 |
Plastic bags are made of
petrochemicals (propane and butane), a non-renewable resource
|
 |
Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they
photo-degrade, breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic
pieces which can contaminate soil and waterways |
|
They stay in the environment for hundred
of years. |
| |
|
|
It’s worth remembering plastic
bags have only been around since 70’s |
|
1957 – First plastic sandwich bag
is made. |
|
1966 – Between 25 and 30% of packaging
for bread is plastic. |
|
1969 – New York City begins collecting
the garbage in plastic bags. |
|
1974 – Retail giants Sears and J.C
Penny switch to plastic shopping bags. |
|
1996 – Over 80% of all bags used
are plastic |
|
2000 and onwards governments are banning
plastic shopping bags. |
|
Since 1970, plastic has been responsible
for doubling automobile fuel economy |
| |
|
|
They represent a hazard to wildlife
|
|
More than a million seabirds and 100,000
marine mammals and sea turtles die every year from mistakenly
eating or getting entangled in plastic. |
|
Aquatic life can be threatened through
entanglement, suffocation and ingestion. |
|
Dolphins were playing with a plastic bag
as if it was an underwater football but later they were washed
up on beach as bags covered their blow holes (Rebecca Hosking).
|
|
In 1998, a leatherback turtle, a species
on the IUCN’s endangered Red List, was found dead in Galloway
with 57kg of plastic bags obstructing its innards |
|
In 2002, the Marine Conservation Society
reported that a dead Minke whale that has washed up on the coast
of Normandy was found to have had 800kg of plastic bags and
packaging inside its stomach (Including two UK supermarket bags).
|
|
After an animal is killed by plastic bags,
its body decomposes and the plastic is released back into the
environment where it can ill again. |
|
Plastic bags wrap themselves around living
coral and quickly kill them. The Great Barrier Reef is being
threatened by little white bags of death. |
| |
|
|
They can as well cause damage to people
|
|
DEHP has been shown to decrease sperm levels
and even act as a neurotoxin. |
|
One of the key ingredients in manufacturing
plastic bags is vinyl chloride. Vinyl chloride is a proven carcinogenic
(cancer) and may also cause liver, kidney and brain damage.
|
|
Vinyl chloride depresses the central nervous
system. These include headache, dizziness and loss of coordination
and in severe cases may progress to hallucination, unconsciousness
and death by respiratory failure. |
|
After Wangari Maathai, Kenya’s Noble
laureate, recently discovered that the plastic bag litter creates
breeding areas of malaria, Kenyan government has taken action
to deal with the issue. |
| |
|
|
Plastic bags are a visual pollution |
|
Plastic stays in the environment for between
500 and 1,000 years. Every plastic item that was ever made is
still in existence. Some of it starts to break down –
maybe into tiny pieces but they are still there. |
|
Once aloft, stray bags cartwheel down city
streets, alight in trees, billow from fences like flags, clog
storm drains, wash into rivers and bays and even end up into
the ocean washed out to sea. |
|
The petroleum-based plastics take decade
to beak down and they float on the oceans. In 1993 – 1994
a study of the seafloor in North-western Mediterranean reported
that 77% of the debris was plastics and of this, 92.8% were
plastic bags. |
|
There are approximately 46,000 pieces of
plastic floating in each square mile of our oceans. |
|
In China, they are covering the streets
and are know as white pollution. |
| |
|
|
Plastic bags are a real pollution |
|
Plastic bags photo-degrade – breaking
down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminated soil and
waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally
ingest. |
|
The whole process of making plastic bags
requires only electricity and 50% of that electricity is generated
by nuclear fission – a radioactive waste. So far this
radioactive waste is being safely disposed of in deep underground
caves and in deep sea trenches where the nuclear waste is subducted
into earth’s mantle and incinerated. |
|
Their production and disposal adds CO2
emissions. |
|
They clog roadside drains, which could
cause the flooding of the street at heavy rainfalls. |
|
This blocks the rain water getting percolated
into land and instead makes to run on the surface of land causing
erosion of soil, carrying various pollutants to nearby water
bodies resulting in pollution of water. Erosion of soil in hilly
areas makes the roots of trees exposed thereby threes loose
their strength to survive. Further erosion of soil causes washing
off vegetation nutrients available in the soil. |
|
If plastic bags are burnt, they emit hazardous
gases causing air pollution. |
|
Plastic defies any kind of attempt at
disposal – be it through recycling, burning or land filling.
|
|
Plastic bags can take 1,000 years to decompose
compared to paper bags which take about a month to decompose.
|
| |
|
|
It is estimated that one million are
used every minute |
|
Their average working life is just 12
minutes. |
|
Every year each person on the planet will
consume 300 of them. |
|
Stores give out over a billion plastic
bags per day to customers all over the world. |
|
Americans throw away some 100 billion
plastic bags a year, its equivalent to dumping nearly 12 million
barrels of oil a year. |
|
Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags per year
– 900 per person. |
|
Over 13 billion plastic bags are used
in UK every year and 8 billion end up in landfill. |
|
7 billion plastic bags are given free
every year in France – 225 bags per second however French
have reduced their consumption by 61% since 2003. |
| |
|
|
Around the world over 200,000 plastic
bags are dumped in landfills every hour |
|
They release toxins into the groundwater
from landfill sites while they are breaking down. |
|
Get into the food chain through animals
that ingest small particles of plastic. |
|
Modern landfills are designed so that
nothing in them breakdowns – mean preserving the poison
forever. |
| |
|
|
Only 1% of plastic bags are recycled
worldwide |
|
Current research demonstrates that the
recycling rate for plastic bags is very low. Research in 2000
shows that 20% of paper bags were recycled while 1% of plastic
bags were recycled. |
|
Plastic bags can only be recycled into
other plastic bags, however this is rarely the case. |
|
When a ton of plastic bags is reused or
recycled, the energy equivalent of 11 barrels of oil is saved.
|
|
If plastic bags are burnt, they emit hazardous
gases and release a host of poisonous chemicals into the air,
including dioxin, the most toxic substance known to science
thus air pollution. |
|
Only 1 in every 200 bags is recycled.
|
|
Please note that not all plastic bags
can be recycled and many stores that collect them, simply send
them to the landfill for lack of another alternative. |
| |
|
|
Plastic bags in the world |
|
According to David Barnes (Marine Scientist)
plastic bags have gone from being rare in the late 80s and early
90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78° [latitude]
to Falklands 51° [latitude]. |
|
In 1995, the French Supermarkets E.Leclerc
stopped distributing free plastic bags |
|
India Mumbai banned plastic bags in 2000
|
|
Bangladesh imposed an outright ban on
all thinner plastic bags in the capital of Dhaka in 2002. |
|
Republic of Ireland passed a law in 2002,
charging shoppers for every plastic bag. |
|
Himalayan State made thinner bags illegal
in 2003 |
|
Taiwan banned free light-weight plastic
bags in 2003 |
|
South Africa, in 2003 set the pace by banning
thinner plastic bags as well as imposing levies on thicker ones |
|
Tasmania banned plastic shopping bags in
2003 |
|
Eritrea, Rwanda and Somalia banned plastic
bags in 2005 |
|
New Zealand declared itself plastic shopping
bag free in 2006 |
|
Tanzania & Zanzibar banned the import
and use of plastic shopping bags in 2006. |
|
Kenya & Uganda banned in 2007 thinner
bags and imposed levies on thicker ones. |
|
San Francisco became the first American
city to ban plastic bags from large supermarkets and pharmacies
in 2007. |
|
Belgium imposed a tax on free plastic
bags in 2007 |
|
Modbury became the first town in Britain
to outlaw plastic bags in 2007. However Britain not only uses
more plastic bags than any other nation in Europe, but is the
only EU country where such bags are free. |
|
Australia initiated actions for the end
of 2008. |
|
China announced the ban in January 2008 |
|
In Germany and Holland, supermarkets already
charge for plastic bags. |
|
Spain is planning to halve the consumption
of plastic bags by 2009. |
|
France: A nationwide ban is scheduled
to take effect in 2010. |
|
Italy imposed a levy on plastic bags a
decade ago but an outright ban in due to be introduced by 2010.
|
