English Language Institute

Time to Get Rid of Single Use Plastic Bags

by Lizu Garcia Ramirez de Arellano (Fall 2021, Writing 5)

     Plastic bags were created in 1959 with the purpose of replacing paper bags which was believed to harm the environment by causing too much tree cutting. The use of single-use plastic bags has become so widespread that people have questioned if the practice is sustainable in the long term. We live in a society where we are used to throwing everything away very easily, and a single-plastic bag is a clear example of that. On top of that, we are not aware of where everything really ends up. Although some argue that single-plastic bags are not the main problem with global climate change, there are many hidden problems with the use of plastic bags, so their environmental and health impact is much more serious than it seems. Therefore, single-use plastic bags should be banned.

     Many have argued that single-use plastic bags require little material and energy to make. Therefore, it is believed that they do not have a great impact on the environment (Philippe, 2020). Although single-use plastic bags are very cheap to produce, they cost too much to clean up and recycle. For instance, some communities in U.S.A. have paid $1 million in annual fees to eliminate the plastic bag garbage (Philippe, 2020). Plastic bags are made from petroleum and require 12 million barrels of it for their production. In addition, 380 billion plastic bags and wrappers are used each year according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (Philippe, 2020). This emphasizes how much it will cost us to clean up our planet if we continue using and throwing away bags at this rate, believing that single-use plastic bags are meaningless because they end up in the trash, when in reality they end up somewhere in the environment. Single-use plastic bags are more expensive to clean than to make them, and this is a huge impact on our planet.

     Some advocates of the plastics industry think that the ban on plastic bags would not have a visible effect because the garbage caused by plastic bags is very little compared to all garbage (O’Mara, 2017). However, the California Coastal Commission said that plastic bags are triggering a problem in the oceans because they decompose into smaller pieces of plastic. This means they become more harmful to marine life because these little poison balls called microplastics are ingested by them (O’Mara, 2017). As an example of how plastic bags end up in the ocean, in the state of California, it was reported in 2010 that during an annual beach cleanup 65,000 single-use plastic bags were found strewn all over the water (Phillipe, 2020). In that same study, it is also said that thanks to the ban on single-use plastic bags in 2007 that the state imposed, there was a decrease of 72% bags on the water. This shows both the serious consequences that single-use plastic bags have because they are spreading rapidly through the oceans as microplastics, and that banning them can actually have a positive effect in reducing those consequences.

     Finally, single use plastic bags are affecting our health. It has been argued by the federal Department of Health and Service that with the onset of the global pandemic, and the problem of the virus spreading faster, single-use plastic bags are more hygienic than reusable bags, which are carriers of viruses and bacteria (Povich, 2021). This argument, however, does not consider the consequences of continuing to use single-use plastic bags. The different stages of the life cycle of single-use plastic bags present different very strong risks to human health. These plastic bags are manipulated with chemical products, mainly oil and gas, which pollute the air and water of our planet. Once in the water, they break down as microplastics, which spread very quicky everywhere. Eventually we ingest this waste after it has accumulated in the tissues of plants and animals. According to Azoulay et al. (2019) microplastics “lead to an array of health impacts, including inflammation, genotoxicity, oxidative stress, apoptosis, and necrosis, which are linked to an array of negative health outcomes including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic inflammation, autoimmune conditions, neurodegenerative diseases, and stroke.” These problems emphasize that the negative effects of plastic bags lifecycle on our own health are worse than any apparent benefit they can provide.

     It is incredible to think how something like a single-use plastic bag that seems so insignificant, thin, and disposable can have so much power and impact on our planet; that it can destroy the environment, marine ecosystem, and food chains little by little. We must ban single-use plastic bags as a global goal because it is our responsibility to take care of the only home that we have. We do not have another planet with the characteristics that are required for us to live there. We must unify our efforts to come up with better ways to avoid plastics in general in our lives, spread this message, and create awareness revealing the terrible consequences that we are causing to the whole environment. This is a real plastic cancer that we are causing ourselves, and it is time to get rid of single-use plastic bags.

 

References

Azoulay D., Villa P., Arellano I., Gordon M., Moon D., Miller K,. Thompson K,. (2019, February). Plastic & health: The hidden costs of a plastic planet. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Plastic-and-Health-The-H...

O’Mara, K. (2017, May 18). Are plastic bags actually helping the environment? KQED. https://www.kqed.org/news/11461251/are-plastic-bag-bans-good-for-the-env...

Phillip, I. (2020, February 23). As plastic bag bans go into effect, some question the unintended consequences. ABC News.  https://abcnews.go.com/US/plastic-bag-bans-helping-environment-results/s...

Povich, E. (2021, March 30). Pandemic-paused plastic bag bans ripped anew by critics. PEW. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/...