Should Plastic Bags Be Banned In The United States?

Firstly, when regarding the debate on whether to get rid of plastic bags the topic of the impact of the environment always appears. David Suzuki explains, “93 percent of beach Northern fulmars […] had bellies full of plastic – a substantial increase from the last time they were tested” (Source A). Birds and other wildlife suffer due to the use of plastic bags. They litter their homes and unfortunately can lead to death when animals mistake them for food or get tangled up in them. It’s not just the wildlife that plastic bags are killing its also natural resources. Plastic has petroleum in it, enough that 8.7 shopping bags can power a car to drive

Along with carrying groceries, plastic bags carry environmental problems; banning them is necessary. Plastic bags that are less than 50 microns thick (excluding plastic bags used for hygienic reasons) should be banned. First of all, plastic bags contribute to pollution an extortionate amount. In fact, over 40,000 plastic bags were found at Canadian shorelines in the past year. This number could be heavily reduced if plastic bags were banned. Plastic bags have been found in tree lines and can clog up sewers and cause flooding. If plastic bags weren’t so readily available, they wouldn’t be littering streets and getting caught up in trees. Plastic bag pollution is definitely not limited to land. All over the world, plastic bags have ended up in oceans, lakes, and rivers. Fish are meant for oceans, yet studies show that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. Canadian plastic bags have been found all the way in Scotland. This means Canada’s plastic bag problem is not limited to its territorial boundaries. Plastic bag pollution is very high because of the amount of plastic bags Canadians use. Canadians use 15 billion plastic bags a year, enough to circle the earth over 55 times! Because Canadians use so many plastic bags and don't recycle them, pollution has become a greater problem.

Today, Americans are worried about the effects plastic bag impact the environment. In the dispute between the Gulftowne Gazette Committe and gift shop owner Theo Jones, the Gulftowne Ordinance Committee provides a stronger argument for it point that plastic bags litter our landscape and threatening surrounding wildlife. As the Gulftowne

Answering this question, Adams B. Summers asserts that despite public knowledge, plastic bags are not, in fact, harmful and dangerous and shouldn't be banned. He conveys this through citing facts and research analysis, appealing to audience's logic, and utilizing word choice and vivid language.

Safe Haven “Never seen a city clean like this” some of my customers compliment about Chicago while I was driving taxi. Cleaning our streets is good for several reasons, the most significant are for our health and to keep the environment clean. The US is one of the many countries

Plastic bags begin as crude oil, natural gases, or other petrochemical derivatives. By some estimates almost 12 million barrels of petroleum oil are used to make 100 billion plastic bags. One solution is to stop using plastic bags. Plastic bag bans are spreading across the country with over 100 community bag bans across 16 states. Hawaii right now is the only state in the nation to adopt a full statewide ban. Internationally,19 countries from Bangladesh to Ireland have passed bans. Reducing plastic bag usage and shoppers to use reusable bags will help decrease our demand for a new fossil fuel and reduce our environmental impact. As a nation we need to begin to move away from the concepts of single use and waste. Plastic is made from oil.

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

One extreme issue with plastic being so easily accessible is that consumers throw it away without hesitation, as is especially true with plastic bags. Plastic bags are made of one of the most flexible and flimsy types of plastic, which means that they can be broken down much easier, especially once they reach the ocean, which is where an alarming amount of our trash ends up. “Plastic doesn't biodegrade in any meaningful timeframe, but it photodegrades” which means that “ultraviolet rays from the sun break the polymer chains of hydrocarbon molecules into smaller pieces and what you end up with is small fragments...” (Wilson) of plastic floating all over our oceans, and those tiny fragments will truly

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

Jessicia Rodriguez GOV 2306-73435 Sherry Sharifian 05/01/2017 Rodriguez 3 The Damage of Plastic Bags Plastic bags are a huge concern to the environment, and something need to be done about them. Some groups have been trying to put a ban on plastic bags into effect because of the damage it is causing

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.

The Plastic Bag Takeover 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.

Plastic Bags: The Burden of Shopping Picture this: A person goes out to the store to purchase a couple of necesites. Those necesites then get put into a plastic bag as per usual. They get home and take everything out of the bag. They then trash the bag because it is no longer needed. The plastic bag then ends up in some landfill where it is blown away into the middle of the ocean. The plastic bag then goes on to danger the marine animals. Plastic bags should be banned from stores because there are other ways people can carry their things, they are dangerous to marine animals, and cause pollution.

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.