One of the environmental problems that most damages the planet at the level of pollution and that humans generate on a large scale are the plastic bags. Plastic bags are generated in large quantities every day and are accumulating in any corner of the planet. The problem with this material is that every too much time it begins to degrade in, it even has some materials that can remain almost intact for centuries. All this means that its almost generalized distribution throughout the world causes global contamination.
In this article we are going to tell you everything you need to know about plastic bags and pollution problems.
Why plastic bags pollute the environment
Surely you have ever wondered why we contaminate plastic bags. We might think that a plastic bag is simply deposited instead and does not get to contaminate. We are not talking about the same thing that liquid or solid chemical spills were. However, the contamination of water by plastic bags causes thousands of deaths of fish and other animals such as cetaceans, turtles and birds.
You have to know that plastic bags are consumed in large quantities on a daily basis throughout the world. For its production a large amount of energy is needed and the raw material of these are substances derived from oil that can take decades to more than half a century. All those things that have serigraphs too contain toxic metal residues. The vast majority of plastic bags end up being thrown away without any kind of control. They get to pollute both cities and natural ecosystems.
Among the places where they have the greatest impact is in the seas and oceans. And it is that here the existence of plastic bags can become lethal for animals such as turtles, whales or finals. These animals can die after ingestion or become entangled in them. These actions make the environmental impact of plastic bags much worse than it appears at first. Thus, it is necessary to reduce the amounts generated daily all over the planet or find some way to reuse them.
Reduce plastic bags
We must find a way to learn to reduce the consumption of plastic bags and their generation. It must be taken into account that The United States and the European Union consume 80% of all world production of plastic bags. His generation are also in developing countries and are seriously aggravating the problem. We know that in our country each citizen consumes an average of 238 plastic bags per year. This becomes a quantity of 97.000 tons that are grouping different manufacturers and distributors from all over the country. With all this waste it is known that only 10% is recycled. This amount is still very low for all recycling efforts.
Dissemination and the need to educate on environmental and recycling matters is essential for an aware population. However, despite awareness efforts, recycling of plastic bags is very small.
Countries are considering different ways to reduce the use of plastic bags. One possible solution is to replace the material in these bags with others that are fully biodegradable. The environment ministry in Spain intends to place 70% of all bags with these materials. Various awareness-raising campaigns in this country have managed to reduce 20% the use of conventional plastic bags.
Reduce consumption per person
At the end of the day, it is more your own decision to consume or not to consume. We need to reduce the amount of plastic bags that we use in our daily lives. This is our decision and numerous actions can be taken to alleviate these problems. We are going to see the different decisions we can make to reduce the use of plastic bags on a daily basis:
- We will use cloth bags, wicker texts or some similar materials. We must know that these materials can be reused thousands of times. This means that we do not have to use several bags each time we go shopping.
- If you bring your own shopping bag you can prevent the supermarket from selling another one.
- Avoid using bags with few items from the supermarket. If you're just going to buy a few things and can carry your hand, don't buy a bag.
- You can reuse the bags giving you easy imagination and creating original ideas for your home. With the bags you can create these and customize them to your style.
- The bags that you can not reuse must be recycled in the plastic container is yellow. In this way, they can be treated to be reintroduced into the life cycle of the products.
- If you see a plastic bag on the ground or in the water, try to pick it up and throw it in the correct container. It is a very brief gesture but one that can contribute a great deal to solving the problem.
- If you are one of those fairy conscientious people, try to make others aware of this problem. Above all, we must emphasize the little ones so that they introduce these habits of life.
Why they should not be used
We know that plastic bags should not be used and we will summarize the reasons:
- More than a trillion are used in the world. Of all this amount only 1% is recycled.
- Are used more than 100 million barrels of oil in the manufacture of these plastic bags.
- Their recycling process is quite expensive since it costs 100 times more to recycle them than to produce them.
- They take more than 1000 years to disappear from the planet.
- It pollutes the seas and oceans and kills thousands of aquatic and terrestrial animals.
- Pollute the air
I hope that with this information you can learn more about plastic bags and their environmental problems.