|
|
"Paper or
plastic?" should be replaced with, "Do you have your reusable shopping bag with
you?" The challenge we now face is to replace the throwaway economy with a
reduce, reuse, recycle economy. Our earth can no longer tolerate the pollution,
the energy use, the disruption from mining, and the deforestation that our
throwaway economy requires. It is easy to forget how many throwaway products
there are until we actually begin making a list. We have substituted facial
tissues for handkerchiefs, disposable paper towels for hand towels, disposable
table napkins for cloth napkins, and throwaway beverage containers for
refillable ones. In perhaps the ultimate insult, the shopping bags that are used
to carry home throwaway products are themselves designed to be discarded,
becoming part of the garbage flow. We are literally choking the planet with
products, which cannot re-enter the life cycle. If we all take a moment and
become conscious of our waste it can be the beginning of an awareness that can
affect positive change.
(Source: The Earth
Policy Reader)
A great web link
that provides information for recycling plastic bags:
http://www.plasticbagrecycling.org/00.0/
Plastic Bag Facts
-
12 million
barrels of oil are used to make the plastic bags consumed in the U.S. annually.
-
Plastic creates 4
times the solid waste vs. paper bags; enough to fill the Empire State Building 2 1/2 times a year.
-
88.5 billion
plastic bags were consumed in the U.S. last year.
-
It takes up to
1000 years for plastic bags to biodegrade in our landfills.
-
The average
family of four uses 1460 plastic bags a year.
-
An estimated 500
billion plastic bags are sold worldwide each year.
-
Less than 1% of
all plastic bags are recycled in the U.S.
-
Over 100,000
birds and marine life die each year due to an encounter with plastic debris,
much of it plastic bags.
-
Plastic is
getting into the food chain. Even the finest particles of plastic
represent a threat to creatures at the lowest level of the food chain in the
marine environment, the filter feeders. Then, toxins in filter feeders are
passed up the food chain to fish and other marine animals, which humans then
consume.
-
Plastic is
over-running our planet. Estimates run as high as one million pieces of
plastic per square kilometer (0.6 mile) floating in specific areas of the
Pacific Ocean.
-
When one ton of
plastic bags are reused or recycled, the energy saved is equal to 11 barrels of
oil.
But plastic bags are so convenient!
It depends on how
far you are looking. A plastic bag may be convenient for a minute or two
when you carry something out of the store, but for the rest of the life of the
bag (which is forever) it is not just inconvenient, it is ugly, toxic, and
life-threatening. There are alternatives to plastic bags, many of which
were used by our parents and grandparents quite handily. Some ideas are
suggested below.
What can I do?
1. Learn
more about the impact of plastic packaging.
2. Begin
today to limit, and then eventually stop, your consumption of plastic bags.
3. Know
your alternatives.
4. Use your
alternatives.
5. Refuse
to accept plastic bags from clerks who habitually stuff your purchases into the
standard packaging.
Two large canvas
bags of premium quality cost about $30, and should last about 10 years. If
plastic bag fees, under consideration in some California communities, are
instituted at a conservative 15 cents/bag, a family switching from four plastic
shopping bags per week will recover its purchase cost in the first year.
In the nine years following, an additional $30 per year would be saved.
(Source: EPA, Time Magazine, and GreenSangha.org)
Paper Bag Facts
-
14 million trees
are cut down to make the paper bags used in a year.
-
Only 20% of paper
bags get recycled.
-
When one ton of
paper bags is reused or recycled, three cubic meters of landfill space is saved
and 13-17 trees are spared! In 1997, 955,000 tons of paper bags were used in the
United States.
-
Paper cannot be
recycled indefinitely. It can only be recycled 4-6 times. Some virgin pulp must
be introduced into the process to maintain the strength and quality of the
fiber, so no matter how much we recycle we will never eradicate the need for
virgin fiber.
-
Paper is the
number one material that we throw away. For every 100 pounds of trash we throw
away, 35 pounds is paper. Newspapers take up about 14 percent of landfill space,
and paper in packaging accounts for another 15 to 20 percent.
(Source: EPA,
Institute for lifecycle Environmental Assessment and Eia.doe.gov)
20 ways to reuse a paper bag:
http://fcgov.com/recycling/pdf/kereuse.pdf
|
|
My Account
