Plastic shopping bags can last up to a thousand years in a landfill. In the environment, they break down into tiny, toxic particles that become part of the soil and water.
Plastic bags are made from a petroleum byproduct. In the U.S.A alone, an estimated 12 million barrels of oil is used annually to make plastic bags that Americans consume.
Paper Bags Are Better Than Plastic, Right? NO, It takes 4 times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag. In 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year alone.
A growing list of communities & countries are beginning to rethink their dependence on plastic bags. A complete or partial ban has been approved in Australia, South Africa, parts of India, China, Italy, Bangladesh, Taiwan & San Francisco.
Degraded plastic pieces outweigh surface zooplankton in the central North Pacific by a factor of 6-1. That means six pounds of plastic for every single pound of zooplankton.
The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store.
