World Enviornment Day 5th Jun- Plastic Bag Story

Data released by the United States Environmental Protection Agency shows that somewhere between 500

billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year.Less than 1% of bags are recycled.

It cost more to recycle a bag than to produce a new one.

- Christian Science Monitor News Paper

 

“There's harsh economics behind bag recycling: It costs $4,000 to process and recycle 1 ton of plastic

bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32”

- Jared Blumenfeld

(Director of San Francisco's Department of the Environment)

Then… Where Do They Go?		So… What do we do?
A study in 1975, showed oceangoing vessels together dumped 8 million pounds of plastic annually. The real reason that the world's landfills weren't overflowing with plastic was because most of it ended up in an ocean-fill.	Bags get blown around…	If we use a cloth bag, we can save 6 bags a week we ca	That's 24 bags a month
…to different parts of our lands	…and to our seas, lakes and rivers.	That's 288 bags a year	That's 22,176 bags in an average life time in
Bags find their way into the sea via drains and sewage pipes	Plastic bags have been found floating north of the Arctic Circle near Spitzbergen, and as far south	If just 1 out of 5 people in our country did we would save 1,330,560,000,000 bags over our life time	Bangladesh has banned plastic bags
Plastic bags account for over 10 percent of the debris washed up on the U.S. coastline	Plastic bags photodegrade: Over time they break down into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers	China has banned free plastic bags China hasbanned free plastic bags	Ireland took the lead in Europe, taxing plastic bags in 2002 and have now reduced plastic bag
Nearly 200 different species of sea life including whales, dolphins, seals and turtles die due to plastic bags		On March 27th 2007, San Francisco becomes first U.S. city to ban plastic bags - NPR.org (National Public Radio)	It is possible...