Did you know that between 500 billion and one trillion plastic bags are used each year. (National Geographic News Sept 2, 2003). The “Christian Science Monitor News” reports that less than 1% are recycled. This is a definite problem because the bags that don’t get recycled end up in oceans, rivers, lakes and other waterways. They have found their way as far as the Falkland Islands. Two hundred different species of sea life die due to ingesting plastic bags that they think are food. Birds also die because they get tangled in the plastic. The effects of discarded plastic bags is catastrophic to wildlife. Statistics point out that we should not use plastic bags because besides killing animals, they keep us dependant on foreign oil. They are made from polyethylene, a thermoplastic that is a by-product of oil. China will save 37 million barrels of oil each year due to their ban of plastic bags. A solution to this might be to use cloth bags. I read these statistics the other day on “Earth Talk”. A cloth bag can save six bags a week. That’s 24 bags a month. That’s 288 bags a year. That’s 22,176 bags in an average lifetime. If one out of five people did this, we would save 1,330,560,000,000 bags over a lifetime. I was confused by this. How could one cloth bag save six plastic bags usless you went to the store six times that week. At any rate, it gave me the idea of how much one small change could help the planet. Paper bags may also be a solution. They are better than plastic because they will not harm animals, but trees will have to be cut down to make the bags. That would be better than using oil because at least it is a renewable resource; we can plant more trees. There are no perfect solutions. The cloth bag will not be as cost effective, but it probably is the winner of the three choices.
