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For our first campaign we have chosen a topic that has been highlighted on the news, in national newspapers and also in the budget! There is a strong possibility that you have already heard something about it, but do you know all the facts?
Plastic bags are a relatively new invention, it is only in the last 30 years or so that they have become a common household item, but much like mobile phones and the internet, it now seems that we would struggle to cope without them. They are convenient and useful but there is a wealth of evidence that clearly shows how damaging they can be to the environment.
Why then, if we are all faced with this barrage of evidence in all forms of media, do we still find the need to use billions of them and why is this campaign needed at all? Firstly and unfortunately there is a significant proportion of the population who just don’t care. Articles about the environment don’t hold any interest for them so they would surely just flick the channel or turn the page. They are ignorant of the facts, and I have a niggling feeling that even if they could be force-fed the information, somehow it still wouldn’t affect them. They wouldn’t feel pity for the wildlife or fear for what the future holds for the planet, delicate eco-systems and future generations.
Secondly is the higher proportion of the population who support the ban. They are aware of the damage (or some of the damage) that bags cause, they are sickened when reading stories of how they slowly and painfully kill wildlife and they are disgusted by the way they look littered around beauty spots and towns alike. Unfortunately, however good the intentions of this section of society are (and I count myself amongst them) they struggle to change bad habits. They are generally people who are busy with work or family life or both, who have a million and one things to remember and do. They simply forget to take re-useable bags with them.
As much as it pains me to say it, as we should all be environmentally responsible enough to remember to take re-useable bags with us, it would be a big help if temptation was removed.
Of course there are those who have already made the switch and are now happily plastic bag free – unfortunately they are still in the minority.
For those of us who care, signing the petition will not only help us to remember our reusable bags, it will also encourage the uncaring percentage to comply.
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Plastic Bag Use In UK
It is hard to imagine that the few bags you use to carry your weekly shopping to the car can cause such a problem but it is surprising how quickly those few bags add up. It is thought that the average adult in the UK uses 290 plastic bags per year, amounting to in excess of a whopping 13 billion in just one year, that’s around 1 million a minute. Although 45% of shoppers claim to own a re-usable bag only 12% of them actually use them, meaning that the other 88% of shoppers use the free plastic bags.
Out of these it is estimated that only 1 in 200 are recycled (BBC statistics). There are statistics out there that give plastic bag recycle rates as high as 80% but in an article by Matthew Carmichael for the EcologistOnline it states that “The CBC would count reusing a bag once as a bin-liner as 'recycling'; the less partial BBC would say that recycling should only refer to what happens when it is thrown away.”
Problem With Plastic Bags
Plastic bags can take up to 1000 years to break down and even when they have done so they leave behind a toxic residue. This is because plastic bags do not bio-degrade, instead they photo-degrade. This process is where the plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller toxic particles that then contaminate soil, waterways and the ocean. This contamination can then make its way into the food chain.
No matter where you live in the UK you can guarantee that plastic bags will be causing visual pollution, from busy town centres, to remote beauty spots and beaches the light weight bags can be found wrapped around trees, blowing like tumbleweed down busy streets and washed up on beaches. During ‘Beachwatch 2006’ more than 7,000 plastic bags were found on UK beaches, that’s 40 bags for each kilometre surveyed (Marine Conservation Society statistics). They are unattractive, spoil natural features and pose a deadly threat to wildlife.
© Matt Dale
There has been a lot of media coverage recently regarding the danger to wildlife from plastic bags. The Daily Mail gave the front cover on the 27th February 2008 to the harrowing photograph of a Green Turtle being slowly killed by plastic bags. In 2002 a Minke Whale was washed up from the English Channel. An autopsy found there to be over 2lbs worth of plastic in its stomach. This included nine full plastic bags, two of which came from UK supermarkets along with parts of bin liners. The gannet washed up on Fistral beach, Cornwall (see Matt Dale’s photograph) had been strangled by a plastic bag. These sad stories are unfortunately only the tip of the iceberg, with thousands of other animals are being forced to suffer similar fates.
The average plastic bag has travelled over 8000 miles before reaching our shores from either China, India, Thailand or Malaysia, ensuring that each one has already left a significant carbon footprint before it is even used.
Bio-degradable and Degradable Plastic Bags
Many stores now give out bags marked bio-degradable or degradable but their merit is questionable.
They breakdown much quicker and depending on the type, some leave behind no toxic residues. However they still create visual pollution which depending on how big the problem is can affect you quality of life.
If ingested by animals or livestock they are still dangerous. Even the ones designed to bio-degraded exceptionally quickly can still take up to four months to do so, this is ample time for the bag to kill an animal or bird.
One of the biggest problems they cause is that they can undermine the recycling process. As the bags have been specially designed to breakdown they are not suitable for recycling. Bio-degradable bags used in recycling can contaminate the whole batch.
Opposing Arguments
Some will claim that people who actively oppose this campaign fall into the first category of people who just don’t care. I would disagree with that as some of their arguments are compelling and the issue is far more complex than some would lead you to believe.
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One particularly compelling argument is that plastic bags by themselves do not pose a significant problem. Whilst not disagreeing that they cause damage to the environment and wildlife, it is merely questioning why we are focusing on such a small part of the much bigger problem. After all, plastic bags amount to only 0.3% of the total waste in UK landfill sites. Why are we not focusing on the 99.7% of other waste, all of which has its own set of dire consequences? If that problem seems too large to deal with in one chunk why not break it down to just plastics? The danger to wildlife is vastly greater from other forms of plastic than it is from bags. Nurdles are tiny plastic pellets that are often dumped in the oceans by industry. They are incredibly damaging to marine wildlife which often mistakes the pellets for food. One of the most vulnerable species are albatrosses. They feed there chicks with this easy to obtain ‘food.’ Unable to obtain nutrients from the plastic that fills their stomachs whist releasing toxins many of these magnificent birds perish.
On Midway Island, 500,000 albatross chicks are born each year. 200,000 of these die a slow and painful death from the effects of plastic.
Cynics may say that it is much easier to target the actions of the individual, via taxes and media manipulation than it is to make industry ‘greener.’ That the campaign to ban bags is just the governments way of appearing to tick the eco-friendly checklist whilst distracting attention away from more significant but harder to solve problems.
Excess packaging is another issue. When you look at how much packaging many products come wrapped in it seems absurd to start complaining merely about the plastic bag it is carried home in.
Of course many areas have already gone plastic bag free. In many of the anti-plastic bag articles written it is a well quoted fact that during trials in Northern Ireland when a levy was placed on the plastic bag their use fell dramatically. However it is a little quoted fact that during the same period the sale of bin liners increased by 400%, thereby undermining the effect of the levy.
Conclusion
In conclusion it is clear that plastic bags cause problems to the environment and to wildlife. However it is apparent that plastic bags form only a tiny proportion of the damage we humans do to the environment. Why then is this campaign worthy?
Just because reducing the number of plastic bags used won’t solve all the problems we have created for our planet doesn’t mean that it is useless. Rome, as they say, was not built in a day and it is important to remember that no matter how small, positive steps add up and they set us heading off in the right direction.
If you want to support this campaign there is a link to the Daily Mail’s petition below:
Although convenient they are not essential and it is easy and simple to remove them from your life.
Daily Mail Banish the plastic bags petition.
If you want to become more eco-friendly but don’t know where to start or find it all a bit daunting why not try looking at our ‘Eco-living section’. In a bid to make my family ‘greener’ and to help form new habits we will be changing just one simple thing per month. If you would like to join in then you can keep up to date with our progress in the Blog and tell me how you are getting along, or leave comments and suggestion on the Forum.