 | This photo of a turtle at Melbourne Zoo exemplifies the threat that the ubiquous plastic bag imposes on the environment. Here are some extrordinary facts from Dr. David Kemp, Australian Minister of the Environment and Heritage. - 18,000 pieces of plastic litter are floating on every square kilometre of the world's oceans.
- Plastic dumped on land can carried along streams or blown hundreds of kilometers into the ocean. About 47 per cent of wind-borne litter escaping from landfills is plastic (mostly plastic bags).
- About one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals (including 30,000 seals) and turtles are killed by plastic marine litter every year, around the world.
- Six million tonnes of debris enters the world's oceans every year.
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| What is the One Bag Initiative? | | As you can probably tell by the default type and dead links, this site is very much in its infancy. However, please allow me to share my grand vision for the One Bag Initiative. The initial idea came to me while walking home from a Walgreens swinging a plastic bag with the stuff I bought. I started thinking how many plastic bags must exist around the nation (and even the world) and the cumulative effect they must have on the environment. Some online research confirmed my suspicions. Without boring you with all the statistics (although they are readily available in other parts of this site), I can say that the benign plastic bags found at any grocery or retail store nationwide have a devastating effect, both proven and projected, on the world we live in. Now that you know the founding story behind the One Bag Initiative, let me share with you how I plan to take action. Believe it or not, the ubiquitous plastic bag (and the paper bags before it) was not always a consumer staple. However, you certainly would not know that looking around the shopping scene today. According to the Film and Bag Federation, 4 out of 5 grocery bags used are plastic. According to Reusable Bags, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide! For those who can't comprehend such a massive number, that comes out to over one million per minute! According the Wall Street Journal, the United States alone accounts for about 100 billion of those plastic bags every year. Not such a small problem anymore huh? What can we do about this? The benign question you hear every time you pay for groceries hides a continuing debate on the benefits and consequences of paper verses plastic bags. Here is a clear explanation of the pros and cons behind each choice. In reality, the (environmentally) correct answer to "Paper or Plastic?" is neither. Some of you might be throwing up your hands in frustration by now. What options do we have left? Well, here is an obvious solution that some (but not many) Americans have long known of . . . reusable bags! |
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