Why Plastic Bags Should Be Banned - Essay Example

Why plastic bags should be banned Outline a. Introduction This section will introduce environmental and health hazards caused by plastic bags with the aim of persuading the city authorities, manufacturers, retail shop owners and customers to put an end to the use of the bags. This section will also state how the research will be conducted. b. Hazards faced by marine life due to plastic bags This section will discuss how marine life such as reptiles, birds and mammals are affected by plastic bags. Several case studies have been outlined in this section to show the real situation on the ground. c. Environmental degradation This section will highlight how plastic paper bags contribute to environmental degradation and what can be done by authorities to reduce the effects of plastic bags on the environment. d. Dangers to human life. This section will discuss how plastic bags endanger human life. The section will also provide examples of situations whereby human life is endangered by plastic bags. e. Summary This part will give a summary of what is contained in the paper. The section will also give a few suggestions on how to end the hazards caused by plastic bags. f. Works Cited This section will list all the sources that were used and consulted during this research. Introduction Non biodegradable substances are used in the manufacture of plastic bags. Therefore, they do not decompose and are quite durable, during which time they separate into toxic particles which contaminate waterways and the soil. Plastics are large molecules that consist of units known as monomers. In plastic bags, the units of monomers are known as ethylene. Plastic bags have been shown to pose a hazard to marine life, human life and contribute to environmental degradations. Various methods, including charging customers for the use of plastic bags, have been employed to discourage distribution, but such a method may simply end up as a revenue generator to businesses. The authorities should find means of using such revenues to repeal the damages caused by the plastics. These aspects will form the basis of the research. According to the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States, the world consumes between half a trillion to one trillion bags annually, with 200 billion being United States retail shoppers alone (Lowy 16). Manufacturing a new plastic shopping bag is cheaper than recycling, the reason why more and more bags are being manufactured as people shop. This increases dependency on foreign oil, which is used in the manufacture of plastic bags. Natural resources are depleted as the earth is extracted and destroyed in order to mine oil to manufacture plastic bags that are used, on average, for 10 minutes then dumped. Traditionally, plastic bags are made from polyethylene. Polyethylene is in turn, made up of monomer ethylene chains derived from petroleum and natural gas. Petroleum and natural gases are non renewable natural resources. Therefore, their products are getting costlier or diminishing every day with increased mining (Stillwell 63). Petroleum and natural gases are vital for everyday lifestyles as they are used in lighting, heating, transport and as raw materials in factories. With the current circumstances without a viable option for energy sources, petroleum and natural gas supplies should be controlled to avoid a situation where industries would grind to a halt. It has been documented that the number of barrels of oil used globally are between 60 to 100 million annually in the manufacture of plastic bags (Stillwell 63). This oil could be put to better use. Therefore, what was a short-lived convenience for shoppers soon becomes an ecological hazard to all in habitants of the earth. Hazards Faced by Marine Life Due to Plastic Bags More than one million marine reptiles, birds and mammals succumb to plastic bag-related deaths each year (Brown 1). Some get entangled in them, losing limbs or life, while others ingest them. Sea turtles, for instance, consume plenty of jelly fish in their diet. When viewed by the sea turtles, floating plastic bags look very similar to jelly fish. After eating them, the bags get lodged in the sea creatures’ digestive tracts, resulting in slow and painful deaths. A study conducted on dead sea turtles from the Pacific Ocean found that 400 of them had plastic bags in their digestive tracts (Brown 1). The same study found that the dead sea creatures had high deposits of poisonous synthetic compounds. This is due to the fact that as plastics disintegrate slowly through a long time, they soak up toxic chemicals from the ocean water, which ends up in the animals upon ingestion of the plastics (Brown 1). In another study conducted by the United States Academy of Sciences showed that as early as 1975, vessels travelling through the seas dumped a combined eight million pounds of waste plastic in a single year. That was later associated to the fact that landfills were not getting filled up with plastics, which were instead diverted to oceans (Irena 36). The same plastics were responsible for more than 10 percent of the washed up debris along the United States coastline. In order to have this situation under control, the authorities need not only add taxes or the prices of plastic bags, but ban the manufacture altogether. Reusable, cloth shopping bags are the best option to plastics and shoppers should be encouraged to use them. Marine life will be greatly improved if the dumping of used plastic bags into oceans stopped. Environmental Degradation As noted by a reusable bag manufacturer, the millions of plastic bags are improperly discarded and end up building piles of litter (Irena 28). Unfortunately, the same selling points used to encourage the production of plastic bags in the 1960s are the ones contributing to their building up of litter and destruction of the environment. The two points are their resistance to degradation and low weight. They can be blown by the wind across a city. Some find their way into drainage and sewerage systems. Developing countries are the highest risk because of their relatively underdeveloped garbage collection infrastructure (Brown 1). Blockage of the sewerage system often leads to overflowing of effluent onto land, causing unspeakable health hazards to human and animal life. As witnessed in Bangladesh in the late 1980s, blockage of a drainage system caused flooding in several cities, with the incidents still occurring every year in Manila (Irena 39). In the United States, plastic bags form the most common pollution in waterways and streams after cigarettes, fast food wrappers and beverage bottles. In Pakistan, only 100 of every 1,000 plastic shopping bags are correctly disposed of, while 300 are littered. The remainder ends up either in drainage systems or drinking water pipelines. The result is blockages that cause waterborne diseases such as cholera and hepatitis. Even plastic bags that end up in landfills for breaking down into smaller particles may take up to 1,000 years to be broken down to the required levels, releasing pollutants and contaminants into the water and soil (Irena 27). Furthermore, even though plastics take long to biodegenerate, they do photo degrade, releasing poisonous photopolymers that contaminate waterways and soils which are already at risk. The consequence is microscopic particles finding their way into the food chain, with catastrophic effects on wildlife. Other litter piles are burnt down, which also releases toxic gases into the air. That is not a practical alternative to plastic bags being held indefinitely in landfills. Dangers to Human Life Plastic bags also pose a great danger to human life when improperly used for food storage. Proper food storage ensures it remains safe for human consumption, but as per studies conducted by Pennsylvania State University, some plastics contain chemicals that make food hazardous (Martin 44). This is particularly so because such plastics are not designed for food storage. On their own, plastics are not harmful or toxic intrinsically (Irena 32). However, in the manufacture of plastic shopping bags, inorganic and organic additives are used. They include metals, stabilizers, antioxidants, plasticizers, pigments and colorants. Pigments and colorants are industrial chemicals that lend plastic bags their bright colors, and most of them are carcinogenic. This means they have the potential to contaminate food packed in them. Cadmium, which is among the heavy metals found in pigments, is also a great danger to human health. Another class of volatile esters is found in carcinogenic plasticizers (Brown 1). Working together with stabilizers and antioxidants, the volatile esters, lead and cadmium have the overall result of heart enlargement, vomiting and brain tissue degeneration. Depending on the density of the plastic bag, it may be coded by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy as being either recycling material 2 or 4. When used for storing food, the chemicals determining the coding may trickle into the food and eventually are ingested by humans. This incident is compounded by the fact that such plastics include common food wraps (Yam 21). Continued ingestion has scientifically been linked to hormonal changes, early puberty onset, birth defects, miscarriages, chromosomal and genetic errors, and damage and tissue changes. Such chemical trickling into food can also damage development of the immune system in children while disrupting hormones and causing behavioral problems. The study by the Pennsylvania State University suggests that food should be stored in containers that are airtight to keep pests such as rodents and bugs at bay (Yam 22). Plastic storage bags compromise the safety of the stored food because they are not airtight. Pests can bite them open and break into them. Bacteria can also move through breakages in plastic bags used for food storage in refrigerators. For example, meat in a punctured plastic bag may drip on other foods in the refrigerator and spread food borne pathogens. Plastic bags should therefore be replaced with airtight glass containers for food storage. Summary Authorities may find it necessary to control the management of the plastic bags already in circulation (Australian Government 9). The high inflow of plastic bags into solid waste streams can be reduced substantially because pickers of rags will concentrate on segregating them for purposes of recycling. There is little value attached to thin plastic bags, but although increasing the thickness would serve to increase the bags’ cost, the manufacturers need to be involved in collection and disposal of waste. This research finds a total ban to be more effective than that of adding prices and taxes. With plastic becoming an integral aspect of livelihoods, the advantages may not be easily ruled out but the disadvantages can be controlled. Existing plastic products ought to be separated at home and garbage handling facilities so that they may be recycled and reduce environmental pollution caused by plastic waste. Recycled plastic has many functions, including laying of roads instead of using bitumen. City authorities have the potential to make this a binding law (Selke 51). Some governments in both developed and developing countries have prohibited the manufacture and distribution of plastic bags, or materials containing more than the legally stipulated microns of plastic. This has controlled the dependence on plastics to a great extent. Responsible citizens can also play their part by promoting the use of cloth shopping bags. Civic practices informed by common sense may also be followed in disposal procedures of plastic bags including proper use of public garbage bins. There should also be an end to throwing waste plastic into open, public places such as parks, rivers, water channels, beaches or natural resources. The authorities should also create awareness, and encourage citizens to inform each other, on management of plastic waste through fares and public programs (Australian Government 11). This research found that a healthy environment benefits the whole global community in the absence of plastic waste. Everyone in the community starting from the grocers to drugstores, supermarkets and retail shops, have their own unique and vital role to play by eliminating plastic bags from their businesses. Works Cited Australian Government. Plastic Bags. Canberra: Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, 2007. Print. Brown, Lori. Plastic Bags a Major Problem for Marine Wildlife. , 2009. Web. Irena, Choi. “Greening Up by Cutting Down on Plastics.” The New York Times, August 5th 2007. Print Lowy, Joan. “Plastic Left Holding the Bag as Environmental Plague.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July, 2004. Print. Martin, Andrew. “Whole Foods Chain to Stop Use of Plastic Bags.” The New York Times, January 23rd, 2008. Print. Selke, Susan. Packaging and the Environment. New Jersey: Prentice, 1994. Print. Stillwell, E. J. Packaging for the Environment. New York: Little, 1991. Print. Yam, K. L. Encyclopedia of Packaging Technology. New York: Wiley, 2009. Print. . Read More