Banning Plastic Bags Essay

Plastic's end of life cycle involves being discarded, either recycled for reuse or dumped into a landfill or the ocean. Recycling's popularity has significantly grown since the 1970's, as well as the overall number of plastic products being produced. In addition, the amount of plastic products being created as significantly increased over the past 60 years. Due to the endurance of polymers, plastic is filling up landfills faster than it should and invading our natural habitats. Recycling is one of the most critical things we can do for our environment. It can cut down on the amount of plastic in landfills as well. Recycling plastic reduces the need to create more plastic, which also cuts down on oil use and pollutants being released into the air. In the time that recycling has become more popular, technology has advanced to create more job

Much of this trash ends up in the ocean harming not only marine life, but us too. However, this is not only happening in America it’s happening all over the world with China at 8.82 million metric tons of mismanaged waste. All this waste if caught in a gyre, can lead to one of the garbage patches. This has been happening since we started using plastic but it the garbage patches were discovered in the early 1990’s. We keep throwing trash away that keeps being misplaced, then it ends up in the oceans with the rest of the trash. I propose multiple solutions, to enforce plastic bag ban and to enforce recycling. California has banned the use of plastic bags, meaning that if you do use them a fine will be put in place. Environment California explained how before the plastic bag ban California used up to 19 billion plastic bags each year with less than five percent being recycled. However, we can change that. By using less plastic bags we harm the ocean less. Another solution is to each week collect each household’s trash, per pound of trash found in the recycling bin provided by the city should be a $11 fine. Tiffany Edmonds, Solid Waste Management Department spokeswoman, explained why they started the fine “ It is an attempt to change behavior. The fine covers the cost of sending a garbage collection truck to the house to pick up the contaminated recycling bin” this will encourage people to recycle. Since the plastic

Each year there is an increase in demands for plastic bags, and therefore more are shipped, creating further environmental pollution concerns. This increase in demand has lead to the phenomenal upsurge in the use and misuse of plastic bags globally, both in developed and developing countries. Statistics show that 4 to 5 trillion plastic bags are produced per annum, whereby North America and Western Europe account for nearly 80% (Geographical, 2005; Reusable Bags, 2005). Cheeseman (2007) states that approximately “380 billion plastic shopping bags are used in the United States annually”; in turn, only 0.6% of this is recycled.

As you can see, banning plastic bags have many benefits for not only you, but also the environment. It will save animals, prevent toxins from entering into the air, and encourage people to use reusable bags. Motherjones.com states, “Californians alone throw away 14 billion (plastic bags) a year, creating 123,000 tons of waste and untold amounts of litter.” So, please ban plastic

The claims that plastic bags are worse for the environment over reusable bags are deceitful. Compared to paper bags, plastic grocery bags produce fewer greenhouse gases, require 70 percent less energy to make, generate 80 percent, less waste, and utilize less than 4 percent of the amount of water needed to make them. The reason for this is because plastic bags are lighter and take up less space. Another reason reusable bags aren't as useful is because they are more prone to food contamination if not washed properly. A study found that San Francisco’s plastic bag ban in 2007 resulted in more visits to the hospital from patients suffering E. coli, salmonella, and other infectious diseases from

To many, plastic bags are seen as malevolent and criminal, and heavy campaigns have been pushed into our communities to ban the use of them and enforce those beliefs, but in actuality, plastic bags aren’t as horrible as we make them out to be for

What is not acknowledged to society if that the plastic bags like the ones at our grocery stores are made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Most plastics break down slowly through a combination of photo degradation, oxidation and mechanical abrasion. Thick plastic items persist for decades, even when exposed to direct sunlight, and survive even longer when shielded from UV radiation under water or in sediments. This substance makes any type of plastic incredibly hard to recycle. Before the convenient uses of plastic, when fisherman at sea dumped their trash overboard it consisted of natural materials that were easily broken down and dissolved not allowing items to float as a solid and cause harm. The items usually consisted of Metal, cloth or paper that would either sink to the bottom or dissolve very quickly. Plastic remains floating on the surface, the same place where marine animals go to for food sources lie and can remain intact for up to 400 years. Plastic is extremely malleable and durable, these traits make plastic an extremely dangerous threat to our ocean. Out of all the plastic materials, plastic bags have to be one of the most lethal roaming the oceans. : “Each year Americans throw out more than 100 billion plastic bags, which end up polluting our oceans”(D.G.22)”Plastic exceed what you would anticipate would be their pollution impact, because they’re so much more mobile than other types of litter”(Williams

In response to the growth of our world indiscriminate use of plastic bags, Summers (2013) has stated that the plastic bad is harmful for people and environment in his article “Bag ban bad for freedom and environment”. He uses some facts, examples, statistical data and rhetorical question. Also, he tried to make emotionally readers when he explained how many jobs can be lost because of the bill and how much waste is caused by plastic bags to compare with paper.

As the United States deals with the overwhelming amounts of waste building up, Nitin et al explain that “plastics take anywhere from 15 to 1000 years to biodegrade” once they are discarded (Nitin). Changes in recycling methods can no longer keep up with the exorbitant amount of waste produced in the United States. This is why some states choose to take their initiative one step further by placing either fees or a ban on the use of plastic bags. Due to the enormous waste the United States produces on a daily basis and the negative outcomes of this trash including adverse health effects, harmful impacts on nature, and the exponential piling of trash in landfills, the US government should ban plastic bags.

We know that nowadays plastic is the one materials that widely used by human in all of the country. Most of our goods become from plastic. The bad news is, plastics wastes that come from our unusable goods end up in the oceans. There are 60% to 80% plastic wastes on the sea are coming from the land and it will cause a big problem to 267 sea species in this world (Moore, Lattin, & Zellers). That one example is more than enough to start recycling our plastic waste. We can start from reduce and reuse first. For reduce example: when we buy something, we should prepare our own bag to put the goods we buy, dispose the waste according to the bin that specially provided for plastic, use a refill bottle for our drink bottle, and prefer a paper bag than plastic bag. How about reuse plastic bag? Some of countries have creative company that selling fine art and use plastic waste as the basic materials. One of the countries that have company like that is Indonesia. Indonesia has a lot of home industry that use plastic waste as their main materials. They make new thing from plastic bottle, such as plastic flower art, windmill toys for children, table lamp, and house accessories. Some schools in Indonesia teach the students how to reuse the plastic waste and make a fine art from it. Reduce and reuse the plastic waste already counted as recycling the plastic waste. Never think

Plastic bags cause a massive amount of pollution to the earth. It lets out lots of CO2 into the air with the production of it. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that if let out too much at one time can hurt the planet. Not only do plastic bags produce pollution while being made, but also when they are decomposing. Plastic bags go on to last for up to 10-1000 years. That is possibly 1000 years that a plastic bag goes on to add the huge amount of trash in the world. Although plastic bags take so long to decompose they do eventually break down. Exposure to a lot of sunlight and wind will also speed up the process of the decomposition of plastic bags. The breaking down of plastic bags seems like a good thing, however it is the complete opposite. Plastic bags are broken down into microscopic particles that are toxic. Those toxic particles then go on to hurt the environment. An articles states, “They break down into tiny toxic particles that contaminate the soil and waterways and enter the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them.”. This goes to show that those

The resources and things that go into making plastic bags can be used for other important things.

Where does all the plastic go. Every bit of plastic that has been created is still here. This is because plastic is one-hundred percent non-biodegradable! Even the most degraded plastic down to polymers cannot be digested by bacteria (Laist, 1997). If global issues like starvation and climate change are not enough to stress on, the weight of an issue literally churning in the Pacific Ocean is startling. For decades the majority of the world’s population has not been properly educated on the nature of plastic and the potential harm it can do to our environment and our physical health. Due to factors of man and the natural effects of nature, a major problem has developed that is now harming our food.

Five hundred billion used globally and one hundred billion of them end up in U.S. landfills, taking about one thousand years to decompose, but only 5.2 percent were recycled (Borrud, 2007, p.75).-These are the figures plastic bags have produced every year. Human beings invented plastic bags for the convenience of carriers and packers. However, just as other great inventions, say, nuclear energy and biotechnology, plastic bags are causing serious issues like global warming, environment pollution and energy consumption. They are gradually becoming sword towards ourselves. In responding to this problem, the city of San Francisco has become the trail blazer to prohibit non-biodegradable plastic bags in its large supermarkets and pharmacies.

The type of day handbag should you cause the next big vacation? You do not want to haul around something obtrusively large or heavy, nevertheless, you also have to have room for the requirements. The very last thing you want to worry about on holiday has been the victim of pickpocketing or theft, so choosing the bag that will protect your belongings is crucial. We've curved up a set of the best and safest travel day hand bags to help with making that decision process less of the puzzle.