The life cycle of a plastic bag |
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- julesrs007
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Plastic bags are handed out in their billions, used for a few minutes then discarded to pollute the earth for hundreds of years. Here we trace the life cycle of a plastic bag...
Use - For every one of us, 216 plastic bags a year are handed out. A typical free supermarket bag is used for an average of 20minutes before it is thrown away.
Landfill - A third of us use plastic bags as bin liners. Another third re-use them for shopping. But eventually, more than 98% end up in landfill. About 200million litter the countryside.
Decay - Plastic bags have only been around since the Thirties, so no one knows how long they last. But scientists estimate they take 400 to 1,000 years to vanish. Some are designed to turn into carbon dioxide, water and compost within a month or two - but only in a composter. Chemicals in some bags, particularly the inks used in printing, can leak and cause poisoning or turn into noxious compounds if burned. In the oceans, they can survive intact for years. A recent Greenpeace report found that one remote area, called the Pacific Gyre, a whirling current, contained more than a million items of plastic microdebris in every square kilometre of ocean surface.
Recycling - Only 5% of us recycle bags. UK facilities are so limited that about 100million a year are shipped back to China. There, they are shredded, melted and turned into plastic beads. The dyes and inks in bags do not make them harder to recycle - but they turn the plastic grey or black. The beads can be used to make new bags. Plastic bags are cheaper than paper bags, but may be worse for the environment. Four times as much energy is used to produce them and 85 times as much to recycle them, the US. Environmental Protection Agency says. But paper takes up nine times the space of a plastic bag at landfill. And paper bags are four times more expensive.
End of life - In the oceans, plastic bags and other waste kill a million sea birds and 100,000 animals such as whales, dolphins, turtles and seals, each year. Once the animal's body has rotted, the bag is released back into the sea, to kill again and again.
Use - For every one of us, 216 plastic bags a year are handed out. A typical free supermarket bag is used for an average of 20minutes before it is thrown away.
Landfill - A third of us use plastic bags as bin liners. Another third re-use them for shopping. But eventually, more than 98% end up in landfill. About 200million litter the countryside.
Decay - Plastic bags have only been around since the Thirties, so no one knows how long they last. But scientists estimate they take 400 to 1,000 years to vanish. Some are designed to turn into carbon dioxide, water and compost within a month or two - but only in a composter. Chemicals in some bags, particularly the inks used in printing, can leak and cause poisoning or turn into noxious compounds if burned. In the oceans, they can survive intact for years. A recent Greenpeace report found that one remote area, called the Pacific Gyre, a whirling current, contained more than a million items of plastic microdebris in every square kilometre of ocean surface.
Recycling - Only 5% of us recycle bags. UK facilities are so limited that about 100million a year are shipped back to China. There, they are shredded, melted and turned into plastic beads. The dyes and inks in bags do not make them harder to recycle - but they turn the plastic grey or black. The beads can be used to make new bags. Plastic bags are cheaper than paper bags, but may be worse for the environment. Four times as much energy is used to produce them and 85 times as much to recycle them, the US. Environmental Protection Agency says. But paper takes up nine times the space of a plastic bag at landfill. And paper bags are four times more expensive.
End of life - In the oceans, plastic bags and other waste kill a million sea birds and 100,000 animals such as whales, dolphins, turtles and seals, each year. Once the animal's body has rotted, the bag is released back into the sea, to kill again and again.
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