ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF PLASTIC BAGS

 

1)   Paper or plastic a simple choice that has important environmental consequences. Can be hard to know for sure which one has a smaller impact because plastic bags are such a presence in everyday life, can be easy to overlook the damage they caused today. we're going to look at the environmental impact of plastic bags as well as the alternatives in order to understand what kind of choices we have as consumers in an environmentally unethical system.

2)   The first plastic bakelite was originally invented in 1907 but it wasn't until the 1960s that plastics specifically polyethylene became cheap and efficient to make plastics. Soon after the 1960s plastic bags exploded in popularity because it was marketed and made as a single-use product. They're cheap manufacturing costs allowed them to become the default choice at supermarket checkout counters, but the problem is the cheap price doesn't account for the environmental costs of using plastic bags.

3)   According to a study conducted by the English Environment Agency resource extraction and raw material production account for 60% of the environmental footprint of plastic bags. In other words 60% of the bags environmental impact happens before we even put our groceries in them. Although post use impact accounts for less than half of a bags total environmental impact it is also the part of the bags life that consumers can most easily control it's estimated that the US alone throws away 100 billion plastic bags annually. Only a fraction of which gets recycled in general most of these bags make their way into waterways and float along ocean.

4)   Currents until they make it to the five oceanic gyres that are created by circular currents and these plastic bags could take well over 500 year to degrade. The bags don't maintain their original shape however instead they slowly break down via Sun, water and microbial erosion to smaller bits called micro plastics which can be fatal to marine life. While, considering the adverse effects of plastic bags it would make sense then to buy a cloth reusable bag or opt for the paper bag.

5)   Right well the answer isn't so simple in the same study by the English Environment Agency they found that the real environmental cost of a bag whether plastic paper or cloth is heavily rooted in the production side of the product plastic. Actually has the smallest environmental impact out of those three materials so in order for the quote unquote longer life bags to have a smaller environmental impact.

6)   They need to be used multiple times for paper, the study claims that it needs to be used three times in order to equate a single use of a plastic bag. For cloth that number skyrockets to 131 uses this definitely shouldn't be taken to mean that single-use plastic bags are the best option.

7)   When possible we should avoid using them but for those of us who already have a drawer full of plastic bags in our home we're using is key for mitigating the negative effects of that plastic. There is no need to go out and buy a brand new reusable tote, if you already have usable plastic bags at home. Buying new reusable bags every time you go out to the store just perpetuates the problem reducing the use of plastic bags has rightfully been a focus of environmental initiatives.

8)   But if we zoom out they are a small part in a much larger environmental picture for example it takes 40 times more energy to make a hamburger than it does to make a plastic bag. Even more frustrating only 100 companies are responsible for 71 percent of all carbon emissions. Since 1988 our choices as consumers are important but we also face imperfect options based on production side decisions so reducing your plastic bags shouldn't be viewed as your sole contribution to climate change mitigation it's a small alteration.

9)   We need to go hand in hand with other actions like reexamining how much food you're buying from that very same grocery store. So you don't end up throwing away five pounds of vegetables at the end of the week. In short, the bag you choose matters but not as much as how it came to be there what you put in it and how you use it.