Plastic bags

• Although they were introduced just 25 years ago, we have become so addicted to disposable plastic bags that society’s consumption rate is now estimated at between 500,000,000,000 (that’s 500 billion) and 1,000,000,000,000 (a trillion) plastic bags annually. That's - wait for it - more than 1 million per minute!

• If you include everyone in Britain – from babies to centenarians – we collect an average of some 220 free, single-use plastic carrier bags per person per year; 80% of us routinely put everything (or allow everything to be put) into such bags every time we shop. It’s the same all over the world – which is why billions of ‘free’ plastic bags are choking our planet: an estimated 4 billion end up as litter every year (enough to circle the earth 63 times). They’re everywhere: in our seas and oceans, stuck up trees, decorating the sides of our roads, piled up under the kitchen sink.

Contents 1 What are plastic bags1 2 Why Use Plastic Bags1 3 What plastic bags to recycle1 4 Where to go for recycling1 5 Fact about plastic bag recycling1 6 Reasons not to use Plastic Bags 7 Environmental impacts of Plastic Bags 8 What you can do 9 Alternatives to plastic bags 10 Successful initiatives to reduce plastic bags 11 Did you know 12 Relevant links 13 References

What are plastic bags¹

Plastic bags are made out of "film", or thin flexible sheets of plastic. Plastic film is typically defined as any plastic less than 10 mm thick. The majority of plastic films are made from polyethylene resin and are readily recyclable if the material is clean, dry, and not pigmented black. Many films now have resin codes marked on them and many recyclable buyers accept a mixture of LDPE#4, LLDPE#4, HDPE#2, and MDPE#4 films. (It is VERY important that you check your buyer's specifications.) Non-polyurethane plastic film types such as PP#5, OPP#5, LDPE/HDPE#7, PE#7, PVC#3, nylon#7, and PS#6 are considered contaminants in loads of polyethylene and have more limited markets. If you cannot determine the film type on your own, try contacting the supplier or manufacturer for more product information.

Why Use Plastic Bags¹

• Plastic grocery bags require 40-70 percent less energy to manufacture than paper bags. Moreover, much of the energy used to make plastic bags is embodied in the bag itself- not wasted.
• It takes 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper.
• The manufacture and use of paper bags generates 70% more air emissions than plastic. Using paper bags doubles the amount of CO2 produced versus using plastic bags.
• The production of plastic bags consumes less than 4 percent of the water needed to make paper bags. Paper generates 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.
• Plastic grocery bags are fully recyclable. Plastic bags can be made into dozens of useful new products, such as building and construction products, low-maintenance fencing and decking, and of course, new bags. More manufacturers are using post-consumer resin. In 2006, in the USA, more than 812 million pounds of plastic film and bags were recycled which is enough feed stock tomanufacture nearly 1,500,000 composite lumber decks.
• It takes 91 percent less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper.
• Plastic bags take up a lot less space in a landfill. Using paper bags creates almost 5 times more solid waste than using plastic bags.
• Plastics can help trash burn more efficiently in energy-recovery facilities, creating energy that can be used to make electricity in some communities.
• When one ton of plastic bags is reused or recycled, the energy equivalent of 11 barrels of oil is saved.
• Banning recyclable plastic bags will not reduce society’s dependence on oil. In the United States, nearly 80% of polyethylene, the type of plastic used to make plastic bags, is produced from natural gas, not oil.
• Mandating that recyclable plastic bags be replaced with biodegradable or compostable bags will not reduce litter or the amount of waste in our landfills.
• The biodegradable and compostable bags currently on the market will only degrade in a professionally-managed, large-scale composting facility. They will not breakdown in the natural environment, in a home composting device or in a landfill. It is currently estimated that there are fewer than 100 suitable composting facilities in the United States.

What plastic bags to recycle¹

Recycle only clean, dry #4 and #2 plastic bags and film. Remove receipts or any other items from bags.

• newspaper bags
• dry cleaning bags
• bread bags
• produce bags
• toilet paper, napkin, and paper towel wraps
• furniture wrap
• electronic wrap
• plastic retail bags (hard plastic and string handles removed)
• grocery bag
• zip lock bags (remove hard components)
• plastic cereal box liners (if it tears like paper do not include)
• Tyvek(no glue, labels, other material)
• diaper wrap (packaging)
• plastic shipping envelopes (no bubble wrap/remove labels)
• case wrap (e.g., snacks, water bottles)
• All clean, dry bags labeled #2 or #4.

DO NOT include the following as they jeopardize recyling programs:

• NO food or cling wrap
• NO prepackaged food bags including frozen food bags (e.g., prewashed salad bags)
• NO film that has been painted or has excessive glue
• NO other bags or films
• NO bio-based or compostable plastic bags

Where to go for recycling¹

• According to the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council, more than 1,800 U.S. businesses handle or reclaim post-consumer plastics.
• Many grocers and retailers have introduced plastic bag collection programs. Look for a collection bin, usually located at the front of the store.
• The number of municipal drop-off centers and curbside programs to recycle plastic bags is increasing also.
• Check to see whether your community offers plastic bag recyling. See http://www.plasticbagrecycling.org/01.0/.
• In addition to grocery bags, other plastic retail bags, dry cleaning bags and newspaper bags can be included wherever plastic bags are collected for recycling.

Fact about plastic bag recycling¹

• Though it can also be reprocessed into small pellets, or post consumer resin, for production of a variety of products such as new bags, pallets, containers, crates, and pipe, recovered plastic is likely to not be converted into new packaging. Most recovered plastic packaging is made into things like textiles, parking lot bumpers and plastic lumber - all nonrecyclable products.
• This is because, current recycling program collects and mixes different plastic types with each other as well as with other nonplastic materials. Turning plastic packaging back into packaging requires very clean material: the cost to purchase dirty bales, sort, grind, super clean wash and extrude into new packaging can be prohibitive. Not all plastics lend themselves to curbside recycling programs.
• And demand for non-packaging applications is so strong that they are using up most of the available recovered plastic supply. Moreover, most of the existing recycling infrastructure is mostly built around non-packaging applications. If we could supply more material (recycle more plastic!) then there might be enough material available to justify building additional reclamation capacity to turn used plastic packaging back into new plastic packaging.
• According to the EPA, only about 12 percent of bags and film were recycled in 2007.
• Plastic polymers do not change when they are recycled. Some plastic characteristics can change when they are recycled. For example, clear PET that is recycled can yellow, but the polymer itself is sound and there are steps that reclaimers can take to diminish the yellowing. Technically all plastic products could be turned back into the same product, but practically there are some reasons why they are not.
• Once color is put into the plastic, it cannot be mechanically removed, thus the new products must either be a darker color or—like some HDPE recyclers do (e.g., Envision Plastics)—it must be color sorted. This is why clear or uncolored plastic has such a high value; manufacturers can use it to make a product of any color—including no color.
• Some plastic types (e.g., PET) can be washed and re-extruded at such high temperatures that anything that was in the plastic containers is removed. Other plastics absorb its contents to the point where it would be too costly or to risky to put them back into direct food contact applications. Manufacturers can make these plastics into the same type of container again (e.g., a bottle to a bottle) by utilizing either a layer of virgin material or by selling them for non-food applications.

Reasons not to use Plastic Bags

• Plastic bags photodegrade, meaning they slowly break down into smaller and smaller bits that can contaminate soils and waterways.

• The fact that plastics are not biodegradable (Plastic bagss take 1000 years to decompose) means that the plastic bags in circulation and future production of plastic bags will stay with us for a long time: in our landfills, oceans, streets, and so forth.

• Plastic bags are made from non-renewable natural resources: natural gas and petroleum. Consequently, the manufacturing of plastic bags contributes to the diminishing availability of our natural resources and the damage to the environment from the extraction of petroleum. At the same time, plastics are hazardous to produce; the pollution from plastic production is harmful to the environment. Finally, most plastic bags are made of polyethylene - more commonly known as polythene - they are hazardous to manufacture and are said to take up to 1,000 years to decompose on land and 450 years in water. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1974750.stm)

• According to the EPA, the amount of plastics generation in municipal waste stream has increased from less than 1 percent in 1960 to 12.1 percent in 2007.

Check out www.banthebag.org.uk for more information on the problems caused by plastic bags.

• Plastic bags and packaging account for a major part of our waste in landfills. More importantly, plastic bags are one of the top items of litter on our community beaches, roads, sidewalks, and vegetation along with cigarette butts and Styrofoam. Plastic bags are light and hard to contain. Because of their light weight, plastic bags fly easily in wind, float along readily in the currents of rivers and oceans, get tangled up in trees, fences, poles, and so forth, and block the drainage. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1849302.stm)

• Small plastic bags made up about 9 percent of the debris found along various U.S. coasts in a five-year study.

• Countless plastic bags end up in our ocean and cause harm to our marine wildlife. Many marine animals and birds mistakenly ingest plastic or become entangled and choke in plastic bags that is floating around. For instance, environmentalists have pointed out that turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and invariably swallow them. It is estimated 100,000 marine mammals die each year because of plastic litter in our ocean in the North Pacific. (www.algalita.org)

• Land animals seem to be victims as well. In countries such as India, cows are mistakenly ingesting plastic bags on the streets as they are scavenging for food and end up choking or starving to death, as the plastic cannot be digested. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1974750.stm)

• On the other hand, most paper bags are made from recycled paper. There is a profitable market in paper recycling and the paper bags can be used and recycled. In addition, this promotes "Buying Recycled" which is the only way that recycling efforts will ever become successful

• There are many cost effective and convenient alternatives to plastic bags. Current research demonstrates that paper in today's landfills does not degrade or break down at a substantially faster rate than plastic does. In fact, nothing completely degrades in modern landfills due to the lack of water, light, oxygen, and other important elements that are necessary for the degradation process to be completed. Incineration can decrease the quantity of plastic and paper bags. However, incineration causes air pollution and creates ash which has to be landfilled. So, paper or plastic? NEITHER! Look into purchasing reusable bags or reusing your paper or plastic bags at the store.

• Businesses will save on cost in providing plastic bags when consumers use less of them and bring their own bags.

• The international crisis, which plastic bags are creating, is indicated by the fact that most nations recognize the problem and are making strong attempts to eliminate the use and productions of plastic bags. Many countries in Europe and Asia are attempting to eradicate plastic bags. Some are banning plastic bags altogether while others are implementing a tax on plastic bags to decrease their use. In Bangladesh, plastic bags have been banned completely since early 2002. They were found to have been the main culprit during the 1988 and 1998 floods that submerged two-thirds of the country. The problem was that discarded bags were choking the drainage system. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1974750.stm)

• In 2001, Bombay council also eliminated the use of plastic bags to prevent them from littering the streets and clogging up the city's sewerage system. As a result, merchants have switched to recycled paper bags and litter in the city has been reduced considerably.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1329600.stm)

In Ireland, a tax on plastic bags was introduced. Essentially, each plastic bag handed out costs the consumer an extra 15 cents. After the tax scheme began in March 2002, it is estimated the plastic bags available at stores have been decreased by 90%.

Environmental impacts of Plastic Bags

Here are some facts about the environmental impact of plastic bags:

• Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistaken them for food
• The manufacture of plastic bags add tonnes of carbon emissions into the air annually
• In the UK, banning plastic bags would be the equivalent of taking 18,000 cars off the roads each year
• Between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year
• Approximately 60 - 100 million barrels of oil are required to make the world’s plastic bags each year
• Most plastic bags take over 400 years to biodegrade. Some figures indicate that plastic bags could take over 1000 years to break down. (I guess nobody will live long enough to find out!). This means not one plastic bag has ever naturally biodegraded.
• China uses around 3 billion plastic bags each day!
• In the UK, each person uses around 220 plastic bags each year
• Around 500,000 plastic bags are collected during Clean Up Australia Day each year. Clean Up Australia Day is a nationwide initiative to get as many members of the public to get out and pick up litter from their local areas. Unfortunately, each year in Australia approximately 50 million plastic bags end up as litter.* Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.
• According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.
• According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion.)
• Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade-breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.
• Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.
• Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation.
• Four out of five grocery bags in the US are now plastic.
• The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store.
• Plastic bags are light and hard to contain. Because of their light weight, plastic bags fly easily in wind, float along readily in the currents of rivers and oceans, get tangled up in trees, fences, poles, and so forth, and block the drainage.
• Plastic bags are made from a non-renewable natural resource: petroleum. Consequently, the manufacturing of plastic bags contributes to the diminishing availability of our natural resources and the damage to the environment from the extraction of petroleum.

What you can do

Here are some tips:

• First, study your behaviour

• Pledge

• Use re-useable bags

• Think local

• Lobby

• Petition

• other things you can do

• Think twice about taking a plastic bag if your purchase is small and easy to carry.

• Keep canvas bags in your home, office, and car so you always have them available when you go to the supermarket or other stores.

• Ask your favorite stores to stop providing bags for free, or to offer a discount for not using the bags.

• Encourage your local politicians to introduce legislation taxing or banning plastic bags.

• Refuse to take it

When they try to bag your items - refuse the bag. Cashiers are programmed to keep the line moving and don't always stop to ask if you need a bag, they just stuff your stuff in one. Hand back the bag and then explain why you don't want it. If you want a little help spreading the word about the impact of plastics on our environment, hand them one of my "No Plastic Bag cards". PDF at this link.

• Recycle it

If you live in a city that recycles plastic bags, put them in your bin. Even if your city doesn't take them yet, most large grocery stores have bag recycling bins near their front doors.

But don't be lulled into thinking recycling the bags gets us off the hook. The recovered plastic is not going to be converted into new packaging. Most recovered plastic packaging is made into things like textiles, parking lot bumpers and plastic lumber - all unrecyclable products. Recycling plastic bags does not reduce the use of virgin materials or the energy it takes to manufacture them. It only temporarily keeps it out of the landfill.

• Ask for a cash credit

Ask your local store to offer a cash credit if you bring in your own bags. The Reusable Bags site has a sample letter to send to stores you frequent.Many Trader Joes stores have a monthly raffle for reusable bag users. Ask for a ticket when you check out and you might win a 25.00 gift certificate. Earthfare credits 5 cents for each bag toward a different local charity each month. It adds up to thousands of dollars over the course of a year and generates goodwill toward the store. Let your stores know about these and other creative ways to change consumer behavior.

• Educate yourself

Educate yourself about the greater risks to our health, both personal and national, from plastic. Jan Lundberg of Culture Change has been campaigning against plastic for many years. He says:

"About 250 billion pounds of raw plastic pellets are produced annually worldwide and turned into a tremendous variety of products, from cars and computers to packaging and pens. (Wired News, June 5, 2004). People think of oil mainly as the strategic fuel for their cars, and some Americans justify a foreign policy that kills for oil. If they knew how dependent they were on massive amounts of plastic from oil and natural gas for other basic modern products, the war cry could be louder. However, health-worries during the rising cancer epidemic could counter the demand for endless plastic."

Alternatives to plastic bags

• Take a look at what you already have in your house. Beach bags, canvas bags, shopping bags, backpacks, etc. can all be used to carry items home from a shopping excursion.

• No extra bags in the house? Visit a thrift store, Salvation Army, or yard sale and pick up a handful of cheap bags.

• Need more options? Check out www.reusablebags.com for a selection of bags of different sizes, shapes and construction for your shopping needs.

• If you already have a collection of plastic bags from past shopping trips (or if you inadvertently bring more home now), make sure you reuse them. Take them out with you when you go shopping, or use them to store items.

• If you've reused your plastic bags, but no longer need them, make sure to recycle them. Most are recyclable - just check for the recycle symbol on the bags. Either throw them in your own recycle bin, or see if your grocery store collects them. (Many large chains do.)

• When you're out and about, pick up litter - especially plastic bags. They turn into virtual balloons outside, floating around and eventually landing somewhere they don't belong (like our waterways).

• Reusable bags

• Paper bags also have their problems, including

• In 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year alone
• Paper bags generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags
• Paper bags use 4 times as much energy to construct compared to a plastic bag
• Paper bags use 84 times as much energy to recycle compared to a plastic bag
• Some studies have shown that paper bags generally don’t decompose any faster in landfills than plastic bags. This is apparently due to the lack of water, light and oxygen etc, in landfills.
• Paper bags use more space in landfills than plastic bags

Successful initiatives to reduce plastic bags

Success Stories

• In January 2002, the South African government required manufacturers to make plastic bags more durable and more expensive to discourage their disposal—prompting a 90-percent reduction in use.

• Ireland instituted a 15c-per-bag tax in March 2002, which led to a 95-percent reduction in use.

• In the early 1990s, the Ladakh Women's Alliance and other citizens groups led a successful campaign to ban plastic bags in that Indian province, where the first of May is now celebrated as “Plastic Ban Day.” Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom also have plans to ban or tax plastic bags.

• Supermarkets around the world are voluntarily encouraging shoppers to forgo plastic bags—or to bring their own bags—by offering a small per-bag refund or charging extra for plastic.

• Some manufacturers have introduced biodegradable or compostable plastic bags made from starches, polymers or poly-lactic acid, and no polyethylene—though these remain prohibitively expensive and account for less than 1 percent of the market.

• The organizers of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, were able to collect 76 percent of the food waste generated at the sports venues and athletes' village by using biodegradable utensils and plastic bags that composted as easily as the food and eliminated the need to separate the garbage.

Did you know

• Plastic bags start as crude oil, natural gas, or other petrochemical derivatives, which are transformed into chains of hydrogen and carbon molecules known as polymers or polymer resin. After being heated, shaped, and cooled, the plastic is ready to be flattened, sealed, punched, or printed on.

• The first plastic “baggies” for bread, sandwiches, fruits, and vegetables were introduced in the United States in 1957. Plastic trash bags started appearing in homes and along curbsides around the world by the late 1960s.

• North America and Western Europe account for nearly 80 percent of plastic bag use—though the bags are increasingly common in developing countries as well.

• A quarter of the plastic bags used in wealthy nations are now produced in Asia.

• Each year, Americans throw away some 100 billion polyethylene plastic bags. (Only 0.6 percent of plastic bags are recycled.)

• The Irish have been known to call the ever-present bags their “national flag”; South Africans have dubbed them the “national flower.”

Relevant links

• www.wearewhatwedo.org -Decline plastic bags wherever possible

• www.reusablebags.com

• DEFRA -Plastic bags

• www.noplasticbags.org.au

• Salon article

• Nat Geographic article

• Reusable bags

• 500bn plastic bags video

• UN call for ban on plastic bags

References

¹American Chemistry Council