Reasons to refuse plastic bags. Refusal of plastic bags: why you should be on trend

Today the world celebrates International Plastic Bag Free Day. People refuse to use bags, clean up and recycle the collected polyethylene.

Many countries not only recycle plastic bags, but also take steps to reduce their use. IN European Union On April 16, 2014, a directive was adopted to reduce the number of plastic bags by 50% by 2017 and 80% by 2019. In some places, in particular in Los Angeles and San Francisco has banned their sale. Many cities are introducing additional taxes to reduce the consumption of plastic bags.

Greenpece decided to tell you why you should stop buying more plastic bags at least for one day.

1. The average lifespan of a package is 20 minutes, and death and decay is 400 years. It can probably decompose much longer, because plastic was created not so long ago and humanity can only guess about the lifespan of its invention.

2. Plastic packaging and plastic bags, in particular, are responsible for the death of marine animals and birds. According to the latest data, about 100 thousand marine animals and a million birds die every year. With plastic we kill all those animals that we usually love to touch: whales, dolphins, turtles, seals. Scientists have proven that 80% seabirds cannot distinguish plastic from their prey.

3. The amount of plastic waste increases every year due to the fact that everything large quantity goods are wrapped for sale. Just in the last five years plastic packaging was 25% more than in previous years. As the population grows, plastic waste will continue to increase.

4. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs), such as pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls, can attach to plastic fragments. Then they enter the food chain through representatives of marine fauna, which ingest pieces of plastic.

5. So-called biodegradable bags will not save the world. Most often, they just break down into small pieces of plastic, which take hundreds of years to decompose and still have the same properties. Carry a reusable cloth bag with you!

6. The price of a package is not just a few rubles or cents at the checkout. Plastic for bags is made from oil, the extraction of which is often accompanied by spills that are destructive to plants, animals and people. Thousands of Russian residents have already suffered from oil production. Now in Russia Gazprom is taking extremely dangerous project on oil production in the Arctic, citing its shortage.

Alexander Ivannikov
Environmental policy specialist, expert of the “Zero Waste” project of the Russian Greenpeace

1. Bags are made from oil

The bags are made from different types plastic that is derived from hydrocarbons, such as petroleum or natural gas. Every year, 6% of produced oil is spent on plastic production - the same amount needed by all world aviation. If measures are not taken now, then by 2050 the production of polymers will will be leaving 20% of all oil. Plastic will be responsible for 15% of annual emissions greenhouse gases that lead to climate change.

2. Plastic bags do not decompose for hundreds of years

It takes an average of 12 minutes to bring bagged groceries home from the store. Afterwards it goes into the trash can or into a bag with bags, but sooner or later it still ends up in a landfill. It will take another 400 years for the package to disappear from the face of the earth. This means it takes 17.5 million times longer to decompose than it takes to be used.

3. Biodegradable bags are not an option either.

There are two types of biodegradable bags: oxo-degradable and bags made from natural polymers or proteins.

Due to the added substances, oxo-degradable substances disintegrate faster into microparticles. But these particles are small fragments of the same harmful plastic that continues its long life.
Bags made from corn starch, potato starch, soy and cellulose that break down into water when composted, carbon dioxide, inorganic compounds and biomass, do not lead to the formation of toxic waste. But special conditions are needed to process such packages. Unfortunately, in Russia industrial scale they are not yet available.

4. Bags are almost never recycled.

Plastic bags are very thin, making them difficult to separate from other waste. As a result, only one bag out of two hundred ends up being recycled worldwide. The rest are left hanging from trees, floating in the ocean or lying in landfills, causing damage to nature. Over time, the bags break down into microplastic particles that migrate in nature and end up in the food of animals - and in our food too: according to research From Incheon National University, most brands of salt sold around the world contain microplastic particles.

5. Animals mistake bags for food

In water, clear plastic bags look a lot like jellyfish and other living creatures. That's why Marine life often mistake packages for food and die. According to the Department environment, food and Agriculture UK, plastic bags

In the Ministry of Industry and Trade Russia will take place a meeting with representatives of retail chains, at which the issue of abandoning the sale of plastic bags will be considered.

As explained " Rossiyskaya newspaper"Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of Russia Viktor Evtukhov, his department was instructed to study the issue of the production of paper bags and their use in stores along with plastic ones.

At the end of 2017, a large meeting was held with representatives of the forestry, chemical, pulp and paper industries, as well as manufacturers of plastic and paper bags. It was noted that in Russia, according to expert estimates, polyethylene accounts for 0.5 percent of the total volume of solids. household waste. This may not seem like much, but scientists have long proven that plastic bags are a source of sustainable environmental pollution. According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), more than a million seabirds, over 100 thousand, die each year from polymer waste. marine mammals and a huge number of fish.

As activists of the Green Movement of Russia ECA calculated, on average we use a plastic bag for 20 minutes. This is the time in which he carries purchases from the store home. A discarded bag can take 50 to 500 years to decompose. In 2015, a resolution of the European Parliament was adopted, according to which EU countries must either reduce the production of such bags on average per citizen to 90 pieces per year by 2019 and to 40 pieces by 2025. Or ensure that by the end of 2018, plastic bags are not given to customers free of charge.

Of all European countries France has become a leader in this direction, banning plastic bags completely. In the UK, a tax on the use of bags was introduced in 2015 - five pence. As a result, in the first half of 2016, the British used only 500 million plastic bags, whereas before the ban, stores handed out up to seven billion of them a year.

In China and Australia, since 2008, the production, use and sale of ultra-thin plastic bags (up to 0.025 mm thick), as well as their free distribution in retail networks. A ban on them was also introduced in a number of Egyptian provinces to preserve the unique ecosystem of the Red Sea, where coral reefs are suffering from plastic thrown into the sea.

A discarded bag can take 50 to 500 years to decompose

In Russia, according to Evtukhov, it is not yet possible to completely eliminate plastic bags from circulation. Consumers still need to be taught how to use paper packaging. Now Russians don’t really like it, since it is more expensive, breaks, and gets wet. But, nevertheless, a gradual transition to environmentally friendly types of packaging is inevitable, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is confident.

Russian shoppers, accustomed to shopping in hypermarkets, felt this for themselves already in November last year. Some of them have stopped issuing free bags, now offering customers biodegradable ones, for which an additional fee is charged.

There is no talk of a complete ban on the use of plastic bags in Russia. As the minister previously told RG natural resources and ecology Sergei Donskoy, for plastic in general, not only for bags, the recycling standard has been increased and a ban on disposal has been introduced since 2019. “The question is how to make it more efficient to use paper bags. The main complaint about plastic bags is that they take a long time to decompose,” he noted.

According to the UN, the world now produces 20 times more plastic than 60 years ago, when it first began to be used on a large scale. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, in Russia in last years primary production volume plastic containers is approximately 600 thousand tons. Plastic is a product of petroleum refining and releases hazardous substances when decomposed or burned.

“When buying a plastic bag, many people think that the “plastic problem” does not apply to them, let someone else do the sorting. But the landfills are already overcrowded. Cities are expanding their territory, approaching once remote landfills. And moving landfills will not solve this problem.” , - Sergei Donskoy is sure.

Let's talk about one of the most harmful species garbage - discarded used plastic bags. They do not decompose for more than 100–150 years.

The person is called the main and the only reason environmental pollution. It would seem that nature created an intelligent two-legged creature that could support and protect it. But something went wrong.

Human pollution of nature

Today, conscious people around the world are sounding the alarm bell, because the pollution of the planet is growing at a terrifying pace. If we don’t change anything, then we will leave to our grandchildren not a beautiful “blue planet”, but a lifeless landfill.

And today we will discuss human pollution of nature. In this case, we will talk about such a harmless at first glance thing as a plastic bag. Yes, the same bags that we see thousands of people on the streets with every day. Plastic bags gained popularity in the United States just a couple of decades ago. Buyers quickly appreciated the convenience of the new material and “plastic” became firmly established daily life. Plastic bags seemed like a revolution - strong, convenient, cheap. Only years later it became clear what enormous harm they cause to the environment.

About 6.5 million tons of garbage enter the world's oceans every year, most of which is plastic waste. In the sea research organization Algalita claim that approximately a quarter of the water surface is already covered with floating plastic waste. Such a frightening circumstance cannot but cause concern, which is why in many countries they are already seriously restricting and even banning the use of plastic bags in everyday life, offering instead more environmentally friendly analogues: durable fabric bags or paper bags (which decompose in a couple of weeks).

Like with plastic waste fight in different countries:

Denmark saw the problem back in 1994 and imposed a tax on free plastic bags. This helped reduce the popularity of such containers by about 10 times.
In Germany, collection of packages and their recycling fall on the shoulders of packaging sellers and distributors.
In Tanzania, for producing, importing or even trading plastic bags, you can go to jail or receive a fine of several thousand dollars.

Back in 2004, the British developed and launched self-degrading bags on the market. Within a couple of years, such containers disintegrate into water and carbon dioxide.
In Italy, plastic bags have been banned since 2011, so the buyer cannot do without a reliable bag or biobag.
The French in their homeland have completely banned plastic bags since 2016. And from 2020 they will also refuse plastic tableware.

On October 1, a law prohibiting the use of plastic bags with a thickness of less than 15 microns came into force in Georgia. Now each company is required to put its name and logo on the package it produces. Moreover, from April 2019, plastic bags will be outlawed in Georgia, and they the change will come biodegradable containers. I am glad that the majority of ordinary citizens support such an initiative of the government and consciously sacrifice their comfort to stop pollution surrounding nature. Perhaps we should stop inventing a second life plastic bottles and stop using plastic utensils so that our descendants do not reap the bitter fruits of our thoughtless and selfish life. published

If you have any questions, ask them.