I am fond of buying those eco-bags in the groceries especially if they have sturdy material or have attractive designs. Since I have been blogging about retailing and groceries, market planning and the likes, I want to delve on writing something different that will make every environmentalists smile by pointing out the negative use of plastics and paper bags in grocery shopping.
Disposable
shopping bags are everywhere. From department stores to gas stations, they are
the way we tote our purchases. These lightweight containers were introduced in
the 1970s as a means of making shopping easier for consumers. So what’s the big
deal? We’ve compiled 10 facts about plastic bags and paper bags that we think
are good reasons for you to pick up a reusable bag and make the next bag you
throw out your last.
1. How long does it take for plastic bags
to decompose? A plastic bag can take from 15 to 1,000 years to break down,
depending on environment. In a landfill, kept away from the environment that
would help them biodegrade more easily, paper bags don’t do much better.
2. Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, but they
can break down through photo degradation. When photo degradation, decomposition
through exposure to light, happens, the bag breaks down into small, toxic
particles.
3. An estimated one million birds, 100,000
turtles, and countless other sea animals die each year from ingesting plastic.
The animals confuse floating bags and plastic particles for edible sea life
such as jellyfish and plankton. Once ingested, the plastic blocks the digestive
tract and the animals starve to death. Other animals drown after becoming
entangled in plastic waste.
4. The cost to recycle plastic bags
outweighs their value, so most recycling facilities will not take them. Instead
of being recycled, they are thrown out with the rest of the trash.
5. According to the Environmental
Protection Agency, which has been collecting plastic bag statistics for more
than a decade, roughly 2% of plastic bags are recycled in the United States.
The rest are left to live on indefinitely in landfills or decompose in our
oceans, where they leech toxins into the water and soil.
6. Thanks to their light weight, plastic
bags in landfills don’t always stay there. They are likely to fly away and can
settle in trees, block storm drains, and clutter beaches.
7. Plastic bags make up more than 10% of
washed-up debris that pollutes any countries coastline.
8. Plastic bags are made from petroleum
products and natural gas, both non-renewable resources, and their manufacture
helps to drive up gas prices.
9. Think paper bags are better? Think
again. We cut down 14 million trees a year to supply the raw material to make
paper shopping bags.
10. Paper bag production involves the use of
chemicals and high temperatures, and it releases toxins into the atmosphere at
nearly the same rate as plastic bag production.
More
than a dozen nations have banned or taxed disposable bags in the past five
years.
Reusable
bags come in a wide variety of stylish shapes and prints, making shopping a bit
less routine and more fun.
Some
grocery stores offer discounts to customers who bring reusable bags: Now that’s
an incentive!
The
average reusable bag has a lifespan equal to that of more than 700 disposable
plastic bags.
One
person using reusable bags over their lifetime would remove more than 22,000
plastic bags from the environment. Isn’t that an even better incentive?
There
are thousands of other facts about plastic bags and how they impact our planet.
But despite the damage they do to the environment, some people still haven’t
given up their plastic bags, facts or no facts.
So my advice, always make use of your eco-bags, they are highly stylish rather than the usual plastics or paper bags. Let us take care of our mother earth by being ecologically conscious of our moral and civil duties of causing less harm to our environment, one shopping and grocery at a time.
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