I
remember the first time I went shopping with my new cloth shopping bag. I
was so proud. I told the cashier that I was saving the world one plastic bag
at a time. Well, gee wilikers, I’m not even the one to come up with that
saying. That’s the title of an article by Mark Gunther, Fortune Magazine
according to
www.moneycnn.com. Sorry, Mark, I thought I came up with that saying.
Regardless of who was the first to say it, I believe it.
According to EPA, the U.S. consumes about 380 billion
plastic bags, sacks and wrappers a year. Plastic bags are made from a
non-renewable natural resource: petroleum. Consequently, the manufacturing
of plastic bags contributes to the diminishing availability of our natural
resources and the damage to the environment from the extraction of
petroleum. At the same time, plastics are hazardous to produce; the
pollution from plastic production is harmful to the environment. Finally,
most plastic bags are made of polyethylene - more commonly known as
polythene - they are hazardous to manufacture.
Plastic bags are difficult and costly to recycle and most
end up in landfill sites where they take hundreds of years to photodegrade.
They break down into tiny toxic particles that contaminate the soil and
waterways and enter the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them.
But the problems surrounding waste plastic bags starts long before they
photodegrade. Our planet is becoming increasingly contaminated by our use of
plastic bags. Big black garbage liners, plastic bags carrying advertising
logos, sandwich bags, and a variety of other forms are all polluting our
environment. They're lightweight, handy, and easily discarded. Too easily
discarded.
Just take a look around you. Plastic bags can be seen
hanging from the branches of trees, flying in the air on windy days, settled
among bushes, and floating on rivers. They clog up gutters and drains
causing water and sewage to overflow and become the breeding grounds of
germs and bacteria that cause diseases.
Dangers to Sea Life: Animals and sea creatures are
hurt and killed every day by discarded plastic bags - a dead turtle with a
plastic bag hanging from its mouth isn't a pleasant sight, but mistaking
plastic bags for food is commonplace among marine animals. Plastic clogs
their intestines and leads to slow starvation. Others become entangled in
plastic bags and drown.
Because plastic bags take hundreds of years to break down,
every year our seas become 'home' to more and more bags that find their way
there through our sewers and waterways. Bags that are washed down a drain
during rainfall, bags that are flushed down a toilet (many small bags are),
and every bag that's blown into a river will most likely end up in the sea.
Add to that the enormous amounts of energy that's used
every year in order to manufacture these bags and it's no surprise that
pressure is being put on governments to make changes and consumers to
re-think their mind-set.
Pollution Taxes & Bans: Following the levy of taxes
on plastic bags in Ireland, usage dropped by 90 percent. In 2007, the city
of San Francisco, California passed a city ordinance to ban plastic bag use
in supermarkets and pharmacies. Several countries have already banned their
use and more will doubtless follow. While anything that lowers our
consumption is good, why wait until we're hit financially before we change
our habits when changes aren't difficult to make?
How about taking previously used bags with you next time
you go to the shops? Or even better - use cloth bags. Shop-owners would much
rather you use their bags as they're a convenient and a cheap form of
advertising, but what's more important, shareholder profits or the
environment?
Plastic bags can be recycled although only about one in
every 200 ever find their way to a recycling unit. Recycling plastic bags is
not financially feasible due to sorting, contamination of inks, and the
overall low quality of the plastic used in plastic bags. If the economics
don’t work, recycling efforts don’t work. It costs $4,000.00 to process and
recycle 1 ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities
market for $32.00 (Jared Blumenfeld, director of San Francisco’s Department
of the Environment as reported by Christian Science Monitor).
Greenhouse Gases: Some countries have
introduced so-called "environmentally friendly plastic bags" that are
biodegradable. These bags take about three years to break down. The truth is
that the process of breaking down these petrol based bags causes carbon to
become methane which is a greenhouse gas. It's also possible to get
'plastic' bags manufactured from corn. These break down very quickly and
give off no more methane than any other corn product on landfill sites.
Unfortunately, they're more expensive to produce and few shops use them.
Conclusion: By refusing to use plastic bags, you
can make a huge difference to the pollution problem. Each person uses
between 80-100 bags a year. If there are four people in your family, that's
almost 400 fewer plastic bags used every year.
That's hundreds of bags less that will:
Conservation
Quarterly - 
Each page of the newsletter has
its own 
This tour will provide an opportunity for you to learn more
about these programs and how you can be involved. You also will receive a
packet that explains all of the topics discussed and will have an
opportunity to ask questions of our staff or the landowners involved. This
is an excellent opportunity for you to learn more about the important role
that the Conservation District plays in promoting the wise use of Warren
County’s natural resources.
