At least 267 different species have been affected by plastic pollution in the ocean. 100,000 marine animals are killed by plastic bags annually. One in three leatherback sea turtles have been found with plastic in their stomachs.
Plastic bags also pose a danger to birds and marine mammals that often mistake them for food. Floating plastic bags regularly fool sea turtles into thinking they are one of their favorite prey: jellyfish. Thousands of animals die each year after swallowing or choking on discarded plastic bags.
Today, an average person living in North America or Western Europe consumes 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of plastic each year, mostly in the form of packaging. 3. In Asia, average plastic use is currently just one-fifth that level, at 20 kilograms (44 pounds) per person.
When plastic bags are thrown away they usually end up in landfills or in waterways and oceans. Reusit.com reports that in a landfill, plastics may take up to 1,000 years to degrade and they break down into tiny particles that contaminate our soil and water.
Plastic Bags and the Environment
- ENERGY SAVINGS: Plastic bags require 70% less energy to manufacture and consume 96% less water than what's used to make paper bags.
- DISPOSAL ADVANTAGES: Once disposed, reusable bags take up to 9.3% more space than plastic bags in landfills.
They had announced a complete ban under which plastic and tetra water bottles, single-use straws, plastic and styrofoam tea cups and containers were prohibited for use. Some others such as Bihar banned only polythene bags.
Plastic bags are made from oil: it takes about 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million plastic bags, and the U.S. goes through 380 billion of them a year. A statistics class at Indiana U did the math: more than 1.6 billion gallons of oil are used each year for plastic bags alone.
They are not reusable in the long term. Constantly throwing them away pollutes the environment and overflows landfills. The average American uses 500 Ziploc bags every year. When they do end up in the landfill, oceans, or other areas of the planet they can be detrimental to our health and the environment.
Of the 8.3 billion metric tons that has been produced, 6.3 billion metric tons has become plastic waste. Of that, only nine percent has been recycled. The vast majority—79 percent—is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter.
Microplastics entering the human body via direct exposures through ingestion or inhalation can lead to an array of health impacts, including inflammation, genotoxicity, oxidative stress, apoptosis, and necrosis, which are linked to an array of negative health outcomes including cancer, cardiovascular diseases,
Plastic bags, wraps, and films can't be recycled in your curbside recycling bins. But, you can take some of these items to local retail stores where they collect plastic grocery bags for recycling. Any package that you see with the How2Recycle Store Drop-Off label can be recycled this way.
But let's compare them to more commonly recycled items. I weighed a piece of printer paper (4.5 grams), a plastic grocery bag (5.5 grams), and an empty soda can (13.5 grams). A plastic bag weighs more than a piece of paper, and three plastic bags exceed the weight of a can.
Now, a new study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology says it's possible that humans may be consuming anywhere from 39,000 to 52,000 microplastic particles a year. With added estimates of how much microplastic might be inhaled, that number is more than 74,000.
There is now 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic in our ocean & 46,000 pieces in every square mile of ocean, weighing up to 269,000 tonnes. Every day around 8 million pieces of plastic makes their way into our oceans.
Health-conscious Americans are consuming water from disposable plastic bottles at a rate of more than 70 million bottles each day.
We are producing over 300 million tons of plastic every year, 50% of which is for single-use purposes – utilized for just a few moments, but on the planet for at least several hundred years. More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year.
- Return them to a shop.
- Post them to a specialist recycling plant.
- Find a local plastic bag recycling point using this handy tool from Recycle Now.
- Put plastic bags into your household recycling.
While paper is biodegradable and avoids some of the problems of plastic, Taylor says, the huge increase of paper, together with the uptick in plastic trash bags, means banning plastic shopping bags increases greenhouse gas emissions. That said, these bans do reduce nonbiodegradable litter.
That's because, while paper breaks down much faster under ideal conditions, landfills are not ideal conditions. Paper bags generate 70 more air pollutants than plastic. They generate 50 times more water pollutants than plastic. It takes 91 percent less energy to recycle a plastic bag than it does a paper bag.
