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Facts and Figures
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- Taking a plastic bag is like putting the kettle on.
One bag uses enough energy in production to make 4.8 cups of tea.
- One reusable bag can replace 1000 plastic bags.
- Japanese research found that plastic particles from slowly degrading bags were like toxic sponges, soaking up chemicals like DDE (a breakdown product of DDT), making them highly poisonous when swallowed by marine animals.
- The oil used to make 14 plastic bags could drive a car a mile.
- Plastic bags are killers in the ocean. They look like jellyfish, which means food to many marine creatures. Once swallowed, they stick in the gut, making further eating impossible, and the creature dies a slow painful death. When it decays, it releases the plastic bag for the next victim. The same plastic bag can kill again and again.
- A dead calf in New South Wales was found to have 8 plastic bags in its stomach.
- In 2002 plastic bags were banned in Bangladesh, because they had blocked drains to such an extent that they were blamed for the mass flooding of 1998.
- A very ill leatherback turtle, washed ashore in Galloway had about 57kg of plastic bags obstructing its alimentary tract
- In 2002 Ireland introduced a tax on plastic bags, charging 15 euros for each one. Their use fell by 90%. Some say this was cancelled out by an increase in other types of plastic bags, but Friends of the Earth say it achieved a net reduction of 930 million bags.
- Plastic bags are made from polyethylene. When the bags eventually break down, they give out toxic substances. These get into the food chain.
- It’s estimated that 5% of the world’s plastic has reached the ocean. A United Nations Environmental Programme reported in 2006 that on the average square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of plastic. The most concentrated areas have more than a million pieces of plastic per square mile.
- Plastic particles are nicknamed toxic little time bombs.
- The human habit of dumping has filled the sea with POPs (persistent organic pollutants), such as DDT for one. Plastic absorbs these chemicals like a sponge and they take decades to break down. These can enter the food chain, and could be consumed by humans.
- There are no micro-organisms capable of breaking down plastic, so plastic can only break down through weathering. This takes longer in the sea, because it’s colder than on land.
- Plastic bags are one of the commonest synthetic materials found in the stomachs of turtles. Of 30 dead turtles found off the coast of Brazil, 14 had plastic bags in their stomachs. There are probably many more suffering from the effects that do not die.
- Coral reef needs sunlight to survive. Plastic bags landing on them blocks out sunlight, and the coral dies. This has been compared with putting a plastic bag over your head.
- If you spent a year collecting plastic bags that end up as litter, you could girdle the earth 63 times.
- According to the BBC, only 1 in 200 plastic bags in the UK are recycled.
- China has announced that thin plastic bags will be banned in supermarkets and shops from June 1st 2008. China has been getting through 3 billion plastic bags a day.
Information Sources
http://www.onebagatatime.com/index.php?page=misc§ion=solution_4
http://aksenate.org/index.php?bill=SB118
http://www.lgsa-plus.net.au/www/html/993-did-you-know.asp
http://www.planetark.com/campaignspage.cfm/newsid/52/newsDate/7/story.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1974750.stm
http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/publications/plastic_bag_bill_evidence.pdf
http://environmental-activism.suite101.com/article.cfm/say_no_to_plastic_bags
http://www.reduce-the-use.com/facts.html
http://www.adoptabeach.org.uk/pages/page.php?cust_id=51
http://www.adoptabeach.org.uk/pages/page.php?cust_id=51
http://www.adoptabeach.org.uk/pages/page.php?cust_id=51
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/09/the_take_on_pla.php
http://www.nonwoven.com.au/info.htm
http://www.nonwoven.com.au/info.htm
http://www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=36501
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