The Recycling Group runs
the following promotional activities for Transition Town High Wycombe:
Would you like to help with these ideas? Do
you have further ideas or would you like to join this group? Then please
contact us by clicking
Why are plastic bags bad?
* an estimated 5 billion bags given out by UK
supermarkets each year
* 200 million land as litter on beaches, streets and parks
* Average consumer uses 290 bags every year
* Average use is 12 - 20 minutes before disposal
* Worldwide, we use between 500 billion – 1.2 trillion
plastic bags each year
* Takes 400 years to degrade—or up to 1,000 years in the sea
* There are very few outlets for recycling plastic bags
* 100,000 tonnes of plastic bags gets dumped each year –
only 1 in 200 is recycled
* 32% of marine debris in North East Atlantic in 2005 was
plastic bags
* They harm wildlife - on land, in rivers and at sea...
* 1.4 million bags counted in International Coastal Clean-up
2008
* 70% of 1995 dredge sample on French/Spanish coast was
plastic bags
* Beachwatch 2008 found a total of 8,174 plastic bags on
UK beaches (an average of 46
plastic bags per k/m.
Plastic bags are only part of the problem...
* More than 50% of debris found on beaches is plastic
* 90% of floating marine litter is plastic. Four-fifths
comes from land, swept by the wind or rained off highways
and streets, down streams and rivers, and out to sea
* 1982 - 2001, 96% of dead fulmars in the North sea had
plastic fragments in their stomachs — an average of 23
pieces per bird
* 96% of the world’s plastic is not recycled.
* Clearing up plastic from UK beaches costs £7 million every
year
* 177 marine species (including 95% of the world’s sea
birds) have eaten plastic litter. Oceanic microplastics now
out-weigh plankton. Plastic toxins eaten by filter feeders
will pass up the food chain to bigger fish and eventually to
human consumers
What can you or I do?
You can make a big difference just saying ‘NO!’ to free
plastic carrier bags whenever you can. There are hundreds of
different re-useable bags you can buy in all shapes, sizes
and colours- cotton bags, durable plastic bags, string bags,
Hessian bags, jute bags, designer bags - even parachute
material!
You just need to get into the habit of having some bags
in handy. So keep some in your car, your handbag, pockets
just in case. If you only have a few small items, do you
really need a bag anyway? You may have noticed changes are
already afoot -- alternatives to plastic packaging are
cropping up and some retailers are already asking shoppers
"Do you really need a bag?".
Plastic bags are only the tip of the iceberg as far as
our use of the earth's resources, and we should beware of
feeling that just by reducing our use of them we 'are doing
our bit'. We are doing a bit of our bit, but we still need
to address all the other overconsumption practices we have
adopted.
What are the alternatives?
• Bring your own: The plastic bag has
only been around for a generation. It became common in the
late 1970s. Before that people brought their own bags or
baskets and they were made from hard-wearing but
bio-degradable material such as cloth, wicker, cane or jute.
A re-usable bag is still the best alternative to a plastic
bag; the shopper has to be encouraged to bring his/her own
bag, i.e. re-use what we have.
• Cloth, jute or other fabric bags: New
bags should be made to last a long time and should be
something which we can and will want to re-use time and time
again, manufactured from a natural fabric which will
naturally degrade when its life-time is over. It is
essential that only fabrics that are produced to the highest
environmental and ethical standards are used, for example
crops should be grown organically or without pesticides; be
GM free; materials should be unbleached; inks should be
vegetable based, ideally “Azo free”; glues and linings
should also be of natural materials; items should be
produced under fair-trade standards; energy costs of
transport should be minimized.
It is best to buy from wholesalers who have already asked
the questions of where and how their bags are made and can
prove what they say.
• Cornstarch bags: These can be made
from GM free corn starch, vegetable oils and compostable
polyesters which are therefore easily compostable and
biodegradable to water, CO2 and residual organic carbon
(compost), leaving no harmful residues. These are available
in sizes from 8 to 240 litres.
• Paper: Paper is not necessarily a good
alternative. Although it biodegrades and is not normally a
hazard to animal life, the production process uses a lot of
energy and water and not all forests are sustainably
managed. Mass produced paper is bad for the environment and
should be avoided, however if the paper comes from
Sustainable Forest Certified (SFC) timber or from another
Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) forests or from the EU,
if the paper is unbleached and undyed, if it is partly or
totally recycled, has no watermarks, embossed patterns,
lamination or waxed finishing, and the glues used are
biodegradable and vegetable based, then we believe such bags
are preferable to plastic.
• The British wicker basket: Dare we say
it? Perhaps there are some shoppers who would return to this
good old British alternative – expensive but home grown and
produced.
We suggest that each store sources an alternative cotton,
jute, paper, or cornstarch bag as suits its needs, which
could be offered at a minimal charge. A list of possible
suppliers is available from us.
Corn-starch is widely used as a biodegradable alternative
to plastic. The best way to deal with this at home is to put
it in your home composter - if you have one. Corn-starch
bags are thin enough to break down in a home composter, but
don't try this with a corn-starch food tray or smoothie
bottle - you'll find it lurking in the bottom of your
compost heap, untouched at all after a year. Thicker
corn-starch needs the higher temperatures that industrial
composters can achieve, so until food waste is collected by
councils these items will still have to go to landfill.
