The Facts
Do you know that every year, around 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. 500,000,000,000. Five hundred followed by nine zeros. That's is how much plastic bag used and polluting our earth. So many that over one million bags are being used every minute and they're damaging our environment. That figure actually is not very accurate as the world population is increasing every minutes as well. Of course you may say people also died every minutes but if you really look at the mortality rate and birth rate you may surprise that mortality rate is much lower. Medical technology is so good that it able to reduce the world mortality rate. If you love our earth and you care about it promise to yourself that from now on you must refuse to use plastic bag.
Let look at the next fact about plastic bag. Every man, woman and child on our planet uses 83 plastic bags every year. That's one bag per person every four and half days. Of those 500 billion bags, 100 billion are consumed in the United States alone. What about China and India. This two countries has the largest population in the world. I believe you can see more impressive figure from these two country.
The Problem - Pollution
Undoubtedly plastic bags are polluting our environment. Plastic bags are difficult to degrade (photo-degrade). It takes like 300 years for it to photo-degrade and even then it does not become soil. It just break down into tiny toxic particles that contaminate the soil and waterways and enter the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them. Constant unnecessary use of plastic bags increasingly polluting our planet.
Everything which contains plastic element like big black bin liners, plastic carrier bags carrying advertising logos, clear sandwich bags and a variety of other forms are all polluting our environment. They're lightweight, handy and easily discarded.
While they were rarely found during the 60s and 70s, their usage has increased at an alarming rate since they became popular during the 80s. Just take a look around you. Plastic bags can be seen hanging from the branches of trees, flying in the air on windy days, settled amongst bushes and floating on rivers. They clog up gutters and drains causing water and sewage to overflow and become the breeding grounds of germs,mosquitoes and bacteria that cause diseases.
Plastic bags polluting our sea.
Plastic bags are not only polluting our land and rivers but most of them are washed away to the sea. According to research don't by some environmental agency plastic bags are among the top 12 items of debris most often found along coastlines ranging from Spitzbergen in the north to the Falklands in the south. Many sea life like turtle are killed by plastic bag. This is because apparently turtle cannot recognize the different between plastic bag and jelly fish. Plastic clogs their intestines and leads to slow starvation. Others become entangled in plastic bags and drown. Because plastic bag takes a very long time to break down, our sea become the home for all this plastic bag waste.
Some good news.
Some country like Ireland made some move by making sure taxes and levy be paid for plastic bags usage. Now the usages of plastic bag in Ireland has dropped by 90%. Several country already banned plastic bags and I am sure more will follow undoubtedly.
Environmentally Friendly Shopping Bags.
Every time you for shopping you will need shopping bag. The issue here is not to prevent you to use shopping bags but to encourage you to be more responsible towards out environment by using environmentally friendly shopping bag. Environmentally friendly shopping bag means the shopping bags are bio-biodegradable and it is easy to photo-degrade. These bags take about three years to break down into practically nothing and while that sounds like an attractive solution, the truth is that the process of breaking down these petrol based bags causes carbon to become methane which is a greenhouse gas.
Let look at the next fact about plastic bag. Every man, woman and child on our planet uses 83 plastic bags every year. That's one bag per person every four and half days. Of those 500 billion bags, 100 billion are consumed in the United States alone. What about China and India. This two countries has the largest population in the world. I believe you can see more impressive figure from these two country.
The Problem - Pollution
Undoubtedly plastic bags are polluting our environment. Plastic bags are difficult to degrade (photo-degrade). It takes like 300 years for it to photo-degrade and even then it does not become soil. It just break down into tiny toxic particles that contaminate the soil and waterways and enter the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them. Constant unnecessary use of plastic bags increasingly polluting our planet.
Everything which contains plastic element like big black bin liners, plastic carrier bags carrying advertising logos, clear sandwich bags and a variety of other forms are all polluting our environment. They're lightweight, handy and easily discarded.
While they were rarely found during the 60s and 70s, their usage has increased at an alarming rate since they became popular during the 80s. Just take a look around you. Plastic bags can be seen hanging from the branches of trees, flying in the air on windy days, settled amongst bushes and floating on rivers. They clog up gutters and drains causing water and sewage to overflow and become the breeding grounds of germs,mosquitoes and bacteria that cause diseases.
Plastic bags polluting our sea.
Plastic bags are not only polluting our land and rivers but most of them are washed away to the sea. According to research don't by some environmental agency plastic bags are among the top 12 items of debris most often found along coastlines ranging from Spitzbergen in the north to the Falklands in the south. Many sea life like turtle are killed by plastic bag. This is because apparently turtle cannot recognize the different between plastic bag and jelly fish. Plastic clogs their intestines and leads to slow starvation. Others become entangled in plastic bags and drown. Because plastic bag takes a very long time to break down, our sea become the home for all this plastic bag waste.
Some good news.
Some country like Ireland made some move by making sure taxes and levy be paid for plastic bags usage. Now the usages of plastic bag in Ireland has dropped by 90%. Several country already banned plastic bags and I am sure more will follow undoubtedly.
Environmentally Friendly Shopping Bags.
Every time you for shopping you will need shopping bag. The issue here is not to prevent you to use shopping bags but to encourage you to be more responsible towards out environment by using environmentally friendly shopping bag. Environmentally friendly shopping bag means the shopping bags are bio-biodegradable and it is easy to photo-degrade. These bags take about three years to break down into practically nothing and while that sounds like an attractive solution, the truth is that the process of breaking down these petrol based bags causes carbon to become methane which is a greenhouse gas.
Very Good Solution To Replace Plastic Bag For Shopping
My 2-cents: Change mindset, use biodegradeable shopping bags
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