PAPER OR PLASTIC?

They are taking over our planet. I swear to you; they are taking over our planet. PLASTIC BAGS ARE TAKING OVER OUR PLANET. The "paper or plastic" conundrum that vexed earnest shoppers throughout the 1980s and 90s is largely obsolete today. Most baggers don't even bother to ask anymore and some establishments have removed the choice all together. In trying to make a conscious effort to avoid abusing this "free" little carry all, I have come very close to just placing one over my head . THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. They sit balled up and stuffed into the one that hangs from the pantry door. They line bathroom trash bins. They carry clothes to the gym. They clutter landfills. They flap from trees. They float in the breeze. They clog roadside drains. They drift on the high seas.



Big deal, you say. So what, you say. It's just a plastic bag. Ha!

• Consumers use between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags per year worldwide.
  


• Californians throw away 294,000,000 pounds of plastic bags every year, or 147,000 tons - enough waste to circle the planet over 250 times.


• Some estimate a plastic bag may take one thousand years to decompose. That means a bag thrown away during the crusades, the birth of Constantine, or at the signing of the Magna Carta would just be finishing its decomposition now.


• At least 267 species have been scientifically documented to be adversely affected by plastic marine debris and it is estimated to kill over 100,000 marine mammals and turtles each year. Plastic bags are considered especially dangerous to sea turtles, who mistake them for jellyfish, a main food source. Currently, 86% of all known species of sea turtles have had reported problems of entanglement or ingestion of marine debris.


• Additionally, all plastic products that enter our marine environment eventually break down into small fragments, which in some areas of the ocean outweigh plankton by a factor of six and are inextricably altering the marine ecosystem.


• Furthermore, plastic bags are made from patroleum, an unrenewable and environmentally degrading resource. Indeed, an estimated 4,000 barrels of oil a day are used for the manufacture of a largely unnecessary product.

The answer to the end of the plastic or paper epidemic is not paper (that's another can of worms). The answer is neither. Shop with your very own reusable bag. Cover it in rhinestones. Use your favorite lilac fabric. Take your fake LV suitcase for all I care. JUST DO SOMETHING TO HELP OUR POOR PLANET PEOPLE.