Plastic bags

Data released by the United States Environmental Protection Agency shows that somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year.
National Geographic News September 2, 2003

Less than 1% of bags are recycled. It cost more to recycle a bag than to produce a new one.

“There's harsh economics behind bag recycling: It costs $4,000 to process and recycle 1 ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32”
- Jared Blumenfeld
(Director of San Francisco's Department of the Environment)

Then…
Where Do They Go?

A study in 1975, showed oceangoing vessels together dumped 8 million pounds of plastic annually. The real reason that the world's landfills weren't overflowing with plastic was because most of it ended up in an ocean-fill

Bags get blown around…

…to different parts of our lands

…and to our seas, lakes and rivers.

Bags find their way into the sea via drains and sewage pipes

Plastic bags have been found floating north of the Arctic Circle near Spitzbergen, and as far south as the Falkland Islands

Plastic bags account for over 10 percent of the debris washed up on the U.S. coastline

Plastic bags photodegrade: Over time they break down into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers

which eventually contaminate soils and waterways

As a consequence microscopic particles can enter the food chain

The effect on wildlife can be catastrophic

Birds become terminally entangled

Nearly 200 different species of sea life including whales, dolphins, seals and turtles die due to plastic bags
- World Wildlife Fund Report 2005

They die after ingesting plastic bags which they mistake for food

So…
What do we do?

If we use a cloth bag, we can save 6 bags a week

That's 24 bags a month

That's 288 bags a year

That's 22,176 bags in an average life time

If just 1 out of 5 people in our country did this we would save 1,330,560,000,000 bags over our life time

Bangladesh has banned plastic bags

China has banned free plastic bags
- CNN.com/asia January 9, 2008

Ireland took the lead iin Europe, taxing plastic bags in 2002 and have now reduced plastic bag
consumption by 90%

In 2005 Rwanda banned plastic bags

Israel, Canada, western India, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Taiwan, and Singapore have also banned or are moving toward banning the plastic bag

On March 27th 2007, San Francisco becomes first U.S. city to ban plastic bags

Oakland and Boston are considering a ban

Plastic shopping bags are made from polyethylene: a thermoplastic made from oil

Reducing plastic bags will decrease foreign oil dependency

China will save 37 million barrels of oil each year due to their ban of free plastic bags

It is possible......