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 Editorials | Environmental | April 2007 
Bagging Eternal Plastics
 NYTimes
Americans throw away about 100 billion plastic bags every year, mountains of plastic that can last for 1,000 years, give or take a few centuries. And when they are not properly thrown away, they litter the countryside, killing birds or choking creatures like sea turtles. The bags now flap from so many bushes and trees that some South Africans started calling them their national flower.
Outside the United States, companies and countries are starting to deal with this convenient menace. After Ireland slapped a tax on plastic bags, use dropped by 90 percent almost immediately.
In America, where plastic beats paper bags by the ton, San Francisco has become the first major city to start banning nonbiodegradable plastic bags in its larger grocery stores and pharmacies.
Last month the Swedish company Ikea brought its Bag the Plastic Bag campaign to America. The stores charge customers for plastic bags (the money goes to a conservation group) and they encourage shoppers to bring their own. The companys goal was to cut plastic bag use in half from 70 million per year to 35 million but it has already done far better than that, cutting use by 80 percent.
As the nation looks for ways to save energy, states and local governments should begin figuring out how to nudge customers toward those carryalls that can be recycled or used again. In the meantime, consumers need to ask themselves a few basic questions, such as: How do I stop adding to the worlds polyethylene mountain range, and why do I need a plastic bag when I buy a pack of gum?
Plastic Bags
BBC News
The number of plastic bags given out by the nine main supermarket chains in the UK is estimated at 17.5 billion annually - enough to cover the whole of England within 21 years, or Sussex and Surrey in a year.
In a B&Q retail survey, 73% were annoyed at neighbourhood litter caused by plastic bags.
A person's use of a plastic check-out bag can be counted in minutes - however long it takes to get from the shops to their homes. Plastic bags however, can take between 15 and 1000 years to break down in the environment.
At least 80 million plastic bags end up as litter on our beaches, streets and parks.
In the marine environment plastic bag litter is lethal, killing at least 100,000 birds, whales, seals and turtles every year. When the dead animal decays, the plastic bags are freed to be re-ingested by other animals for many years to come.
On land, plastic bag litter can block drains and trap birds. They also kill livestock. One farmer near Mudgee NSW, carried out an autopsy on a dead calf and found 8 plastic bags in its stomach. The loss of this calf cost the farmer around $500.
Not all litter is deliberate. 47% of wind borne litter escaping from landfills is plastic - much of this is plastic bags.
Only 1 in every 200 is recycled and the other 199 take up to 1,000 years to degrade.
In many areas, plastic bags are the single main contaminant of curbside recycling.
Supermarket shoppers are spending £470 a year - a sixth of their food budget - on packaging, a BBC report suggests. They found customers spent £15bn on packaging each year. Only an estimated .5% of the plastic supermarket shopping bags handed out every year are being reused.
The amount of petroleum used to make one plastic bag would drive a car about 115 metres. The 6.4 billion plastic check-out bags we use every year is enough to drive a car 800 million kilometres or nearly 20,000 times around the world - i.e 4 round trips to the Sun.
(Packaging Today - April 2004) |
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