The Cost of Plastic Bags
by Chris Tilley
3. Eliminate Plastic Bags – Bring Your Own Bag
We’re all used to the convenience of free plastic shopping bags, but at current rates we’ll each add over 10,000 bags to the planet in our lifetimes. So put some reusable bags in your car, purse, pack, or briefcase, and consider the mountain of plastic you won’t be leaving behind! When you need plastic bags for your garbage, etc. purchase your biodegradable bags instead. So next time you’re asked “Paper or plastic?” say “Neither!”
What does taking this action do for the planet? First let’s look at the CO2 savings. The raw material that goes into plastic bags is oil. According to this article 100 million plastic bags use 1.5 million litres of oil, and cause 4.2 million kilograms of carbon dioxide.(source) In searching for how many bags an individual uses in a year the numbers vary substantially by country.
Britian: 290 plastic bags a year (source)
Japan: 260 plastic bags a year (source)
Singapore: 625 plastic bags a year (source)
America: 330 plastic bags a year (source)
Australia: 326 plastic bags a year (source)
Using the American average of 330 plastic bags per year each person that took this action would save 1.31 gallons of oil and 30.5 Lbs of CO2 each year. A million people took this action it would be 13,831 Tonnes of CO2 and 1.31 million gallons of oil.
The other question is what happens to the bags when we are done with them. According to this article 150,000 plastic bags weights one tonne. That means using the American average of 330 that each person that takes this action can save 5 lbs from the landfill. A million people taking this action would save 2200 tonnes from the landfill. These bags take 1000 years to decompose if you can call it decompose. Over time they breakdown to smaller more toxic petro-polymers.(source, and excellent slide show))
A lot of these end up floating in the ocean where they get eaten by creatures that mistake them for food. Since they float and last for a very long time they are not going anywhere. There is an garbage patch in the pacific twice the size of the USA where the currents are such that flotsam gathers there. They estimate that there is 100 million tons of flotsam out there, mostly plastics.(source) Plastic items 50 years old have been found in the area. Plastic debris kills 1 million seabirds a year and 100,000 mammals. To personalize that here is a story of a poor Minke whale that died because it had eaten 2 lbs of plastics bags.
1 person taking action saves
- 30.5 lbs CO2
- 5 lbs of garbage
1,000,000 people taking action saves
- 13831 Tonnes of CO2
- 2200 Tonnes of Garbage