Secret Squirrel Comments On The Unwise Banning Of Plastic Bags

Secret Squirrel has noticed some cities have begun to ban the plastic bag, unwisely so,the self same, highly useful,recyclable,plastic bag found in virtually all stores,noticing that in Toronto,Canada, a strange event occurred with respect to the plastic bag. The Mayor wished City Council there to remove a 5 cent fee ordered to be charged by stores for plastic bag use, well, council then strangely turned around and came up with a plastic bag ban. Well plastic bags are not actually the horrible monster they are made out to be. Did you know that it takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag.
In 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year alone and paper sacks generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.It takes 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper and plastic bags are in fact fully recyclable. Many households even yet do use the bags as garbage bags, placing kitchen wastes in them and then placing them in garbage.
Yes, indeed, it is much more sanitary to use these bags in such an environmental use, indeed they prevent many germs and smells, by containing them.Indeed though these bags ,the store bags, won't be able to be used for that purpose, having been banned in any stated city, the people will continue in sanitary fashion to use other plastic bags, so called garbage bags you know, for the same qualities that they have in the field of sanitation purposes, so the bags do end up in the landfill after all, just replaced by other plastic bags under a different name. Now, they claim that the plastic bags don't break down,well, they do, in the landfill, yes indeed,they do.
I have plastic pails left outside and after the year these pails are breaking down and apart, hardly durable, you know. they are disintegrating.Current research demonstrates that paper in today's landfills does not degrade or break down at a substantially faster rate than plastic does. In fact, nothing completely degrades in modern landfills because of the lack of water, light, oxygen and other important elements that are necessary for the degradation process to be completed. A paper bags takes up more space than a plastic bag in a landfill, but because paper is recycled at a higher rate, saving space in landfills is less of an issue.
http://www.biofuelswatch.com has some nice data concerning plastic bags, of the type used in stores.
1. First, most of the plastic bags in common usage are made from polyethylene-a type of plastic. Polyethylene is good, because it can, in its raw form, be manipulated to assume any colour, shape, form or size desired. It is inherently versatile.
2. Polyethylene is also very durable and watertight, making it an ideal carrier of heavy goods, especially tins bottles and cans being carried in bulk.
3. Despite the fact that it is not endlessly recyclable, polyethylene can be re-used again and again.
4. Plastic bags can be melted and remoulded, and can subsequent be remoulded and made into plastic lumber in order to be used on such things as park benches and in fencing material.
5. Studies into the effects on energy consumption and pollution effects have shown that the polyethylene used in the manufacture of plastic bags requires far lower levels of energy than those paper bags made form 3-% recycled fibres.
6. Similar studies have indicated that plastic bags also emit lower levels of both solid waste and greenhouse gases. We also know that any collected plastic bags are capable of being burned in order to generate electricity, which can contribute to lowering sulphur emissions produced by burning fossil fuels like coal.It's a question of use, collect for recycle, recycle, or burn for energy generational uses.
There are yet more arguments for plastic bags (against a ban)
- Low production costs, only a few chemicals are needed - Production requires little energy and generates only low emissions
- Low weight, high strength
- Resistant to water and chemicals
- Easy to process, can be sealed
- Fundamentally recyclable
Let's compare to paper bags using government data.... The United States Environmental Protection Agency says paper bags are worse for the environment than plastic. Plastic bags require much less energy to manufacture, ship and recycle and because of this plastic generates less greenhouse gas. Plastic bags cause less air and water pollution. They compress to a small size in landfills.They are a known sterile method for transporting food products and preventing food borne illness( especially used as garbage containment bags,as plastic bags or other designated types will continue to be used for, face it, garbage is not messy,es smelly, and if not used, garbage trucks will revert to their horrendously smelly nature, speeding through the streets as the sanitation workers attempt to escape the horrific smell of their own slimy,sloppy,disease ridden smell generating truck.)
To go on about the subject of plastic bags....
Light weight nature requires less energy consumption during transportation compared to paper with a 7:1 advantage. Many studies comparing plastic bags versus paper bag show that plastic bags have less net environmental effect than paper bags, requiring less energy to produce, transport and recycle; however these studies also note that recycling rates for plastic are significantly lower than for paper. Plastic carrier bags can be reused as trash bags or bin bags. According to the Australian government most bags are reused as bin liners. Plastic bags can be recycled through some grocery store take-back programs When it comes to concerns about their impact on the environment The EPA was quoted in an interview saying…”consumers shouldn't stress too much, as long as they're recycling or reusing store bags, said Chris Newman, an environmental scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”
Further plastic is a green alternative at the checkout. Plastic bag manufacturing is often mistakenly identified as having a larger carbon footprint than paper bag manufacturing. As confirmed by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, plastic bags actually have a lower carbon footprint than paper ones – which use 17 times more water to produce and create five times the pollution. Moreover, plastic bags generate 80 percent less waste than paper bags, and take up less space in landfills. Secret Squirrel feels very strongly that it is unwise to ban plastic bags, and that it is environmentally unsound showboating by city governments in attempts to show themselves as being "green" in nature through a very unwise environmentally unfounded decision.