Plastic bags are, more often than not, used only once. They are flimsy, yet convenient. I am certain you can imagine a plastic bag whose entire lifespan and purpose consisted of facilitating the movement of a few items a few feet from a store to a car, being driven, being carried a few feet more from a car to a home − and then, nothing.
But plastic bags must be disposed of; unfortunately, every mechanism by which we dispose of plastic bags is problematic in some capacity. Burning plastic exacerbates existing urban air pollution concerns. Plastic bags thrown in with general recycling get caught in gears, slowing processing. Most bags go to landfills − an ever-swelling hazard tucked away at the corners of our vision. Some do get recycled correctly, and find new life as a park bench or another plastic bag, for a slightly lower energy cost than being produced the first time. Informing and encouraging plastic bag recycling is a necessary but not sufficient component of a comprehensive plastic bag policy, considering the sheer scope of the issue at hand.
A small but significant fraction of bags escape our usual methods of compressing and hiding our garbage. Millions of plastic bags enter the environment every year. They are lightweight and parachute-shaped − almost perfectly constructed to travel easily through the air and into our waterways. They decorate human landscapes, from hedges in Ireland to fields in China. Plastic bag pollution even has its own name there – 白色污染 [báisè wūrǎn] – “white pollution.” They clog our waterways, leading to floods and hundreds of millions of dollars in unclogging efforts. And they go very far − to the bottom of the sea and to remote islands uninhabited by humans.
Long after every person you know is gone, the plastic bags you used this past week will hold their form. They persist, taking up to 1,000 years to break down depending on the environment. When plastic fibers do break down, they do not biodegrade but instead photo-degrade, leaving ‘microbeads’ and fibers behind.
Disposable shopping bags are infamous for killing sea turtles – a lovable wildlife conservation symbol. Sea turtles mistake them for jellyfish, consuming plastic along with their food. Plugs form in a turtle’s digestive system, leading to a slow and painful death. Eventually the sea turtle dies of starvation or sepsis and decomposes, leaving the plastic bag to be swallowed anew, perhaps in smaller pieces.
This does not just impact turtles, of course. An autopsy from 2000 revealed six square meters of tightly packed plastics, much of it plastic bags, inside a dead Bryde’s whale. Bags block sunlight, killing coral reefs. Even if an animal does not swallow, entanglement can cause starvation and suffocation.
Somewhere between 500 billion and five trillion plastic bags are consumed by humans annually worldwide. On a consumer level, unlike nearly every other plastic convenience you use, there are readily available alternatives. While paper and canvas have their own baggage (pun intended), proper disposal of paper and reuse of canvas bags mitigate the negative effects. Perhaps the best reason to reduce your use of plastic bags (and seek proper recycling facilities when they cannot be avoided) is because you can.
Some nations have introduced policies taxing or banning the use of plastic bags, and these attempts have already begun to bear fruit. In Rwanda, improved cattle health and decreased flooding have been widely attributed to their decade-old complete plastic bag ban. The enforcement of the ban is arguably beyond what most democracies could achieve, and comes with human rights costs. However, it is proof that comprehensive government action can make real change on consumer behavior.
The Irish plastic bag levy is surprisingly popular, and has reduced use of plastic bags in retail locations a remarkable 90%, proving the effectiveness of a well-supported product tax. Most encouragingly, a study of the Greater North Sea over 25 years found a “negative trend in plastic bags.” Considering global trends, it is encouraging that national efforts can make a measurable effort. Learning from existing policy in Ireland, Australia, China, and other nations could provide the foundation for the United States to begin decreasing our dependence on plastic bags.
