The attack of the killer plastic bags

It is probably the easiest change to integrate in your life when you adopt a greener lifestyle: ditching the plastic carrier bag. They are everywhere: caught up in the wind, clogging up sewerage systems, in the oceans and choking animals worldwide. All it takes is a minimum of organization to avoid them. Or shops being banned from providing them, which may be the most effective way to deal with the plastic epidemia.

For those who can’t see the graveness of the problem, it’s well worth quoting from an in-depth article that Salon has published on the topic, and which gives an idea of how the problem of stray bags escalates:

According to the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation, more than a million birds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die every year from eating or getting entangled in plastic. The conservation group estimates that 50 percent of all marine litter is some form of plastic. There are 46,000 pieces of plastic litter floating in every square mile of ocean, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. In the Northern Pacific Gyre, a great vortex of ocean currents, there’s now a swirling mass of plastic trash about 1,000 miles off the coast of California, which spans an area that’s twice the size of Texas, including fragments of plastic bags. There’s six times as much plastic as biomass, including plankton and jellyfish, in the gyre. “It’s an endless stream of incessant plastic particles everywhere you look,” says Dr. Marcus Eriksen, director of education and research for the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which studies plastics in the marine environment. “Fifty or 60 years ago, there was no plastic out there.”

Paper bags also come with a heavy environmental price tag so the best solution is to carry reusable canvas bags. But if you can’t avoid it and do need to resort to a plastic bag ocasionally, always try to re-use it and, if possible, take it back to the store where you got it from. It’s the safest way to make sure it will be recycled.

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About the author

Antonio Pasolini

London-based, Italo-Brazilian journalist and friend of the earth.

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1 Comment

  • Definitely a ban on plastic bags is needed — It is good that some stores are taxing plastic bag usage in the U.S. — IKEA — is one. They had a plastic bag tax in Ireland and it worked to eliminate this unnecessary commodity. Many countries are banning plastic bag usage as they have caused flooding — clogging drains — as well as have killed much wildlife. The writer is correct — Plastic Bags are a Menace — and they are one of the top causes of infant death as well. I think that this unnecessary item is just a way to use bi-products from the fossil fuel industry — One site informed me that 14 plastic bags is the fossil-fuel equivalent of one gallon of gas — There must be a better way to use our energy than to produce plastic litter — Plastic particulates — present everywhere in the ocean — have also been linked to endocrine disruption, cancer, and infertility.– I think that taking a plastic bag is a matter of habit — People need to refuse the bags that are handed to them automatically with each purchase — and carry a reusable cloth or rope bag. Still, I am wondering how food distributors are going to package all the food — cheese, meats, fish — etc — without plastics and styrofoam — There must be a better way !