Plastic Bag Pollution

Did you know the world produces 2.1 billion tons of trash a year? Did you know 80% of the ocean is polluted? Did you know that one million grocery bags are used every minute? According to The World Counts and Forbes. In our environment and society there needs to be changed. 

 

When you go to the grocery store and you are checking out, the clerk asks you if you want plastic grocery bags or reusable bags for 25 cents each. A good number of people say they want the plastic bags because it does not cost anything. 

 

Environmentally speaking that may not be a great decision. The reusable grocery bags you pay a small amount for will last you a long time and help the environment. According to the Tote Bag Factory, it makes it easier to load and unload groceries and usually holds more groceries to make your grocery trip easier. It is overall a way better deal to spend the 25 cents on a reusable grocery bag that you can use for a long time than to use a lot more plastic bags that hurt our environment.

 

By using plastic grocery bags it puts more pollution in the ocean and in the air. It creates more waste and it uses more energy to keep making more plastic grocery bags. Biological Diversity says that it takes 1,000 years for plastic grocery bags to decompose while it only takes reusable grocery bags two years to decompose. 

 

To make a change in society we could educate more about reusable bags and their benefits and tax regular plastic grocery bags so you have to spend money either way so more people might choose the more environmentally friendly choice of the reusable bag.

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