It ain't easy blowin' in the breezy
Lots going on in the world and leftover bags sure are a part of it. Find below some of the latest bag news and some leftover bag stats (parental guidence advised do to etremely tragic nature of information).
Leftover bags in the news:
Wisconsin State Journal: " Madison, WI city panel to look at ban on plastic water bottles, bags."
WorldChanging: "San
Francisco's Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance"
MSNBC: "Paper or plastic - what's the greener choice"
BBC UK: "How
to make a plastic bag bra"
Social Page: "Plastic Bags"
ShopGreenFeet.com: " Paper
vs. Plastic - the shopping bag debate"
Economist: "Plastics of evil"
Google News: Search:
Plastic bag
Leftover bag stats:
Introduced just over 25 years ago,
society’s consumption
rate is now estimated at well over 500,000,000,000 (that’s
500 billion) plastic bags annually, or almost 1 million per minute.
Once leftover, plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photo degrade.
This means they break down into small toxic bits and dust which affecting
the soil, water, and air. It takes around 300 years for a plastic bag
to photo degrade.
500,000,000,000 bags per year
x 300 years leftover
= A lot of leftover bags to put to use
EPA regulations make it cheaper to manufacture new bags than it is to recycle them. Grocery stores collect tons of bags to sell them to recyclers who sell them to Asia. 2-4% consumer plastic bags are recycled by consumer. Only 8-16 out of 1000 bags are recycled.
- The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store.
- The Wall Street Journal reports the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion). An estimated 12 million barrels of oil is required to make that many plastic bags.
- 12 million plastic bags are handed out to shoppers in Britain every
year.
- According to the BBC, only 1 in 200 plastic bags in the UK are recycled.
- 10 million plastic bags are disposed of by Bangladesh nationals every year.
- According to the industry publication Modern Plastics, Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year—900 per person.
- According to Australia’s Department of Environment, Australians
consume 6.9 billion plastic bags each year—326 per person. An
estimated .7% or 49,600,000 end up as litter each year.
- As part of Clean Up Australia Day, in one day nearly 500,000 plastic bags were collected
- The use of plastic in India has more than doubled in the last 20 years. It has increased from 1.8 million tons to about 5 million since 1995-96 up till now.
- In 2001, Ireland used 1.2 billion disposable plastic bags, or 316 per person. An extremely successful plastic bag tax, or PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%.
- In Africa, there is an industry around harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC, one group harvests 30,000 per month.
Dang i wish people would quit leaving bags leftover...