![\"coufal--CMYK\"](\"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/coufal-CMYK.jpg\")
<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n(Cazenovia, NY – May 2013) I have this vague memory of a novelty song of years ago that said, in an ominous voice, \u201cThey\u2019re everywhere!\u201d It\u2019s something that can be well-said today about the ubiquitous plastic bag. Tumbling along the road side, hung and flapping in bushes and trees, stuffed in other plastic bags somewhere in your home, in the stomachs of land and marine wildlife, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and even in landfills.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re everywhere!<\/p>\n
Plastic bags are often looked at as less environmentally friendly than paper bags, but are they? And how big is the problem? Estimates put worldwide use of plastic bags anywhere from 1 to 4 trillion per year. The U.S. alone uses about 14 billion plastic bags per year, creating enough solid waste to fill the Empire State Building two and a half times (sometimes it feels like we have that much in our kitchen pantry).<\/p>\n
The World Watch Institute estimates in the U.S. about 12,000,000 barrels of non-renewable petroleum are required to produce the plastic bags consumed annually. The petroleum used to make just 14 plastic bags could drive a car one mile.<\/p>\n
Plastic bags take from 400 to 1,000 years to decompose, but the chemical residues remain for years after that. They often don\u2019t get a chance to decompose because landfills in the U.S. are so tightly compacted that decomposition of most things is slowed way down, and that includes paper bags.<\/p>\n
Wildlife biologists estimate that about 100,000 marine animals, including sea turtles, whales and dolphins, die every tear due to plastic bags. Terrestrial animals are also injured or killed by plastic bags. Such incidents are very unlikely to happen with paper bags.<\/p>\n
Another mind-boggling estimate talks to the ubiquitous nature of plastic bags. That is, the average number of pieces of plastic in each square mile of the ocean is 46,000. In the Northern Pacific Ocean, what is called \u201ca vast expanse of debris\u201d covers many square miles with estimates from one to two times the size of the continental United States. Much of this is plastic and much of that is plastic bags. Like DDT, the constituent chemicals of the plastics do not break down into something neutral, but are taken up into the stream of life.<\/p>\n
Oceanographers say the debris vortex contains everything from kayaks to Lego blocks, to footballs and other land-based debris, with about 20 percent thrown off ships and the rest from the land.<\/p>\n
Plastic bags do have about a 40-percent energy savings compared to paper bags in their production, and another 50-perpcent reduction in air pollution. Even greater, there is a 94-percent reduction in wastewater in making plastic bags.<\/p>\n
Plastic versus paper bags leads to a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don\u2019t situation. What to do? Some countries, some local governments and some stores in the United States have banned the use of plastic bags. That leaves paper bags, and the problems from them noted above.<\/p>\n
Probably, the best thing to do is buy cloth bags and use them over the long life they will give.<\/p>\n
As long as we use plastic bags, they\u2019ll be flapping all over the place and reminding us of the problems they cause.<\/p>\n
Jim Coufal of Cazenovia is a part-time philosopher and full-time observer of global trends. He can be reached at madnews@m3pmedia.com.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From Here & Back Again By Jim Coufal (Cazenovia, NY – May 2013) I have this vague memory of a novelty song of years ago that said, in an ominous voice, \u201cThey\u2019re everywhere!\u201d It\u2019s something that can be well-said today about the ubiquitous plastic bag. Tumbling along the road side, hung and flapping in bushes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}