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What Do We Do?
WORKING TO DECREASE USE OF PLASTIC BAGS
Resource links:
www.reuseablebags.com, www.algalita.com
Hundreds of thousands of birds, fish and marine mammals die each year from eating plastic bags mistaken for food. Plastics bags choke these animals or block their intestines.
Cattle, sheep and other animals also die from ingesting plastic bags when foraging for food.
Plastics contain PCBs - toxic manmade chemicals now found throughout the food chain - from shellfish to humans. Many marine animals contain so many of these, they can legally be classified as toxic dumps.
Society consumes almost 1 million plastic bags per minute, or 500 billion plastic bags annually.
The USA consumes 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually - equal to about 12 million barrels of oil.
Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade (they're broken down into smaller and smaller toxic bits which contaminate soil and waterways and enter the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them).
Once made, a single use, high-density polyethylene plastic bags can exist in some form for 1,000 years.
In 2001 Ireland was the first country to institute a plastic bag tax, reducing consumption buy 90% and generating 9.6 million dollars in its first year.
4 out of 5 grocery bags in the USA are plastic. Over its lifetime, a reusable (canvas, etc.) grocery bag can eliminate approx. 1,000 plastic grocery bags.
The production of plastic bags requires petroleum and natural gas, both non-renewable resources that increase dependence on foreign suppliers.
US retailers spend an estimated 4 billion dollars on disposable plastic bags annually, the cost of which is passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.
It can take 1000 years for plastic bags to degrade in a landfill.
Plastic particles act like sponges for chemicals, soaking up toxins in concentrations hundreds of times that of surrounding water, and poisoning marine mammals who ingest them.
An estimated 8 billion pounds of plastic bags, wraps and sacks are thrown away in the USA alone - most of this ends up in landfills.
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| ©Copyright 2007. Turning The Tides. Developed by E.G. Stevenson
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