Ban The Bag
By: Eni Cena & Noor Al-
Nazal
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Table of Contents
Page #
Potition....... 2
History ........... 2
Causes.................................................................... 3
Consequences ...........3
Proposed solutions .........................................................................4
The opposers position .......5
Diagrams ........6
Works Cited ....8
Position
Plastic bags harm and pollute the environment and affect huge numbers of biodiversities
around the world. Plastic bags can seem small and harmless, but once they are made they take a
long time to be gone. Plastic bags take hundreds of years to break down and decompose. They
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were also found in the stomachs of many marine animals. Alongside their lengthy decomposition
process, humans tend to neglect their real danger and often get rid of them the wrong way.
Ignoring all the reduce, reuse, recycle advertisements, many people still discard of plastics,
mainly plastic bags, by throwing them on the streets, oceans, or in regular trash cans. This has
many negative outcomes on planet Earth. They do not only pollute, but require huge amounts of
power to be manufactured. The environment, biodiversity, and climate are all victims of the
plastic bags people cannot abandon. In fact, humans worldwide use a trillion plastic bag each
year. That is approximately 2 million bags each minute. The amount of energy required to make
12 plastic bags can drive a car for a whole mile. Luckily, some people have already started taking
actions to solve this problem. For example, Many European countries tax plastic bags or ban free
distribution. This can potentially decrease the amount of production and consumption of plastic
bags in the long run.
History
The modern-day shopping bag was invented in the early 1960s by Sten Gustaf Thulin,
who was a Swedish engineer. He developed a method of creating plastic bags for a Swedish
packaging company, Celloplast, which consisted of folding, wielding and die-cutting a tube of
plastic. Thulins design effectively produced a plastic bag that was simple, tough, with a good
carrying capacity, and was introduced to the world in 1965 by the same company he developed it
for. It wasnt long until other companies realized the potential of the plastic bag, and Celloplasts
patent run in the US was overturned by its leading petrochemicals company, Mobil, in 1977. By
the end of 1985, 75 percent of supermarkets were offering plastic bags to their customers. Today,
it is the norm for stores to use plastic bags around the world. Currently, 100 billion plastic bags
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pass through the hands of U.S. consumers every yearalmost one bag per person each day. Laid
end-to-end, they could circle the equator 1,330 times.
Causes
The causes of plastic pollution is caused by many sources. First, plastic is almost
everywhere and that it usually gets disposed one of three ways being, in a landfill, burned or
dumped into the ocean. Plastic being among the cheapest materials to manufacture results in
almost every product on the market containing a part or percentage of plastic in the item. With
the vast amount of items containing plastic and it only takes 500 years to decompose, this results
in disposal being a struggle.
Consequences
The effects of plastic bags on the environment is drastic. Even though there is no way that
humans can restore the damage that is made by plastic bags, it can still be controlled and limited
if the change starts now. Disposing of plastic bags in a way that will not harm the environment is
almost impossible. The biggest problem with this is that once they have been soiled the end up in
the trash, which then ends up in the landfill or burned. Even when citizens try to manage their
plastic bag disposal wind plays a role in carrying them away as litter. This litter is not
biodegradable and thus where it lands it tends to stay for long period of time. With more the 500
billion and possibly as many as a trillion plastic bags in circulation annually this can lead to a
catastrophic littering problem. Also, the environmental balance of the waterways is being thrown
off by the rate of plastic bags finding their way into the mouths and intestinal tracts of sea
mammals. As one species begins to die off at an abnormal rate, every other living organism in
the waterway is impacted.
Solutions
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People cannot be told to stop bagging the items they purchase because this solution does
not make any sense. What sounds more realistic is substituting plastic bags with eco-friendly
alternatives that will not damage the environment as much. Paper bags are a better alternative but
certainly not that best as it requires the increase of the use of energy and trees. Reusable plastic
bags are also a better solution as they are stronger and can be used for up to 5 times before being
disposed of. The best alternative for plastic bags by far are the cloth shopping bags. Cloth bags
are tough and can carry a lot and the best part is they can be reused numerous times. Another
effective way of getting the use of plastic bags to decrease is taxing and penalizing the stores
who use plastic bags. Over 150 U.S. cities and counties ban or require fees for plastic bags.
California passed the first statewide ban in 2014, though Hawaii had a de facto ban through
county ordinances. Over 49 million Americans live in communities that have passed plastic bag
bans or fees.
Opposers
On the other hand, some people believe that plastic bags are being recycled effectively as there
are hundreds of recycling places in the U.S as shown in the image below.
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Also, if plastic bag bans became official worldwide, what would happen to the business owners
of plastic bags companies.
However, businesses and money should not be favored over our Earth and the environment.
Diagrams and Pictures
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Work cited
Lapidos, J. (2007, June 27). Do plastic bags really take 500 years to break down in a landfill?
Retrieved June 05, 2017, from
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2007/06/will_my_plastic_bag_still_b
e_here_in_2507.html
Laskow, S. (2014, October 10). How the Plastic Bag Became So Popular. Retrieved June 05,
2017, from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/10/how-the-plastic-bag-
became-so-popular/381065/
Plastic Bags Fact Sheet. (2014, October). Retrieved June 5, 2017, from http://www.earth-
policy.org/images/uploads/press_room/Plastic_Bags.pdf
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The Effects of Plastic Bags on Environment. (n.d.). Retrieved June 05, 2017, from
http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/14901/1/The-Effects-of-Plastic-Bags-on-Environment.html
Plastics part 2: Why recycling is not the answer. (2011, October 27). Retrieved June 05, 2017,
from https://oecotextiles.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/plastics-part-2-why-recycling-is-not-the-
answer/
The Truth About Plastic Bags. (n.d.). Retrieved June 05, 2017, from
http://www.bagtheban.com/multimedia/item/the-truth-about-plastic-bags
Use Cloth Shopping Bags. (n.d.). Retrieved June 05, 2017, from
http://www.sustainablestamford.org/cloth-shopping-bags.aspx
