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Plastic Bags Essay

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Worldwide consumers use up to 1.5 trillion plastic bags every year. In the consumers possession the plastic bags stay with them for an average of fifteen minutes before they get thrown away or released to blow down into the wind, down our streets, and into our world. In Israel the average time of holding on to a single plastic bag is twenty minutes. The use of plastic bags tally's up to $4 million per year for retailers. One company which buys half of the used plastic bags in the United States that are available on the open air market and uses 1.5 billion bags per year. Ontario uses 2.6 billion bags per year and one - hundred million in the waterloo region by itself. (Savage 2008), (McMahon 2008), (Mieszkowski 2007), As for Americans …show more content…

Shoppers from all these cities must use or bring a paper or different type of shopping bag. As a city council member from Annapolis put it, "We need to put a stop to it right her in Annapolis" (Query 2007 � 2). Not only are just some cities and countries banning, but there are some main stores like Wal-Mart Inc. which is starting to gradually decrease the number of plastic bags and cut there plastic bag waste by a third worldwide by the year of 2013. They plan to cut nine billion plastic bags from each store within the Wal-Mart company each year. The company Whole Foods has also place there ban back in April. Other stores like the IKEA have started the same process and also charging five cents per plastic bag. San Francisco and Los Angeles have also imposed fees on shoppers who want to shop with a plastic bag. Seattle has recently dismissed the use of paper and plastic bags and is also requiring stores to put a twenty cent price per bag. Dallas has proposed a ban on all plastic bags in the next three to five years, if there proposed bill of five cents per plastic bag doesn't go through. The California's Secretary of Resource said he is planning on a recommendation for a state wide ban on plastic bags. Even Alaska has trash problems with plastic bags. In Bethel, Alaska they are being faced with plastic shopping bags blowing into landfills and tundra's. Because of this the southwest city in Alaska is giving grocery stores and

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