When was the last time you took a plastic bag?

Was it 1000 Years ago?

I was thinking about this yesterday, if it takes 1000 years for a bag to decompose, and the first ever modern lightweight plastic shopping bag was invented by Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin in the early 1960s, then we still have roughly 946 years left for the early bags to fully disappear. That’s 946 years till they stop screwing with the ecosystem. And that’s just the really old ones that are still floating about the place, quite literally.

Anyway I don’t want this to become a rant about how bad things are, I think you get that already.

It’s the fact that we haven’t as a culture started to use solutions to avoid this continuing to be a problem. Yes policy must change, shops need to become more forward thinking and biodegradable bags need to become more widely available. But surely we should look at our own habits?

It is estimated that between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used each year worldwide. I estimated that I myself make about three unplanned visits to the shops every week. It is just going to happen in the changeable, modern convenience run world, but that is 3-6 plastic bags a week, if I didn’t carry my own conquer bags in the bottom of my work bag or back pocket.

It all mounts up very quickly. It is possible to say you recycle bags, but how many are really reused? And anyway, isn’t this just prolonging the inevitable trashing that follows once a bag has served its purpose?

I argue this is also a habit problem. I’m old enough to remember the first wave of consumer mobile phones taking off in the 90’s and it is fascinating to see how quickly people have turned from being repulsed by the idea of intrusive devices going everywhere with them, to the vast majority of us checking that we have ours before we leave the house every day.

We become creatures of habit very quickly, but who is going to make you take up the habit?

For about 2 years now our stand has been plastic bag free in spitalfields. It was just too many bags being used for not good enough reasons. And before you ask, no we feel that the resources pumped into other bag types, i.e. paper or degradable are too resource heavy and have their own environmental problems. Why quick fix when all you need is a new habit!

Here are a few more fascinating facts about plastic bags;

• the average EU citizen used 191 plastic bags in 2010, and only 6 per cent were recycled.

• Lord Henley told peers the government was “not happy” that in 2010, use of plastic carrier bags actually rose by 5 Per cent after four years of decline.

• “The impact of this plastic waste can be seen littering our landscape, threatening our wildlife and accumulating as ‘plastic soup’ in the Pacific Ocean, which may cover more than 15,000,000 sq km,” says Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik.

• A number of countries have banned very thin plastic bags, including China, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Italy and Bangladesh-in Bangladesh’s case, it was found that the bags had clogged up the drainage system, exacerbating deadly floods.

• A handful of countries have banned plastic bags altogether, including Rwanda and Somalia, while some like Tanzania have banned ultra-thin bags.

• The United Arab Emirates, concerned about plastic bag pollution and the risk to camels and other animals, has banned all plastic bags except oxo-biodegradables.

• Plastic bags become serial killers because they do not break down in the environment.  Once a creature which has ingested a plastic bag dies, it decays at a much faster rate than the bag.  When the animal has decomposed, the bag is released back into the environment, more or less intact-and ready to be eaten by another misguided animal or bird.

• Marine wildlife eat plastic bags because they mistake them for jellyfish.  Once in their guts, the bags cause intestinal blockages-which are deadly.

BROWSE CONQUER BAGS HERE

Monkey Cotton Tote Bag

No More Chess Cotton Tote Bag

Friends Forever Cotton Tote Bag

Comments

comments

<< BACK TO