Plastic Shopping Bags - Not So Cheap!
Plastic shopping bags are the quintessential symbol of our wasteful ‘disposable’ culture. They are cheap, convenient for a very short period, they save us the trouble of thinking ahead and carrying a reusable alternative, and are thrown away thereafter, polluting the world for a long, long time.
When crude oil is refined to produce gasoline, one of the by-products is naphtha, which contains ethylene (C2H4). Ethylene is also a by-product of natural gas and coal production. Ethylene molecules are polymerised (attached to each other in a chain) to form polyethylene or polythene. Pellets or granules of polythene are extruded to make plastic shopping bags.
There are two types of plastic shopping bags - the lighter and thinner bags are made from high density polyethylene (HDPE); the heavier, thicker bags from low density polyethylene (LDPE). HDPE can be recycled; LDPE cannot.
Bane of the Environment
Have no delusions; plastic shopping bags are very convenient. Apart from the cost factor, they are very strong for their weight. They have excellent chemical resistance and are practically waterproof. They are durable and can be reused, if for nothing else, as trash bags. They require less energy and chemicals to manufacture, to transport and to recycle than paper bags.
That’s about it, though. In every other respect, plastic shopping bags have become the bane of the environment. They use up scarce natural resources like petroleum and natural gas, generate an astounding amount of litter, choke sewerage, pollute landfills for a very long time , and viciously damage the marine ecosystem.
Take the cost of making them, for one. In the United States alone, according to The Wall Street Journal, retailers hand out around 100 billion plastic bags worth $4 billion a year to customers. About 12 million barrels of oil is required to produce these plastic bags each year.
Worldwide consumption every year is anything between 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags. That works out to an equivalent of 60 to 120 million barrels a year. Can you believe it –we are extracting huge amounts of costly and scarce resources to make a plastic bag which we use for just 10 minutes!
That’s not all. The high volume-to-weight ratio makes plastic shopping bags notoriously difficult and costly to collect for recycling once they are discarded. So the inexpensive plastic shopping bag is not so cheap, after all. And we haven’t gone into the environmental costs yet!
Super Hero Shopping Bags…Saving The World!
No, your choice of shopping bag won't end wars or stop famine in third world countries but you can certainly do your part to save the forests and stop global warming by purchasing and using a 100% recycled shopping bag.
100% Recycled? 100% Reusable?
With all of the shopping going on, you are bound to find yourself head deep in plastic bags. No matter where you go, your purchases will be bagged in some form of material that can be re-used in several different ways.
When the cashier at the grocery store asks you if you want paper or plastic, you should be able to give a better answer than, “whichever”. Plastic bags, once used and discarded, end up in landfills where it can take a minimum of one million years to break down. Even then, the chemicals used in the manufacturing of the plastic bag seep into the ground and poison it. Paper bags are a better choice but it still takes a tree to create piles of paper bags. So what can you do as a consumer to be an eco friendly shopper?
Eco friendly shopping bags are handmade from materials you throw out everyday.
Those newspapers you toss into the recycling bin every week make their way back into your home in the form of a super durable, 100% reusable and recycled shopping bag. Because paper is made from trees it is much stronger than you’d think. Ever try tearing a phonebook in half? When bound and woven during the bag making process, it is given more strength and durability that will come in handy when your shopping bag is filled to the brim with cans of soup.
