Who Paid The Clean Up Cost For Bower Landfill
Plastic bags are a user-friendly manner to behave our purchased goods when nosotros go shopping. They are a part of our modernistic lives, and we don't tend to recollect much near them. In fact, it is estimated that up to ten meg plastic bags are used every minute around the world [1].
300 to 700 plastic bags laissez passer through the hands of an boilerplate American in just one twelvemonth [8] and a survey of the Department for Surroundings, Food and Rural Affairs concluded that the average household in the United Kingdom stores around 40 plastic shopping numberless at home [2].
What about you? Do you likewise accept that overflowing kitchen drawer total of plastic bags y'all bring from your shopping trips?
If the answer is yes, you should know that this inadvertent overconsumption of single-utilize plastic carries with it a very high cost to the environs, which in turn besides negatively affects our health.
How? Well, allow's accept a await at the well-nigh of import reasons why single-use plastic numberless should be banned correct now.
Quick Navigation for Reasons Why Plastic Shopping Bags Should Exist Banned
10 Good reasons why are plastic bags bad for us and for the environment
#ane Plastic bags pollute our land and h2o
Plastic numberless are everywhere. Look around and you will find that plastic bags are the most mutual litter. Tangled in copse and fences along roads, floating in water, lying on the ground in parks and forests, surrounding garbage bins, washed off on beaches…
Because they are so lightweight, plastic bags get easily picked upwardly past wind and travel long distances by air current and water to pollute the nature.
Plastic bag litter has even caused great problems in some areas. For case, millions of discarded plastic bags clog h2o drainage channels and sewers in urban areas of People's republic of bangladesh. When the monsoon rains outset, streets get waterlogged only after the kickoff few minutes because the water cannot pass through chock-full sewerage pipes.
For many of us it is hard to imagine that something as small equally a plastic handbag tin can actually cause flooding, but residents of some cities in People's republic of bangladesh accept been struggling with this problem every monsoon season for the by two decades [three].
The Pasig River in the Philippines is another scary example of the negative effects of plastic numberless on the surroundings. Some tributaries of the river have been filled with plastic waste to the level that you could almost walk across them without getting your feet moisture. Unfortunately, such a loftier level of pollution doesn't come without consequences. The Pasig River is the eight worst source of ocean plastic pollution in the globe.
#2 Plastic bags are made from non-renewable resources and contribute to climate modify
We hear everywhere effectually us that we need to relieve free energy. It is proficient for our environs, health and global climate. But only a few of us realize that each time nosotros accept those disposable plastic grocery numberless at store checkout, nosotros actively participate in wasting energy and depleting non-renewable resources.
The majority of plastic numberless are fabricated of polyethylene, a substance that is derived from crude oil refining and natural gas processing.
Oil and natural gas are non-renewable fossil fuel-based resource and through their extraction and product, they emit greenhouse gases, which contribute to global climate change.
The production of these bags is very energy intensive. Globally, eight to x pct of our current oil supply goes to a plastic bag manufacture [4]. In the United States alone, statistics accomplish up to 12 million barrels of oil that are used each year to produce even more plastic bags – 100 billion more, to give you the precise number [v].
To produce nine plastic bags, information technology takes the equivalent energy to drive a car i kilometer (more than than 0.5 miles).
Using these non-renewable resources to make plastic bags is very short-sighted, considering that the typical useful life of each plastic handbag is about 12 minutes and that the world's oil reserves incorporate enough oil to comprehend our needs through 2050, as the U.S. Energy Information Assistants estimates.
#iii Plastic bags never break downwards
Petroleum-based plastic numberless are composed of very resistant synthetic polymers that may take up to 1,000 years or never until they completely degrade in natural environments [6]
What does occur in virtually instances is that when out in the environment, the plastic breaks up into tiny microscopic pieces that get deposited in soils (where nosotros grow food) or contaminate waterways. These pieces can be so small that they are invisible to our eye.
Yous tin be certain of ane affair, though. Even when you don't see information technology, these indestructible particles are everywhere around us, including in the food concatenation.
Already in 2001, researchers plant that the mass of microscopic plastic fragments in the North Pacific Primal Gyre was 6 times higher than of plankton. The subtropical gyres of the Northward Pacific Ocean are as well documented to contain the highest concentrations of plastic. It's because Asian and Usa coastlines release big amounts of plastic waste in the bounding main [7].
But this comes along with many unanswered questions. Nosotros exercise not know the full bear upon of microplastics exceeding the mass of plankton in the body of water. We don't know how information technology will in the long term bear on plankton-feeding species and their predators.
Scientists have recorded some species of zooplankton eating tiny plastic particles. Considering what important source of nutrient plankton is for many other species, it is clear that plastic gets distributed across the marine ecosystem.
The truth is that we do not know yet the total calibration of negative impacts plastic waste can have on marine and terrestrial environments because information technology hasn't been effectually long plenty to allow u.s. to assess possible scenarios of its influence on natural cycles.
However, one thing we know, is that past introducing a pollutant that may never break down in the environment can accept implications that will far exceed whatever of our predictions.
#4 Plastic bags are harmful to wildlife and marine life
Have you lot ever seen endangered sea turtles hatch? They are tinier than a palm of your paw and announced so fragile when struggling across the beach to make it to the sea.
Even human being footprints left in the sand represent mountain-like obstacles in their path and waves washing up on the beach are another claiming, as they thrust them back on the dry land to effort once once again before finally being picked upward by a return current and commencement pond for their life.
Since their nativity, baby turtles have only one goal – to go to the sea and swim into deep waters where they will feed and if successful grow into adult turtles. On their long journey, they will encounter many difficulties and only a pocket-sized portion of them will survive.
Sadly, ane of their newly acquired enemies is created by us who should protect them instead. Plastic bags.
Plastic bags floating in the ocean resemble jellyfish, 1 of the main sources of nutrient for some species of sea turtles, especially the critically-endangered Leatherback turtles.
According to a study carried out in 2013, up to 35 percentage of turtle deaths were caused by plastic ingestion and the probability that sea turtles will consume even more plastic increases every year [9].
Sea turtles are not the only species suffering from plastic bag pollution of the environment.
Nearly 20 years agone, a dead pelican was found with its tum filled with 17 plastic bags [x]. In 2008, a crocodile in Australia died considering of 25 plastic bags filling its stomach [xi]. A calf had to be put down because of indigestion caused by 8 plastic numberless in its stomach. These examples could go on for a long time…
Plastic numberless are often mistaken for nutrient by animals, birds, and marine life. The consumed plastic congests the digestive tracts of these animals, and can atomic number 82 to health issues such as infections, painful abdominal blockage, starvation or expiry past suffocation.
The most heartbreaking part of this is that the affected animals are non enlightened they eat something that will make them experience miserable and will slowly kill them.
Animals can likewise easily become entangled in this plastic waste. In that location were numerous cases of birds caught in plastic bags, unable to fly and feed, eventually strangling themselves to death.
Similar fate has met dolphins, seals, cats, dogs, deer and many other animals which got severely cutting on their bodies due to plastic handbag entanglement.
National Geographic made a video on how helpless it feels to exist caught in a plastic bag. Have a expect yourself to imagine the suffering of these animals.
A concluding example of a true horror acquired by plastic has been discovered just recently. A 2018 written report of coral reefs in the Asia-Pacific has confirmed that plastic waste deposited on coral reefs promotes outbreaks of diseases that gradually destroy whole reef colonies [12]. So, plastic waste matter only speeds up the destruction of these most biodiverse ecosystems on world.
#v Plastic bags are harmful to human wellness
Many of you may take heard it already. Tiny plastic particles accept been found in human feces.
But is it really that surprising?
Microplastics were found in soft drinks similar Coca Cola, in tap water, in seafood… It has contaminated our food chain, and then it should not surprise us that it can be tracked in our body.
In fact, according to researchers, every 2d person on the planet could have some microplastic in the body [13].
The reason to worry is that scientists do not know how our metabolism and immunity volition react to the increased concentration of plastic particles in our system. They doubtable that information technology may add stress on the liver by introducing more pathogens into the torso.
Additionally, plastics in our digestive tract may affect absorption of some important trace elements (similar iron) which we need for maintaining proper wellness [13].
Plastic bags and plastic products overall incorporate substances that are harmful to our health. The near common are inorganic dyes that are added to alter the color of plastic bags.
These dyes on their own can leach toxins, just they can also be contaminated with traces of heavy metals such every bit atomic number 82 or cadmium, both of which affect kidney health and proper functioning of other organs.
Plastic fragments in the ocean such every bit those from plastic bags can blot pollutants like PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and PAHs (Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) easily. These are known to be hormone-disrupting chemicals.
Some other indirect danger of plastic numberless has breeding ground in the pollution they create.
Plastic waste product that clogs h2o drainage channels and river tributaries of many Asian cities increases exposure of residents to water-borne diseases, as it creates a toxic soup that remains stranded in one identify for prolonged periods of time.
#6 Plastic bags are not easy to recycle
As plastic bags tend to get defenseless in recycling machinery, near recycling facilities do not have the chapters to recycle plastic bags and therefore do not accept them.
In fact, plastic bags are considered by many recycling facilities the number i contaminant and their removal from the recycling stream costs municipalities close to $one million a year [18].
Since plastic bag recycling requires a specialized equipment that can interruption down the plastic and mold it into a new product, most municipalities do non have the budget to include their recycling in their waste product management program. So, plastic purse recycling facilities are few and far between and transportation to i could be expensive.
As a result, the bodily recycling rate for plastic bags globally is between 5 to 15 percentage, while in the Us information technology makes only 1 percent a yr [17].
An additional trouble with plastic grocery bags recycling is their cleanliness. Ideally, to be suitable for recycling, bags need to exist make clean to exist accepted, which is oftentimes a trouble, considering that we use them to carry groceries and potentially leaky goods.
#seven Plastic numberless are costly to pay for and to make clean upwards after
If in that location is one piece of communication that everyone should remember, it would be that "nothing is for free" in this world.
While we may not pay for plastic bags directly when we go shopping, they are anything but "free."
On average, plastic numberless cost retailers near 3-5 cents each. It may not seem similar much, but when you imagine how many bags they have to provide throughout a twelvemonth, you volition chop-chop realize that plastic numberless are costly. And so, retailers incorporate this cost "hiddenly" into prices of other items sold at stores.
Additionally, someone has to pay the cost of dealing with plastic numberless in the waste product stream. This includes waste product drove, regular cleanups to remove plastic bag litter along the roads or diddled abroad from landfills and then even processing at landfill sites.
Co-ordinate to some estimates, the price of plastic bag cleanup is virtually 17 cents per bag [14] and the toll is paid by united states of america in one case over again.
On boilerplate, taxpayers end up paying about $88 per yr just on plastic bag waste [xv].
So that "free" plastic bag isn't so gratis after all.
#8 Plastic bags have external costs
Across the costs associated with the production and purchasing of plastic bags by retailers, there are many external costs that are often not considered.
These costs include the true environmental costs of resource extraction and depletion, the loss of quality of life, economic loss from littering, and wildlife loss.
Unfortunately, such costs are typically not included in nearly economical analyses, as they are not easy to calculate considering the equation would have to involve many indirect variables.
However, in 2014, the United Nations Environs Program (UNEP) supported the first project to calculate the "existent" cost of plastic, including adverse environmental impacts of its production, utilise and disposal.
The resulting number is staggering. Plastic employ costs approximately $75 billion a year [16].
#9 In that location are ameliorate alternatives bachelor, and jobs to become with them!
The very best culling is a reusable purse. Practice y'all wonder why?
The explanation is quite unproblematic. Reusable shopping bags are very durable and tin be reused many times over the course of their useful life.
This means that you are not consuming more resource every time y'all need to carry your groceries dwelling. Instead, yous are really reusing a product, and that ways that you are utilizing earth's resource smartly, while at the aforementioned time reducing waste.
For example, a reusable jute purse should terminal at to the lowest degree iv years, during which it can prevent the employ of 600 unmarried-use plastic bags.
Once a person gets into the habit of bringing reusable bags when shopping, it is not much of an inconvenience at all. After all, ask your grandparents, they will remember that during their fourth dimension people were used to go shopping with their ain bags or baskets.
The manufacturing of reusable numberless or compostable alternatives to plastic bags offers a new opportunity to create sustainable products and provide jobs that get with them.
The trend has already started. At that place are some great initiatives that strive to provide jobs for women in rural communities with limited possibilities of securing monthly income.
#10 Other governments are banning plastic bags, so yours should too… or at least brand people pay for them
To date, around lx countries and municipalities around the globe have instituted plastic pocketbook bans, and additional vii countries are planning to enforce the law in the closest future.
Some countries accept decided to do then after directly experiencing negative impacts of plastic bags, other countries accept implemented the ban to attain their sustainability goals.
Let's see some examples:
- The first state to ban single-use plastic bags was Bangladesh in 2002 when plastic pocketbook litter clogged drainage channels and contributed to destructive floods.
- Other country that has decided to enforce the state-wide plastic bag ban after suffering of negative consequences was Mauritania. The state instituted the ban in 2013 to minimize livestock deaths. Prior the ban, 70 percent of livestock losses were attributed to plastic bag ingestion [xx].
- In the U.s.a., California has banned unmarried-use plastic numberless in 2016, but the city of San Francisco has locally issued this ban already in 2012 and consumers pay a picayune fee for other alternatives similar compostable numberless or recycled paper bags.
- Another example of a locally issued ban is Seattle where not just single-apply plastic numberless take been banned but besides single-utilise compostable and biodegradable numberless. This measure should encourage people to switch to reusable alternatives.
For those governments that are opposed to full bans on plastic numberless, some other option is to found a plastic bag revenue enhancement, where consumers or retailers would pay a small fee for each plastic bag.
This strategy has been adopted by some countries and municipalities and so far and has proven to profoundly reduce plastic pocketbook usage by consumers.
For instance, in Botswana, the consumption of plastic bags dropped by 50 percent after the introduction of the tax in 2007. In Ireland, where this fee was instituted in 2002, plastic bag usage decreased by about xc percent. This means that the average consumption of plastic bags per person dropped from 328 bags per year to only 21 [twenty].
While these countries and municipalities have been making strides in their role of reducing circulation of plastic numberless, in full there are 195 countries in the world [19] and the issue of plastic pollution is still getting out of our hands. That is why the United Nations Environmental Programme Secretariat has recommended a ban on all plastic numberless globally .
Steps towards a plastic handbag gratuitous future: How to assistance ban plastic numberless in your community?
Plastic bags have get such a nuisance because nosotros every bit consumers use them excessively fifty-fifty when not needed and government haven't figured out constructive ways of dealing with them every bit waste.
Until recently, the touch on of plastic bags has been largely underestimated and disregarded.
Logically, the cardinal to starting a change in your community is education.
This ways that you need to first educate yourself well-nigh the trouble. You demand to know what effects plastic bags have on the environment and health. What is the root of the problem (consumers or municipal waste material management)?
But you should as well consider the other perspective – what effect single-apply bags have had on the local economy and product affordability. You should examine what alternatives are available and whether local retailers, who frequently operate with a limited monthly budget, have the ability to make the switch.
By being aware almost these bug, you will be prepare to present some stiff arguments why plastic bags should exist banned in your surface area and reply questions of people who volition go your marry if you volition persuade them about your proficient intentions. Which brings us to the 2d part…
2d pace is educating others.
Help raise sensation of fellow consumers – that means everyone when you think well-nigh information technology (unless they don't store…e'er).
Communities with skilful awareness about negative impacts of plastic bags accept been more successful at enforcing the ban [20]. This is because the customers voluntarily reduce their consumption of plastic numberless, which in plow provides plenty time for retailers to find suitable alternatives and switch to them.
Once the bike starts spinning, information technology leads to fifty-fifty more positive changes. The decrease in demand for plastic numberless forces manufacturers to reduce their product and consider expanding in a supply of alternative products.
Additionally, awareness raising campaigns create a social pressure that should inspire local authorities and institutions to aid in making changes at a bigger scale, like a regional ban or levy.
You equally an individual have the ability to make a gradual modify in your customs. Start from yourself and slowly expand to your family and friends. Individual actions can pb to commonage actions.
How to terminate using plastic bags?
The get-go reply to this question that comes to everyone's mind is to stop using plastic bags, right? Simply, refuse them when offered and bring your ain reusable bag when shopping.
These steps are pretty straight forward and depend on your own initiative.
All the same, we are all too familiar with situations when a cashier automatically puts your items in a plastic bag before you tin oppose information technology.
In many instances, it may seem also awkward for y'all to refuse the bag, so yous take information technology this one fourth dimension, simply you should know that it is fine to say no politely even at this stage if you don't want that bag. The cashier usually understands, only had to practice what instructed and what about customers expect (unfortunately) from him or her. We all are merely trying to do our job well.
In countries with a lack of awareness about negative impacts of plastic bags, a polite refusal might not be met with much understanding. So, you lot should attempt to explain your reasons for not wanting your products packed in plastic numberless.
Near retailers will become your point, but it tin besides happen that they will non be willing to sell y'all some products without placing it in their plastic bags considering of having to oblige with some hygiene and sanitary standards (for example when selling meat products).
If this happens, there are a few scenarios yous can follow:
- You could either talk over with a store manager a possibility of bringing your ain containers for these products.
- Look for another place that does accept or use alternative packaging, such as small local stores that utilise paper wraps or compostable bags.
- Or you may need to accept that plastic bag this fourth dimension and then beginning campaigning for a plastic bag ban in your surface area 😊.
What to exercise with plastic bags you already accept at habitation?
The best matter you can do with those old plastic bags that have been stashed in that overflowing drawer in your kitchen is to recycle them.
You cannot recycle them in the regular curbside collection of plastic, simply you should be able to notice many larger nutrient stores and retailers (for case: Target, Walmart, Tesco, Morrisons, etc.) that do collect plastic bags and other plastic films and transport them for proper recycling.
Y'all can use some easy online locators to see the closest plastic bag drop-off. All y'all demand to practise is paste your Zilch lawmaking and then come across the listing of stores with bag drop-off in your nearest location.
Most drop-off collection points take plastic bags made from high-density polyethylene (plastic number two) and low-density polyethylene (plastic number 4). It means that about numberless can be recycled.
This includes grocery plastic bags, Ziplock-type bags, dry cleaning bags and bread bags.
At that place is only one requirement – these plastic bags need to be dry out and clean, otherwise they contaminate the entire batch and your effort will do more than harm than skillful.
[i] https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/25496/singleUsePlastic_sustainability.pdf
[two] https://www.eco-business.com/opinion/getting-rid-of-plastic-bags-a-windfall-for-supermarkets-just-it-wont-do-much-for-the-environment/
[3] https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/2018/04/09/plastic-chokes-dhakas-drainage/
[four] https://1bagatatime.com/learn/plastic-bags-petroleum/
[5] https://abcnews.go.com/Engineering science/story?id=2935417&folio=1
[6] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/mag/2018/06/plastic-planet-waste-pollution-trash-crisis/
[7] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/124006/pdf
[eight] https://www.mnn.com/world-matters/animals/blogs/rare-sea-turtles-eating-plastic-at-record-rate
[nine] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/ten.1111/cobi.12126
[10] http://www.prijatelji-zivotinja.60 minutes/index.en.php?id=934
[xi] http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2008/12/plastic-numberless-and-animals-making-the-wild-safe-for-wild fauna/
[12] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6374/460
[xiii] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/22/microplastics-constitute-in-human-stools-for-the-offset-fourth dimension
[14] https://1bagatatime.com/acquire/plastic-bag-clean-costs/
[15] http://www.bagmonster.com/2010/04/the-truthful-toll-of-single-use-bags.html
[16] http://www.cep.unep.org/cep-documents/unep-press-release-on-the-effects-of-plastic-waste-on-marine-ecosystems.pdf
[17] https://greentumble.com/can-plastic-bags-be-recycled/
[eighteen] https://1bagatatime.com/learn/plastic-bag-clean-costs/
[19] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/how-many-countries-are-in-the-world.html
[20] https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/xx.500.11822/25496/singleUsePlastic_sustainability.pdf
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