservancy, and
international coastal cleanups have turned up more than 354,000
stray bags each year.
Meanwhile, Planet Ark, an international environmental group,
estimates that, worldwide, 100,000 whales, seals, turtles
and other marine animals are killed by plastic bags each year.
3. They Create Litter. Plastic bag use is now so prolific
around the world that the bags have become a major source
of litter. Aside from polluting beaches and waterways, plastic
bags blowing around streets in China are so common they've
earned the name "white pollution." And in South
Africa, the bags littering the countryside are called "national
flowers." In some African areas, people are even "harvesting"
the plastic bags to make bags, hats and other crafts.
4. They Take a Long Time to Biodegrade. Most plastic
bags used either end up as litter or in landfills (less than
1 percent are recycled). In a landfill, it's estimated that
one plastic bag takes about 1,000 years to biodegrade. A plastic
bag floating around as litter takes about 20 years.
5. They're Expensive. It isn't costly to produce plastic
bags, per say, but the estimated costs to retailers who give
away plastic bags for free amounts to about $4 billion a year.
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When it comes to the environment, paper bags aren't
any better than plastic ones. The best bet (for the
environment and to save energy) is to use a reusable
cloth bag to do your grocery shopping.
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6. They can be Hazardous to Humans. Plastic bags pose
a suffocation hazard to people, particularly children, and
pets. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) receives
an average of 25 reports each year in which a child has suffocated
from a plastic bag.
Are Paper Bags Better?
The plastic industry maintains that plastic bags are not
the root of all evil. The problems with litter, they say,
are due to irresponsible people and plastic bags, they're
quick to point out, are better for the environment than paper
bags. Is this true?
As it turns out, we're no better off (and may actually be
worse off) using paper bags than plastic ones. Consider these
facts from the EPA:
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Paper bags generate 70 percent more air pollution and
50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.
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It takes 91 percent less energy to recycle a pound of
plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper.
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The trees from which paper bags are made are a renewable
resource, whereas plastic bags are made from non-renewable
resources.
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Paper bags take up more landfill space (2,000 plastic
bags weight just 30 pounds, whereas 2,000 paper bags weight
280 pounds).
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Paper bags in landfills don't break down much faster
than plastic bags (because they're not exposed to water,
light, oxygen and other elements that they need to biodegrade).
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Paper bags are more likely to be recycled (about 20 percent
of paper bags are recycled, compared to under 1 percent
of plastic bags).
So we're not necessarily better switching from plastic bags
to paper ones. Paper bags still account for a huge amount
of wasted energy and refuse that is unnecessary. So what is
the best option?
How to Reduce Waste and Protect the Environment (and Still
Have Something to Carry Your Groceries In)
Many countries, including Australia, Bangladesh, Ireland,
Italy, South Africa, Taiwan, and India have already taken
action to ban or reduce the use of plastic bags, and with
great success. In Ireland, for instance, a "PlasTax"
of about 20 cents per bag (which customers have to pay) has
been in place since March 2002. The tax has cut the amount
of plastic bags used in the country by more than 90 percent.
In the United States, it may be some time before legislation
prompts people to reduce plastic bag waste, but you can do
your part now by reusing your plastic (and paper) bags
or carrying a reusable cloth bag for your groceries. You
only need to reuse a bag 11 times before you've helped to
reduce the environmental impact of plastic and paper bags.
Recommended Reading
Pharmaceutical
Pollution: What it is, and How Pharmaceutical Pollution Threatens
Your Health
How
Dangerous is it Really to Live Near a Landfill? (And How Near
is Too Near?)
Sources
ABC7.com
March 8, 2007
U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency
The
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Whole
Foods Market
The
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
ReusableBags.com
The
Worldwatch Institute