Reasons to Switch to Reusable Bags

A few Reasons to Switch to Reusable Bags Today...

Using less resources and producing less waste is not only something for big corporations and factories to worry about. Each of us can make a huge difference in how we impact the environment around us. We can continue to use excessively and create billions of pounds of waste each year, or we can make changes to adopt a more environmentally friendly lifestyle.

Plastic bags are not easily decomposed and contribute to the degradation of the environment. A plastic bag can take from 15 to 1,000 years to break down, depending on the environment. Moreover, the cost of recycling plastic bags outweighs their value. This is another reason why most of the plastic bags find their way to landfill sites. This results in a huge pile of garbage that can be seen across the city, releasing a foul smell throughout the day and serving as distraction for the tourists.

It’s high time for us to use alternative sources so as to reduce the impact of plastic bags on the environment. One such change is to ditch plastic bags altogether and use reusable bags.

Costs

While some stores still offer free plastic bags, most now charge around five cents per bag in the United States and Canada. Other countries, such as Ireland, now have a 15 cent charge per bag. A few dollars for reusable bags that last for years, or 25 to 50 dollars for plastic bags each year? You do the math!

Plastic bags are rarely recycled because of the associated costs. It takes around $5,000 to recycle just one ton of these bags, while that amount only sells for around $30. No one is going to waste that much money recycling these bags, which is why they are always thrown out.

Production

A lot of oil and natural gas go into the production of plastic bags, which are not recyclable. Choosing reusable bags saves on these non-renewable resources and protects the environment.

It takes the same amount of petroleum to drive one kilometer in your car as it takes to make seven plastic bags. This is another example of unnecessary waste because reusable bags are just as effective as plastic ones, if not more.

Tired of your country bowing to foreign interests, or interfering in their conflicts, because of oil? Plastic bags are a direct reason for this political situation because of how much petroleum is used to create them. More than ten million barrels of oil per year being used to make plastic bags in the US alone!

Degradation

If a plastic bag sits in a landfill, it will take around 1,000 years to degrade properly. Yes, ONE THOUSAND years and plastic Is (Almost) forever. They continue to break down into small toxic parts, which is bad for the environment.

Environmental Impact

If you believe in global warming or climate change, you are actively contributing to this phenomenon each time you use a plastic bag. In fact, paper bags are even worse for the environment because you are cutting down trees to make them and using resources to recycle them.

The ecosystem around us is distributed by plastic bags because they often fly away into trees or other animals’ homes. Sometimes animals even try to eat these bags, thinking they are part of nature, which leads to their death.

Incredibly, around 100,000 marine animals perish every single year because of plastic bags. Some of the marine life most impacted are water birds and sea turtles, who often mistake them for food or get tangled up in them and cannot escape.

Benefits

This is often overlooked, but seeing someone use these bags makes others want to join in. It becomes more socially acceptable to care about the environment.

Expanding on the previous point, reusable bags are easy to wash or wipe down with a damp cloth. This keeps them clean, even if food gets on them on occasion.

Do you know where plastic bags have been before they enter your home and touch your food? No. With reusable bags, you know exactly where the bag is sitting, which leads to far fewer germs.

You can use these bags for anything, such as storing old clothes and papers around the house or keeping dirty clothes in one place before adding them to the laundry machine.

Reusable bags are made from sustainable crops such as bamboo or jute. Buying them can help farmers and textile workers to support themselves and their families. In less-developed nations, demand for reusable bags can offer a valuable new source for earning revenue.

According to Johns Hopkins University, COVID-19 doesn’t survive on a soft surface like fabric. It does survive on hard surfaces and on plastics. Think before you use plastic.

Plastics are a rapidly growing segment of municipal solid waste (MSW), according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which has been collecting plastic bag statistics for more than a decade. Roughly 2% of plastic bags are recycled in the United States. The rest are left to live indefinitely in landfills or decompose in our oceans, where they leech toxins into the water and soil.

In addition to petroleum, the manufacture of plastic bags uses dyes, plasticizers, and other toxic chemicals containing lead, cadmium, and other toxins that leach out into the environment, and many of the byproducts of their manufacture end up in the environment as pollution.