Melisa Canbay
After World War II, the use of plastic in households started to get common day by day. In the 1980s, the USA left using paper bags and started using plastic instead. With USA’s changeover to plastic bags, almost every country in the world started to use plastic bags as well. Plastic bags are more useful than paper ones because plastic ones are more durable and stronger than paper bags. That is the biggest reason that everyone started to use them. Today, plastic bags are seen most frequently in supermarkets. These bags have been very helpful to most people in carrying their purchases. Even though it helps a lot for everyone, the fact that these bags are being plastic has great harm to nature.
Plastic bags have become a threat to the life of animals. It doesn’t matter if these animals live on land or in water. The chemicals inside plastic bags always find a way to enter the soil or water. It is humans who play the biggest role in making this happen. As long as humans don't recycle plastics and also throw them into the habitats of animals, animals' lives will be in danger. The extinction time of plastic in nature is almost 1000 years. It is nearly impossible to get rid of them immediately. In addition, there is no return after these chemicals used in plastic bags are mixed with nature. Animals that live and feed on that land or water must be exposed to these poisons. Many living groups are on the verge of extinction simply because of people's carelessness and the lack of value they place on nature. One of the examples known by the whole world is the Caretta Caretta. These creatures' lives are in danger because of the light pollution and the fact that the seas are covered with plastic. While some of them cannot swim in the sea because of these plastics, some eat them because they think they are edible, and this leads to the death of that animal. The unconscious use of plastic can disrupt the entire balance in nature.
Another reason that plastic bags should be banned is that these bags are made of non-renewable resources. And also the amount of energy used to produce a plastic bag is unbelievably a lot. Plastic bags are made with oil. Oil is one of the well-known non-renewable energy sources. Plastic bags harm not only the environment but also consume oil resources as well. It takes roughly 430,000 gallons of oil to produce just 100 million plastic bags. It is a huge waste of oil reserves and a huge amount of raw materials lost. The use of oil is very harmful to nature, but especially to climate change. Although we are trying to reduce oil consumption by using electric cars, we spend a lot of oil with plastic bags that have become a part of our daily lives.
Maybe the only good thing about these plastic bags is that they are cheap. Paper or cloth bags are more expensive than plastic bags because of the materials. It's always easier to reach plastic bags. If we take the supermarkets as an example, there is only the sale of plastic bags. Because others were more expensive, customers would not prefer them if they were sold. Being cheap makes the plastic preferable. Plastic bags, which were previously free everywhere, are now paid to support using less plastic. Even though it is now paid for, it is still cheaper than the others.
Even though the plastic bag is cheap, it has a bad power that can change the whole ecosystem. If we use reusable bags instead of these bags, you can avoid giving money to the bag every time and at the same time, you can protect the environment. The use of plastic bags does more harm than good. We must prevent these harms. Today, people have become more sensitive about this issue. With plastic bags becoming paid, people turned to reusable bags. We can't get over the damage we've done before, but we must be careful from now on.
Resources:
Liggins, Michael. “Plastic Bags Are a Non-Renewable Resource.” City Times, 18 Dec. 2012, sdcitytimes.com/opinion/2012/12/18/plastic-bags-are-a-non-renewable-resource.
Weiss, Debra. 6 Benefits of Plastic Bags,
https://isellpackaging.com/6-benefits-of-plastic-bags/#:~:text=A%20plastic%20bag%20consumes%20up,are%20resistant%20to%20many%20chemicals.
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