Plastic: No Good, Only Bad And Ugly!

Plastic bags are easy and cheap to make and last a long time, and this is exactly why they have become an environmental hazard.

Ever checked the plastic that goes into your bin? Lets start with garbage bag, the vegetable bag, the bag in which the eggs came, the bag from the grocery store, the bag from the shopping mall, the bag from the drycleaners, the aerated drink bottle, the mineral water bottle. The list is endless.

Now lets see where these plastic bags we junk each day end up. They are found in drains, they littler the roads, they are all over landfills and they are probably also lie in the stomach of the cows your milkman has. According to a television channel eating carelessly thrown plastic bags results in death of 100 cattle per day in the state of UP alone. As much as 35kg of plastic was found in the stomach of a dead cow.

Facing the deluge

And not just that, storm water drainage over flooded and choking with ubiquitous plastics waste have been the held responsible for the Mumbai floods making them unmanageable.

In June 1998, the Bombay Municipal Corporation passed a resolution to ban plastics carry bags only to vacate it in less than two days with the city administration giving up under the pressure of the plastics industry, which has a sound base in the city

Because plastic does not decompose, and requires high energy ultra-violet light to break down, the amount of plastic waste in our oceans is steadily increasing. More than 90% of the articles found on the sea beaches contained plastic.

No wonder that in July, 2009, when Mumbai faced exceptionally high tides, the sea threw back 6.4 lakh kgs of waste comprising plastic, polythene bags and thermocol which is more than four times the average amount that is dumped on the coast in three days.

In June, 2009, UN's top environmental official called for a global ban on plastic bags stating that single use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. This call for a global ban on plastic bags came after a report on litter in the world's ocean, which identified plastic as the most common form of ocean litter.

The plastic problem is so bad that a floating island of plastic debris has been discovered in the northern Pacific which is double the size of the United States.

Why exactly is plastic bad?

Plastic poses a threat to the environment because it is not biodegradable. Plastic which ends up in the sea (through garbage dumps at seaside, river flow etc) becomes food for marine life that mistakes it for food especially of the jellyfish variety. Plastics bags have been found in the stomachs of endangered animals including the leatherback turtles and black footed albatross.

It takes about 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million non-degradable plastic bags. And 4 to 5 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide annually.

What makes the whole plastic bag debate ironical is the exact reason why they are used. Plastic bags are cheap. And perhaps that is why they are incessantly used. Often, one or two bags are sufficient, but the grocery clerk at the local store uses twice that many.

What we can do:

* Reuse and reuse. don't just throw away the plastic bag you get from stores, stash it and carry it for the next time you go shopping.
* When out shopping, if its just for one or two items, don't accept a plastic bag.
* When shopping at more than one store, try putting everything in one bag instead of accepting huge plastic bag with a small item.
* Don't buy mineral water bottles if you can carry your own water.
* Don't invest in garbage bags, use from the numerous bags you have hung up behind your kitchen door.
* Simply say NO to plastic.

Source: India Syndicate