Drowning in a Sea of Plastic

As we approach another Earth Day (April 22), I have one thing on my mind: plastic.

We are killing our planet, and the animals living here, with plastic. Plastic bags. Plastic straws. Plastic water bottles. Plastic of every kind.

The oceans are filled with floating islands of plastic, much of it discharged from passing ships. Beaches are littered with countless plastic bottles. Whales, turtles and other marine life are dying because of plastic. A dolphin starved to death when a plastic 'ring' got caught around its snout, keeping it clamped shut. A whale that died near the Philippines was found to have nearly 90 pounds of plastic in its stomach. Urban landscapes are littered with discarded plastic grocery bags.

The statistics are staggering. A person uses a plastic bag on average for only 12 minutes. On average we recycle only one plastic bag of every 200 we use. Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. According to the Earth Policy Institute, nearly 2 million plastic bags are used per minute. 

At least 16 African countries have announced bans on certain types of plastic bags, to varying levels of effectiveness. Before a ban on thin bags—which tear readily and get caught by the wind—went into effect in 2003, plastic bags were christened South Africa’s “national flower” because of their prevalence in bushes and trees. Thicker bags are taxed. Many European countries tax plastic bags or ban their free distribution. 

According to the EPI, “plastic bags have been found in stomachs of several endangered marine species,” including various turtles and porpoises, and 94 percent of North Sea birds. The Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec have each halved their plastic bag use through a variety of measures, including store incentives for using reusable bags and retailer-imposed fees. Livestock choking on plastic bags—from camels in the United Arab Emirates to sheep in Mauritania and cattle in India and Texas—have led communities to consider regulation." 

Currently 100 billion plastic bags pass through the hands of U.S. consumers every year—almost one bag per person each day. More than 150 U.S. cities and counties ban or require fees for plastic bags. California passed the first statewide ban in 2014, though Hawaii already had a de facto ban through county ordinances. Over 49 million Americans live in communities that have passed plastic bag bans or fees. U.S. cities with bag bans include San Francisco (as of 2007), Portland (2011), Seattle (2012), Austin (2013), Los Angeles (2014), Dallas (2015), and Chicago (2015). And then there is the state of Arizona, which passed a law prohibiting cities from passing legislation banning plastic bags.

Consider these statistics from the Center for Biological Diversity:

1. Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year, which require 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture.
2. It only takes about 14 plastic bags for the equivalent of the gas required to drive one mile.
3. The average American family takes home almost 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year.
   
4. According to Waste Management, only 1 percent of plastic bags is returned for recycling. That means that the average family only recycles 15 bags a year; the rest ends up in landfills as litter.
5. Up to 80 percent of ocean plastic pollution enters the ocean from land.
6. At least 267 different species have been affected by plastic pollution in the ocean.
7. 1000 marine animals are killed by plastic bags annually.
8. One in three leatherback sea turtles has been found with plastic in its stomach.
9. Plastic bags are used for an average of 12 minutes.
10. It takes 500 (or more) years for a plastic bag to degrade in a landfill. Unfortunately the bags don't break down completely but instead photo-degrade, becoming microplastics that absorb toxins and continue to pollute the environment.

I keep an assortment of reusable bags in my car. Each bag cost me around $1, and I have recouped that minuscule cost several times over with the 5 cents/bag discount grocery stores give each time I use one of these bags. I wash them in the kitchen sink to keep them clean. Yet whenever I go grocery shopping, I have to ask the person bagging the groceries not to put already bagged items into another bag. 

There seems to be a compulsion to bag every single item. Yesterday I asked the bagger not to put a bag of popcorn into one of my resusable bags, as there wasn't room and it wasn't necessary. Yet when I pushed the shopping cart to my car, I found a plastic bag holding two bags of potato chips. I immediately removed the chip bags from the grocery bag and returned it to the store's bag recycling box. But why won't people listen when I say I don't want, or need, a plastic bag for every single item? Likewise, if I buy one or two small items, DON'T PUT THEM INTO A PLASTIC BAG! I am quite capable of carrying things in my hands.

I have seen people pushing grocery carts from the store with a cart holding 15-20 plastic bags of food. Why? Why not use reusable bags for their purchases? The question used to be asked, "Paper or plastic?" Now, paper bags are an option only at Trader Joe's, which uses paper grocery bags as the only choice (aside from reusable bags, of course). 

And plastic straws? How many people actually need to use a straw to drink from a glass or cup? Really, the only people using straws should be those who are unable to drink from a can, cup or glass without using a straw. What happened to paper straws, which were in use for decades? And what about personal, reusable, cleanable stainless steel straws? There are options other than plastic. I saw an online video of a family of boaters trying to remove a plastic straw that was deeply embedded in one nostril of a large sea turtle. The people finally were able to remove the straw from the obviously distressed turtle and release it back into the water. 

I am glad to learn that some restaurants no longer automatically give a straw with each drink. They have straws available to those who ask for them. Yet a patron of a fast food restaurant recently attacked the young woman working the counter because she didn't automatically hand him a straw. 

Our self-entitled, it's-all-about-me and the environment-be-damned attitude is killing our plant -- the only know habitable planet we have. Is it such a hardship to give up plastic drinking straws or to use reusable grocery bags? When I buy something at REI, I am always asked whether I need a bag for my purchase, and I always say I do not.