Plastic State of Mind

It seems that the only good use nowadays of plastic grocery store bags is to recycle them into tote bags that can last and be used over and over. Other than that, the reality of these bags is worse than we think…if we take the time to think about this topic. I watched a great parody video, “Plastic state of mind”. Its spun from the song “New York state of mind” by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, from the organization Green Sangha. (Sangha is a community of Buddhist monks) The group has a campaign to push for people to rethink the use of plastics. Below are some interesting reality checks taken from their site.

Consequences of Convenience

We’re addicted to plastic, especially plastic bags.
If you are like 95% of US shoppers, whenever you purchase anything, it ends up in a plastic bag. In the grocery store, most of us put our vegetables and fruits as well as bulk items into single-use plastic produce bags, and all those bags end up in a single-use plastic check-out bag.

Shoppers worldwide are using 500 billion to one trillion single-use plastic bags per year.
This translates to about a million bags every minute across the globe, or 150 bags a year for every person on earth.  And the number is rising.

“But plastic bags are so convenient!”
It depends on how far you are looking.  A plastic bag may be convenient for a minute or two when you carry something out of the store, but consider these costs:

Plastic bags are made from a non-renewable resource: oil!
An estimated 3 million barrels of oil are required to produce the 19 billion plastic bags used annually in California.

Greenhouse gas emissions
Plastic manufacturing’s air pollution contributes greatly to global “weirding” (extreme weather of all sorts) we are experiencing is the result.

Non-biodegradable
Plastic is food for no one.  It never completely breaks down.

Litter
We see bags hanging on trees, along the roadside, slipping down the storm drain, and floating in the ocean.  Even when we do put them in the garbage, they don’t always make it to the landfill.  47% of landfill blow-away trash is plastic.

Toxicity
Manufacturing plastic releases toxins in the air, as does recycling plastic.  The additives used in plastic are often toxic and can leach into our food.  The surface of plastic is chemically attractive to some of the worst toxins in our environment (e.g., PCBs and pesticide metabolites).

Harm to Marine Life
More than 100,000 marine mammals and turtles, one million seabirds, and countless fish worldwide are killed by plastic rubbish each year.

Choking the ocean
Beaches on every continent are littered with plastic scraps and particles.  In a recent surface trawl of the North Pacific Gyre, 46 pounds of plastic were found for every pound of zooplankton.

We’re eating plastic
Fine particles of plastic are taken in by filter-feeders in the ocean.  These plastic-laden small creatures are then eaten by larger animals and plastics work their way up the food chain, all the way to our seafood menu.

For more information on the campaign and ways you can help visit the site below.
http://greensangha.org/plastics-campaign/

If you are doing something to avoid using plastic bags, let us know!