by Karen rice | official Kids mag
the problem with
sources: www.keeparkansasbeautiful.com and www.biologicaldiversity.org
plastic bags
Plastic bags start out as fossil fuels and end
up as deadly waste in landfills and the ocean.
Birds often mistake shredded plastic bags for
food, filling their stomachs with toxic debris.
For hungry sea turtles, it's nearly impossible to
distinguish between jellyfish and floating plastic
shopping bags. Fish eat thousands of tons of
plastic a year, transferring it up the food chain to
bigger fish and marine mammals.
Despite all of this, plastic bags are in almost
every American home because retail stores
continue to use them for nearly every purchase
made.
10 facts about single-use
plastic bags
1
Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year,
which require 12 million barrels of oil to
manufacture.
2
It only takes about 14 plastic bags for the
equivalent of the gas required to drive one
mile.
3
The average American family takes home
almost 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year.
4
According to Waste Management, only 1
percent of plastic bags are returned for
recycling. That means that the average family
only recycles 15 bags a year; the rest end up in
landfills or as litter.
5
Up to 80 percent of ocean plastic pollution
enters the ocean from land.
6
At least 267 different species have been
affected by plastic pollution in the ocean.
7
100,000 marine animals are killed by plastic
bags annually.
8
One in three leatherback sea turtles have
been found with plastic in their stomachs.
9
Plastic bags are used for an average of 12
minutes.
10
It takes 500 (or more) years for a plastic
bag to degrade in a landfill. Unfortunately
the bags don't break down completely but
instead photo-degrade, becoming microplastics
that absorb toxins and continue to pollute the
environment.
what you can do?
• Bring reusable totes to the store to use for
purchases, instead of single-use plastic bags.
• Re-use plastic bags for other things like pet
waste, lining your garbage cans, carrying things.
• Recycle your clean plastic
bags at participating local
stores (Walmart, Target),
or other recycling centers
that take them. Plastic bags/
wraps typically do not get
recycled in curbside bins.
They must be returned
to participating drop-off
locations for recycling.
• Pick up discarded plastic
bags that you see
around town so
that they don't find
their way into lakes
and streams.
22 • NoVember 2020 • officialKidsmag.com
