Plastic Bags

Most grocery store baggers don't bother to ask anymore. They drop the bananas in one plastic bag as they reach for another to hold the six-pack of soda. The pasta sauce and noodles will get one too, as will the dish soap. Plastic bags are cheap to produce, sturdy, plentiful, easy to carry and store that they have captured at least 80 percent of the grocery and convenience store market since they were introduced. They are a huge menace to our ecosystems and our waste diversion goals. Barely recyclable, almost all of the 400 plastic bags used per second in the state are discarded. At least 267 species have been scientifically documented to be adversely affected by plastic marine debris. Plastic bags are considered especially dangerous to sea turtles, who may mistake them for jellyfish, a main food source.  Plastic bags that enter our marine environment eventually break down into small fragments the worst environmental effects of plastic bags is that they are non-biodegradable The ingested plastic bag remains intact even after the death and decomposition of the animal. Thus, it lies around in the landscape where another victim may ingest it. The decomposition of plastic bags takes about 400 years. No one will live so long to witness decomposition of plastic. Each of us should shoulder some of the responsibility for this problem, which ultimately harms us. We should be concerned about those problems because they affect us as well as others. There are many ways to decrease our use of plastic bags and if we put our minds up to that goal, we can succeed. Small steps, one at a time will enable us to live in a waste free and safe environment. It is our duty to protect the environment for the future generations and animals.