While those bags are, I know, very convenient indeed when shopping at supermarket and general stores as well – one does not have to remember to bring a shopping bag of one's, as one had to in years past before the advent of the plastic grocery bag – they come with a big environmental price tag attached and footprint.
Trees all over parks and countryside are festooned with plastic bags in different colors and hues and while decorations may be nice and fine and suit a Christmas Tree, in the countryside and in parks this is rather unsightly. In addition those plastic bags are also bad for wildlife.
Because of their very nature of being extremely light they get blown everywhere, high up into the canopy of the trees and deep into the undergrowth, and they end up hung from branches in the same way as stuck to brambles and thorn bushes deep in hedgerows and in the under storey of woodlands and parks, making everything look tatty and neglected, even if countryside and parks staff do their very best to make the places look nice.
In addition to this those plastic carrier bags, unless made from corn starch or other such biological material, are made from oil based plastic and are NOT biodegradable. They photo-degrade instead, slowly breaking down in the environment into tiny, even microscopic plastic particles and also leaching at the same time chemicals into the soil, all of which further contaminates the environment.
Moves are under way, so I understand, from a number of “sources” to outright ban the use of those plastic bags, even biodegradable corn starch ones, maybe, and while I must admit that I do use them as and when, the plastic bag that is, for they come in handy as free bin liners for waste bins at home and in the office, which means they get used at least two or three time with me, I am taking my own reusable ones, often tote bags that come FREE from the variety of fairs I attend, to the stores nowadays and we must all get back to doing this, that is to bring our own shopping bags, just like in the old days. If not always then at least most of the time.
As to tote bags, I would say, that there is no need, I am sure, to go out and buy such sturdy cotton or jute tote bags (he has good talking I sure some will think now for he has just told us that he gets them FREE on trade fairs) if you can sew, whether by hand or sewing machine. It is quite simple to knock up a couple of sturdy shoppers from some old denim of some other sturdy cloth, such as a bit of Hessian or canvass.
While you and I, and even all the remaining readers of this journal, if we all did it, may not save the planet on our own be refusing to use the plastic carrier bags, we may, however, contribute to the countryside and parks looking less tatty.
The problem is that, even if we all stopped using plastic carrier bags tomorrow, the unsightly bags in trees and such will still be with us for some time to come, simply because those that still fly about and hang about the trees will take a while still to break down, before they ultimately sort of disappear.
Having said this, that should not stop us, though, to make a start now and stop using and begin refusing the offered plastic shopping bag. Mind you, often you do not even get the chance to refuse for you do not even get asked as to whether you want a bang; the purchases are shoved into the bag before you even know it.
If we do end up with bags of this kind, for one reason or the other, then we must also make sure that we use them at least more than once and then – in the final end – dispose of them responsibly. However, best is no plastic bags.
© Michael Smith (Veshengro), February 2008
The Bane of the Plastic Carrier Bag
