Plastic bags are difficult and expensive to recycle and most end up in landfills where they take about 300 years to photodegrade. They break down into small toxic particles that contaminate soil and waterways and enter the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them. Plastic bags that end up being recycled on the sidewalks of houses end up entangled in sorting equipment. This slows down the recycling process, damages or breaks recycling equipment, and puts workers at risk of being harmed.
The photo shows workers unraveling dozens of plastic bags from sorting equipment. What do bans achieve? They prevent millions of tons of plastic from entering the waste stream every year. And when it comes to waste that lasts forever, every ton counts. In New York, residents use 23 billion plastic bags each year. Banning single-use plastic not only reduces pollution, but it also reduces the demand for plastic production that contributes to global climate change.
But beyond these impacts, bans have cultural effects. Companies are forced to innovate, to rethink their designs and to purchase sustainable materials. And they help change consumers' mindsets, as people begin to recognize that exorbitant and avoidable waste are not sustainable. Even if the plastic doesn't end up in the ocean, recycled plastic is often exported from high-income countries to developing countries for processing.
One of the main advantages of plastic bags is that, compared to other types of shopping bags, their production involves the lowest environmental cost. Regardless of whether the bag is made of plastic, paper or another material, the most sustainable option is the bag you already have. As part of the Let's Get Rid of Plastic movement, Greenpeace volunteers conducted an audit of coastal plastic pollution and examined tens of thousands of individual pieces in 42 countries to identify sources of pollution. However, the enormous amount of plastic waste floods communities until they drown under thousands of tons of plastic waste.
Made from a more durable type of plastic, these bags must be reused around eleven times to reach the point of balance with the impact of conventional plastic. To have a comparable environmental footprint (encompassing climate change and other environmental effects) to that of plastic bags, a cotton bag may have to be used thousands of times. In general, it's critical to strive to reuse any bag you have in your possession and to dispose of it responsibly. For hungry sea turtles, it's almost impossible to distinguish between jellyfish and floating plastic shopping bags.
One of the first steps to leading an environmentally friendly lifestyle is to eliminate plastic bags from your life. It is estimated that, around the world, people consume the equivalent of a credit card full of plastic every week,1 and it is expected that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the sea. This is because plastic bags, like all plastic materials, will eventually break into microscopic pieces, which scientists call microplastics. In addition to filling landfills and turning into something horrible, plastic bags that become garbage endanger many facets of the environment, including marine life and the food chain. Manufacturers began to replace traditional paper or glass staples with lighter, more durable and affordable plastic alternatives; plastic jugs replaced milk jars, for example.
In addition to varying greatly in terms of their compatibility with the environment, there is the possibility that reusable bags may remain unused, because consumers should remember to take them with them to the store.
