Going shopping for an armload of groceries? Stop! Don’t grab that plastic bag! With it, you will be adding to plastic trash, which is not only an eyesore but also an environmental nuisance that is literally choking the life out of our oceans.

Plastic bags have captured the world’s imagination, they are an icon of the convenience culture: They are cheap to produce, sturdy, plentiful, easy to carry and do carry a whole lot of stuff. Most grocery store baggers almost mechanically just dump all your shopping into plastic bags. Many bags are reused as book and lunch bags as kids head off to school, others to pick up pet droppings.

Choking the world’s oceans

We seem to be submerged in a world of plastic bags: they line bathroom trash bins, you can see them flapping in the wind strung in branches, they clutter landfills where they take hundreds of years to degrade, they clog roadside drains, they drift on the high seas, they fill sea turtle bellies. The success of the plastic bag has meant a dramatic increase in the amount of sacks found floating in the oceans where they choke, strangle, and starve wildlife.

There are 46,000 pieces of plastic litter floating in every square mile of ocean, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. More than one million sea birds and approximately 100,000 sea mammals die each year after ingesting or becoming entangled in plastic debris.

Bags that are waterlogged sink to the bottom, where they affect animals that live on the bottom: shrimp, shellfish and sponges. Floating bags can look all too much like tasty jellyfish to hungry marine critters. Debris like plastic bag can quickly become entangled on a coral and smother it.

Plastic bags and health hazards

One recent study found that the inks and colorants used on some bags contain lead, a toxin. This only adds to the growing suspicion that plastic use may lead to serious health problems. These bags cause blockage in the drainage and the sewerage system of the city causing water logging, germination of bacterial and water borne diseases, and spread of mosquitoes, etc. In the fields, these plastic bags when deposited in high quantities cause soil infertility. The toxic smoke produced while burning plastic kills thousands each year. Next to an unsupervised baby, they can cause a lot of harm.

How are plastic bags made?

Plastic bags start as crude oil, natural gas, or other petrochemical derivatives, which are transformed into chains of hydrogen and carbon molecules known as polymers or polymer resin. After being heated, shaped, and cooled, the plastic is ready to be flattened, sealed, punched, or printed on.

Manufacturing plastic is resource-intensive and yields various nasty emissions that contribute to global warming and degradation of water quality. It’s made from non-renewable resources, and for all intents and purposes, it never biodegrades (although some specialized variations have been made specifically to do so). Yes, we’ll run out of oil eventually, but we’ll always have our plastic garbage. A quarter of the plastic bags used in wealthy nations are now produced in Asia.

Biodegradable plastic bags, a technology that has made strides in recent years is offering compostable plastic bags made from starches, polymers or poly-lactic acid, and no polyethylene though these remain prohibitively expensive and account for less than 1 percent of the market.

Say No to Plastic Bags

As a community, do try to get legislation in place against the use of plastic bags. Boston, Portland, Santa Cruz, Oakland, Annapolis, Baltimore, New Haven are currently seeking total bans on the use of plastic bags, on the grounds of environmental harm.

The long-term cost of having these plastic bags blowing across our landscape and oceans outweighs their narrow short-term benefits. Do away with the ‘paper or plastic’ conundrum and just carry your own recyclable cloth bag next time you go grocery shopping. Keep canvas bags handy at home, office, and in the car, so you always have them available when you go shopping.

Image credits: [1], [2], [3]