I came across a site that is advocating the use of reusable bags. It says that shops should no longer provide bags and shoppers should bring their own bags for stuffs they buy. At first, I was undecided about it. I was actually thinking that if I will agree, I would say goodbye to all of my favorite paper bags that I am collecting from different stores I love. After sometime of pondering, I made up my mind and told myself that I should agree with their advocacy. I should also advocate the use of reusable bags instead of the plastic or paper ones.
The use of paper bags is not environment friendly, even if they do biodegrade or decompose over a period of time, because in order to produce paper bags, one should cut trees and that is not a very good idea. On the other hand, the use of plastic bags is the most impractical one and I will tell you why. The single-use plastic bags that we are using from time to time are made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), the chemical that is responsible for the photodegrading – breaking into smaller toxic bits of plastics. When those plastic bags were brought into existence to tote our purchases, they will accumulate and persist on our planet for up to 1,000 years. Imagine how many generations have already passed before those plastics disappear. I also found out that each year an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. An estimated 60 million barrels of oil or even more is required to make that many plastic bags and that is a lot waste of energy. Those billions of plastic bags end up as litter each year. With that big amount of plastic bags littered, hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating those bags mistaken for food. In Australia, 500,000 plastic bags were collected as part of their Clean Up Australia Day. While in Africa, windblown plastic bags are so prevalent that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC, one group harvests 30,000 per month. Now can you imagine how many plastic bags exist here on earth? In fact, a marine scientist, David Barnes, with the British Antarctic Survey, said that “Plastic bags have gone from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78 degrees North to Falklands 51 degrees South."
You may say that recycling can fix this problem about plastics, but it’s not. Recycling rates for plastic bags are extremely low. Only 1 to 3 percent of plastic bags end up getting recycled. Moreover, economics of recycling plastic bags are not appealing. From the process of sorting, to the contamination of inks and the overall low quality of the plastic used in plastics bags, recyclers would much rather focus on recycling the vast quantities of more viable materials such as soda and milk bottles that can be recycled far more efficiently. For example, it costs $4,000 to process and recycle 1 ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32. Recycling plastic bags requires more effort and even money than recycling other materials; this is why the rate of recycling them continues to decline. Furthermore, many bags collected for recycling never get recycled. A growing trend is to ship them to Third world countries like India and China, even here in the Philippines, which are rapidly becoming the dumping grounds for the Western world's glut of recyclables. Rather than being recycled they are cheaply incinerated under more lax environmental laws.
With all these disadvantages and harmful effects of the use of plastic bags, I think we now know what to do; BYOB – Bring your own bag! Nowadays, there are many long-lasting reusable bags with great quality and designs that are available in the local stores. Most of the reusable bags available are made from organic fabric or re-purposed fabric and canvas. I suppose you heard about the hot trend of bag from London, the limited edition Anya Hindmarch, "I'm NOT A Plastic bag". They look good, sending a great message and are of good quality- though not big enough for groceries, that’s why it was sold out fast. Reusable bags become trendier and trendier as time goes by. Kenneth Cole designed a simple canvas tote playfully emblazoned, "Use me again and again and again... I'M USED TO IT." Fossil has a number of cute organic cotton totes, including one that says, "Earth friendly is the new black." Aside from designers, supermarkets, like SaveMore, offer their own reusable bags for purchase. National Bookstore also did the same thing. Bringing your own bag, when shopping, has the potential to eliminate an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime.
For additional information, did you know that in Ireland, they imposed the extremely successful plastic bag consumption tax, or PlasTax? The said tax was introduced in 2002 and it reduced plastic bag consumption by 90%. Approximately 18 million liters of oil have been saved due to this reduced production. And now, governments around the world are considering implementing similar measures. I’m wondering if the Philippine government will also consider implementing this PlasTax. I will definitely support them if they will. How about you?
Sources:
http://www.zeroyourcarbon.com.au/info/shopping_bags/89/1.
http://www.sheknows.com/articles/804765.htm
http://www.amerigreenbag.com/
http://www.reusablebags.com/
*This was our writing finals in Eng012.
The use of paper bags is not environment friendly, even if they do biodegrade or decompose over a period of time, because in order to produce paper bags, one should cut trees and that is not a very good idea. On the other hand, the use of plastic bags is the most impractical one and I will tell you why. The single-use plastic bags that we are using from time to time are made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), the chemical that is responsible for the photodegrading – breaking into smaller toxic bits of plastics. When those plastic bags were brought into existence to tote our purchases, they will accumulate and persist on our planet for up to 1,000 years. Imagine how many generations have already passed before those plastics disappear. I also found out that each year an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. An estimated 60 million barrels of oil or even more is required to make that many plastic bags and that is a lot waste of energy. Those billions of plastic bags end up as litter each year. With that big amount of plastic bags littered, hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating those bags mistaken for food. In Australia, 500,000 plastic bags were collected as part of their Clean Up Australia Day. While in Africa, windblown plastic bags are so prevalent that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC, one group harvests 30,000 per month. Now can you imagine how many plastic bags exist here on earth? In fact, a marine scientist, David Barnes, with the British Antarctic Survey, said that “Plastic bags have gone from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78 degrees North to Falklands 51 degrees South."
You may say that recycling can fix this problem about plastics, but it’s not. Recycling rates for plastic bags are extremely low. Only 1 to 3 percent of plastic bags end up getting recycled. Moreover, economics of recycling plastic bags are not appealing. From the process of sorting, to the contamination of inks and the overall low quality of the plastic used in plastics bags, recyclers would much rather focus on recycling the vast quantities of more viable materials such as soda and milk bottles that can be recycled far more efficiently. For example, it costs $4,000 to process and recycle 1 ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32. Recycling plastic bags requires more effort and even money than recycling other materials; this is why the rate of recycling them continues to decline. Furthermore, many bags collected for recycling never get recycled. A growing trend is to ship them to Third world countries like India and China, even here in the Philippines, which are rapidly becoming the dumping grounds for the Western world's glut of recyclables. Rather than being recycled they are cheaply incinerated under more lax environmental laws.
With all these disadvantages and harmful effects of the use of plastic bags, I think we now know what to do; BYOB – Bring your own bag! Nowadays, there are many long-lasting reusable bags with great quality and designs that are available in the local stores. Most of the reusable bags available are made from organic fabric or re-purposed fabric and canvas. I suppose you heard about the hot trend of bag from London, the limited edition Anya Hindmarch, "I'm NOT A Plastic bag". They look good, sending a great message and are of good quality- though not big enough for groceries, that’s why it was sold out fast. Reusable bags become trendier and trendier as time goes by. Kenneth Cole designed a simple canvas tote playfully emblazoned, "Use me again and again and again... I'M USED TO IT." Fossil has a number of cute organic cotton totes, including one that says, "Earth friendly is the new black." Aside from designers, supermarkets, like SaveMore, offer their own reusable bags for purchase. National Bookstore also did the same thing. Bringing your own bag, when shopping, has the potential to eliminate an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime.
For additional information, did you know that in Ireland, they imposed the extremely successful plastic bag consumption tax, or PlasTax? The said tax was introduced in 2002 and it reduced plastic bag consumption by 90%. Approximately 18 million liters of oil have been saved due to this reduced production. And now, governments around the world are considering implementing similar measures. I’m wondering if the Philippine government will also consider implementing this PlasTax. I will definitely support them if they will. How about you?
Sources:
http://www.zeroyourcarbon.com.au/info/shopping_bags/89/1.
http://www.sheknows.com/articles/804765.htm
http://www.amerigreenbag.com/
http://www.reusablebags.com/
*This was our writing finals in Eng012.
Post a Comment