Plastic Bags – What’s the big Deal

Billions of plastic bags are choking our planet.

• All of these "free" bags ultimately cost both consumers and the environment plenty:
• Each year billions of bags end up as ugly litter.
• Eventually they break down into tiny toxic bits polluting our soil, river, lakes and oceans
• Production requires vast amounts of oil.
• Countless animals needlessly die each year.

Ontario shoppers use an estimated 7 million plastic grocery bags a day. The province is determined to cut that in half within five years, and has partnered with big supermarket chains and the Recycling Council of Ontario to figure out exactly how.

Around the world, the war on plastic bags is being fought on several fronts. Last month, Leaf Rapids, Man., became the first Canadian community to ban plastic bags – following the lead of San Francisco, which has banned plastic bags in grocery stores and large drugstores. Back in 2002, Ireland decided to charge for plastic bags, to fight a "plague" of litter.

Top Facts - Consumption

• Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.
• According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks, wraps are consumed each year.
• According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)
• According to the industry publication Modern Plastics, Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year—900 per person.
• According to Australia’s Department of Environment, Australians consume 6.9 billion plastic bags each year - 326 per person, 7% or 49.6 million end up as litter each year.
  
  

Top Facts - Environmental Impact

• Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.
• Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.
• As part of Clean Up Australia Day, nearly 500,000 plastic bags were collected.
• Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags.
• According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone "from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78° North [latitude] to Falklands 51° South latitude.
• Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the non-profit Center for Marine Conservation.