Plastic bags have short usefulness, long life
Nolan Pelger of Zanesfield, the summer intern at the Logan County Solid Waste District, throws a bundle of plastic film and bags into the rceclying bin for such material Thursday afternoon at the district’s 1100 S. Detroit St. headquarters. (EXAMINER PHOTO | REUBEN MEES)
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PLASTIC FILM FACTS
• Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year, which require 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture. • It only takes about 14 plastic bags for the equivalent of the gas required to drive one mile. • The average American family takes home almost 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year. • According to Waste Management, only 1 percent of plastic bags are returned for recycling. That means the average family only recycles 15 bags a year; the rest ends up in landfills as litter. • Up to 80 percent of ocean plastic pollution enters the ocean from land. • At least 267 different species have been affected by plastic pollution in the ocean. • 100,000 marine animals are killed by plastic bags annually. • One in three leatherback sea turtles has been found with plastic in their stomachs. • Plastic bags are used for an average of 12 minutes. • It takes 500 (or more) years for a plastic bag to degrade in a landfill. Unfortunately the bags don’t break down completely but instead photo-degrade, becoming microplastics that absorb toxins and continue to pollute the environment. Source: www.biologicaldiversity.org
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Twelve minutes — that’s the average amount of time it takes a consumer to load up a plastic bag, transport their food or other items home and unload.
The single-use plastic bag, which has reached the end of its useful life, then usually goes into a trash receptacle to be taken to a landfill or scattered by winds into the environment, where it will take decades for the bags to decompose.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the average American family uses 1,500 plastic bags a year.
They are so pervasive — the Environmental Protection Agency says Americans use more than 380 billion plastic bags and wraps each year in the United States — and lightweight that they easily escape into the environment and blow into rivers, streams and lakes where they contaminate waterways and confuse animals who sometimes eat them.
“One of the most important things we need to tackle is this massive and persistent problem with plastic bags,” Jim Holycross, a policymaker for the Logan County Solid Waste District planning committee, said.
In Logan County, the Solid Waste District strongly urges everyone to use reusable bags when shopping or to ask for paper bags, which are inherently more recyclable and reusable than single-use plastic bags.
“Plastic bag pollution in Logan County is especially prevalent around Indian Lake now because we get such a large influx of visitors for the summer season,” District Coordinator Angel Payne said.
Read complete story in Friday’s Examiner.
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