This is becoming the age-old question when we are shopping. We all know the answer. Neither! We are all quite aware that providing our own canvas bags is the only way to go.
Just as a reminder – here are some facts about plastic bags.
We use a plastic bag for about twelve minutes! It stays in the landfill for 1,000 years.
Grocery plastic bags are made from Polyethylene. This is derived from non-renewable petroleum and natural gas as well as questionable chemical additives. And sometimes toxic chlorinated colorants are used to dye these disposable bags.
Worldwide, we use between 500 billion – 1 trillion plastic bags every year. 100 billion of these are used by Americans. These 100 billion bags are the equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil. Because these barrels of oil are used in the production of these plastic bags, approximately 99% of that oil ends up in the landfill.
Every year plastic bags are ingested or caught in marine debris. These bags cause the death of over a million sea birds and 100,000 mammals. In fact, a dead minke whale that washed up on the coast of France in 2002 had more than 1,700 pounds of plastic and packaging in its stomach.
Ireland was the first country to establish a tax of 15 cents on plastic bags. Because of this law, Ireland had a 90% drop in the use of plastic bags. This saved more than four million gallons of oil. The tax also also raised $10 million which was used for a “green” fund.
In 2008, Whole Foods Market became the first US supermarket to eliminate disposable plastic bags. This decision did away with approximately 100 million new plastic bags.
Parts of the world are working on banning or taxing plastic bags. This would have monumental results in all of the world. For example, China’s 2008 ban eliminated the use of a plastic bag habit of approximately three billion plastic bags per day. That’s quite a habit!
Next posting I will provide you with some interesting facts about paper bags – as I think most of us believe those are preferable to plastic. I’ll let you decide. But I’m hoping you’ll be convinced to begin providing your own bags.
These are some facts I gleaned from the September, 2009, issue of “body + soul” magazine. I don’t know where they got the information, but I wanted to give the magazine credit.
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