Today, it appears that many supermarkets have withdrawn from the use of plastic bags and have switched to paper or reusable grocery bags. Overloading grocery items in single plastic bags may cause to tear apart. Therefore, supermarkets have set discount incentives or freebies for customers who use home brought reusable bags. Due to the ecological fact that plastic grocery bags cause extreme harm to the environment, plus it saves the store from added expenditures, many supermarkets have decided to do away with providing them to customers.
If you have chosen to make the switch to the recycled grocery bags, then congratulate yourself for being ecologically aware. But, if you’re still stuck on using these bags, then considering the facts stated below might help you make the switch, because our world deserves better treatment.
Reality Check before you buy grocery bags
1. A plastic bag takes nearly 15 to 1000 years for complete decomposition.
2. It may not biodegrade but remain at risk to photo degrade as light exposure may dissolve into toxic particles from the polymer. Generally, this occurs when being disposed in the ocean only.
3. The recycling cost of plastic grocery bags is more costly them restocking them. Due to how customers are choosing to shop with reusable and more plastic bags are becoming less needed.
4. As per reports of the Wall Street Journal, 1% of plastic are reprocessed across the world, leaving the majority percentage to survive in landfills for life.
5. Nearly 100 billion plastic bags are used only in the USA every year- which makes the quantity for an average person between 350 & 500 bags.
6. Thanks to their lightweight feature, many plastic bags often fly off the landfills causing more pollution problems.
7. Public agencies in the USA spend more than $300 million to clean coastal litter per year.
8. Plastic bags pollute the USA coastline by making up 10% of the washed debris.
9. As per British Antarctic Survey, the cast-off bags are being found in the north towards the Arctic Circle and also in the southern hemisphere near the Falkland Islands.
10. Nearly 1 million birds and 100,000 turtles and sea creatures die due to starvation as the bags are ingested, blocking their digestive tracks.
11. These bags are made from natural gas and petroleum products. Plastic bags use nonrenewable resources which ultimately drive up the fuel costs too.
12. In the USA, nearly 12 million oil barrels are used for production of plastic bags.
13. Do you think paper bags are better? If so, then know that 14 million trees are cut down by United States every year just to meet the demand for shopping bags.
14. Paper bags require 13% more energy for production of one unit than the production of 2 plastic bags.
15. Made from processed chemicals at high temperatures, the production of paper bags release toxins in the atmosphere at the same rate of plastic production. michael kors sales bags