Plastic Bags: A Gift From GodThis is a featured page

Everyone knows that familiar phrase, “plastic or paper”. Soon all you won’t have a choice. Thousands and thousands of plastic bags are soon to disappear from the markets and stores in the U.S. due to the plastic grocery bag ban. Plastic bags have been related to a number of problems. Some of which are the killing of birds and fish, and the pollution of rivers and soil. When a bird makes a nest they take what can find from the ground, or the trees, and when a bird puts a bag in its nest the bird will get tangle in the bag and suffocate. The same tragic death occurs to fish. When a fish gets tangled in a plastic bag that is floating in a river, lake, or ocean, it will suffocate and die. The thought behind getting rid of plastic bags is a noble one. By taking out the use of plastic bags people won’t have to worry about the birds, and choking to death. Every day while driving down the highway I see plastic bags floating in the air or laying on the side of the road. Leaving plastic bags in the road will make any beautiful city look like a garbage dump. By taking out the plastic grocery bag, it will create even bigger problems than leaving them in stores. Being that my parents own a grocery store I have been in the grocery atmosphere longer than most. I have worked there since I was young doing things like: filling the coke machine, cleaning dirty shelves and the bathrooms, and other tasks that not many people get the pleasure of doing. But when I turned fifteen I was able to actually get to do real work. I became a box boy, and when you are a box boy you get the wonderful task of bagging for the checkers or cashier. When you help bag for checkers you have to be quick and accurate. You would never be able to bag non-food stuff (like soap) with food. Some of the biggest fears a bagger could have are: breaking glass, a ripped bag, people trying to steal, and a reusable grocery bag. We as checkers don’t like these bags because they: 1. aren’t clean, 2. you have to slow down and fit items in them like a puzzle, 3 food often gets squished and broken. Reusable bags are harder to manage than any other type of bag that one can use. When using a reusable bag it will take you twice to three times longer to bag items and send the customer on his or her way, than it would if using a plastic grocery bag. According to Plastic knowledge, in 1950 the plastic bag was created by a chemist named John Wesley Hyat and in 1966 grocery stores started using plastic bags. They instantly became a hit and filled up stores all over the U.S. It then became common to see plastic bags in any store and actually became very uncommon to not see plastic bags. In the 90’s, the first movement to recycle plastic grocery bags was introduced. By 1992 almost half of the super markets have a recycling program installed. Four out of five of all grocery bags used are plastic by 1996. The Process of making something such a plastic grocery bag is not too difficult. Freedom Plastic Bags Inc. says that the process starts with a resin that feeds into an extruding machine. As the resin is fed through a heated screw, it is forced to mix and melt to a liquid state. The screw forces the melted resin through a die forcing it into a tube. Blowing air through the center of the die ring expands the tube, sometimes called a bubble (much like blowing up a balloon). The amount of air and speed in which the tube travels up a tower determines the size and thickness of the plastic. The bubble travels up a tower to cool the melted plastic. Once cooled, the bubble is flattened and travels down the tower through a set of rollers. When the plastic reaches the bottom, it is wound on a large roll (Freedom). Then it is cut into sections and but into a box for distribution. Africa was one of the first countries to pass the plastic bag ban and the U.S. is trying to be next. Plastic bags are killing fish in both rivers and the oceans, killing birds, and polluting streets and soil. Businesses like Ikea are jumping on the issue by taxing them or selling each bag for seventy five cents. By charging each bag, stores are hoping to turn people away from using plastic grocery bags (Gunther, M.). Plastic grocery bags are an extremely resource-efficient disposable bag choice. Plastic grocery bags require 70% less energy to manufacture than paper bags. For every seven trucks needed to deliver paper bags, only one truck is needed for the same number of plastic bags, helping to save energy and reduce emissions. It takes 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper. Less material means less waste and fewer emissions. 2,000 plastic bags weigh 30 lbs. and 2,000 paper bags weigh 280 lbs. Plastic bags take up a lot less space in a landfill, and generate 80% less waste than paper bags. Plastic grocery and retail bags make up a tiny fraction (less than 0.5%) of the U.S. municipal solid waste stream. Plastic bags generate only 50% of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of composted paper bags. The production of plastic bags consumes less than 6% of the water needed to make paper bags. Plastic grocery bags are fully recyclable and the number of recycling programs is increasing daily. Nationwide, over 830 million pounds of bags and film were recycled in 2007 – up 27% from 2005. According to the EPA’s data, about 12% of plastic bags and film were recycled in 2007. Plastic bags can be made into dozens of useful new products, such as building and construction products, low-maintenance fencing and decking, and of course, new bags. There is high demand for this material, and in most areas, demand exceeds the available supply because many consumers are not aware that collection programs are available at local stores. In recent years, many grocers and retailers have introduced plastic bag collection programs. Consumers should look for a collection bin, usually located at the front of the store. The number of municipal drop-off centers and curbside programs to recycle plastic bags is increasing also. In addition to grocery bags, other plastic retail bags, dry cleaning bags, newspaper bags, plastic wrap from products like paper towels and toilet paper, and all bags labeled with recycling codes #2 (HDPE) and #4 (LLDPE) can be included wherever plastic bags are collected for recycling (American Chemistry Council). Also, according to PlasticBagRecycling.com, using paper bags doubles the amount of CO2 produced versus using plastic bag, and uses less than 4% of the water needed to make paper bags. Using paper bags creates almost 5 times more solid waste than using plastic bags. The dominant end use for recycled plastic film/bags is composite decking. In 2006 more than 812 million pounds of plastic film and bags were recycled which is enough feed stock to manufacture nearly 1,500,000 composite lumber decks. I interviewed my dad, who is an owner of a Grocery Outlet in Grants Pass, he said that with the bag ban they won’t know what to do until it happens, meaning they will randomly get an email telling them to take the plastic bags off the registers. With the ban in place and the loss of the efficient plastic bags he expects he will lose a large amount of revenue each month due to the time it takes to bag each item in very un-efficient reusable bags. In losing the revenue he hopes that it won’t be enough that he would have to fire people to keep the store open. Although it would seem nice not to drive down the road and see plastic bags sitting in a gutter, and it seems logical to get rid of plastic bags, but, it’s just more efficient and more resourceful in using plastic than paper. You can see plastic bags can be far more useful than paper. Maybe we should find alternatives to the plastic and use some sort of organic material than to get rid of plastic bags all together.


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Stephen429 		Latest page update: made by Stephen429 , Mar 17 2011, 5:19 PM EDT (about this update About This Update Stephen429 Edited by Stephen429

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