Why should we care about a little thing like plastic bags?
- Plastic bags are made from oil, a non-renewable resource that contributes to global warming. The energy used to produce all the plastic bags that a typical household goes through in a year is enough to light that same house for six full months.
- When tossed away, it takes between 450 and 1,000 years for plastic bags to break down in a landfill. But plastic never really does degrade completely. It ends up as “plastic dust”, lining our landfills and swallowed up by marine animals.
- If incinerated, they release harmful toxins such heavy metals (aluminum, lead, chromium, zinc, nickel) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) which pose a danger to our health. Please! Consider using cloth, reusable or paper before choosing to use plastic.
The information and image contained in this post were obtained from WWF Canada.