What are the Consequences of Plastic Bags?

Plastic bags have long been used to bag groceries and package other goods for shipping. Some companies no longer use bags because of their negative impact and implications. In fact, most plastic bags are even imprinted with warnings about the dangers of their use. The dangers are so real that some places in the world have even banned their use.

Suffocation Hazard

• Many, if not all, plastic bags bear a warning telling people to keep plastic bags away from young children. Many young children like to put things on their heads during play, and accidents can happen where a plastic bag falls onto a child. The plastic blocks off airways, and the child is unable to breathe. According to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, approximately 25 children are reported to die from suffocation by plastic bags each year, with about 90 percent of those children under the age of one-year-old. Therefore, those who have young children would benefit from not having plastic bags in the house at all to prevent an unforeseen tragedy.

Wildlife

• Because they are lightweight and blow around easily, some of the plastic bags that are discarded make their way into the oceans and other areas where wildlife live. Many sea animals mistake the plastic bags for food and ingest them. Once the animal does not swallow the bag completely, it can block off its airway, and it can suffocate to death. Those animals who do manage to swallow the bags cannot digest or pass the bag, leading to a slow, painful death. Other animals get caught in the plastic bags, cannot swim or move well and essentially starve to death. Still other animals do not die, but are injured when a bag wraps too tightly around their bodies.

Oil Dependency

• According to the Connecticut General Assembly, plastic bags are created with the use of polyethylene, which is made from oil. Most of the oil that is used in the United States is purchased from other countries. These other countries are sometimes unstable, resulting in rising oil prices for the United States. Since the United States is dependent on the oil from these countries, a rise in prices negatively impacts the U.S. economy. If fewer plastic bags were used, the dependency on foreign oil would proportionately go down. The bags are also made from natural gas, which is another non-renewable resource. WalMart had also announced that by cutting its plastic shopping bag waste in its stores worldwide (through reducing the number of plastic bags its stores distribute, encouraging the use of reusable bags, and allowing customers to recycle plastic shopping bags), it estimated it could reduce energy consumption by about 678,000 barrels of oil a year and reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions.

Deterioration

• Most things that are thrown away will deteriorate over time. Some items will deteriorate faster than others. For instance, food waste, such as fruit peels, will degrade much faster than plastic items. Plastic bags take a long time to fully degrade. In addition to the lengthy amount of time, when plastic breaks down, it becomes even more dangerous to the environment. According to Reuseit.com, the plastic photodegrades, rather than biodegrades, breaking down into smaller particles. These small particles absorb toxins more easily and consequently contaminate the ground and water sources, as well as food that is grown or acquired from animals that eat grass.

Recycling

• Some people feel that the plastic bag problems can be solved by simply requiring that they be recycled. However, this is not the best solution when it comes to plastic bags. According to Reuseit.com, the cost of recycling plastic bags is actually much higher than the cost of making new ones. Therefore, many companies that make them would prefer to just make new ones rather than spending the extra money to recycle the old ones. Even if someone tries to recycle them by putting them in a recycling bin, odds are, they will not be recycled.