Everyone has heard a cashier one time or another mumble, “Paper or plastic?” as he put their groceries in a bag, but do shoppers know the effects of each vessel in which they carry their comestibles? There are many issues and benefits to both paper and plastic. The making and recycling of both paper and plastic bags can harm the environment. One must also look at the costs of making each bag. The convenience of each is also something to look at. Many people jump to conclusion that paper bags are better for the environment without knowing the facts. Since plastic bags are preferred by customers and plastic bags actually do not hurt the environment as much as paper ones do, consumers should feel at ease when choosing plastic. Plastic bags are
The misconception is that only paper can be. Plastic can be as well. Even though plastic bags can be recycled only 3 percent them are. Paper bags actually cost more to recycle than plastic. One would think that because paper is paper, it would cost little to do that. Actually according to Jane McGrath, from How Stuff Works, “Recycling a plastic bag takes 91 time less energy to recycle than a paper bag.” Plastic bags take less money to recycle. On top of that, there are many household uses for plastic bags, more so than for paper which can rip or become soiled easily. To help with recycling dilemmas, many stores offer recycle bins for plastic bags
Plastic bags are sturdier when in use. Plastic bags can be doubled up much more easily than paper bags. The handles on paper bags are terrible and often times break. Paper bags will fall apart if they get wet. Paper bags are bigger. According to Collin Dunn, a sustainability enthusiast, paper bags can hold 50 to 400 percent more, but if you fill a paper bag it becomes much too heavy for someone to carry. For people who have to climb stairs to get to their house, it is important that their load is as light as it can possibly be. Also, elderly people are too weak to carry the heavier paper bags. There are many other uses for the plastic bags once they get home. Many people use plastic bags for arts and crafts, for example at Halloween time people make ghosts to hang in their trees. Most people also save their plastic bags and use them to carry things when
Using plastic bags were something everyone feels bad using. We use them everyday in some form or another, but we tend to forget the bad that they do. Plastic bags should not be used or allowed in the U.S because it tends to do more harm than good in our society or world.
The article Plastic bags are Good for you, by Katherine Mangu-Ward was written to explore the pro’s and con’s of three different types of bags. Which is better between plastic, paper, or reusable bags has always been a debatable question with an opinionated answer. In the article Mangu-Ward characterizes the cause and effect relationships which have lead to the unpopularity of plastic bags in terms of guilt.
Every year, an estimated 8 million tons of plastic waste enters our environment, severely polluting oceans, beaches, forests, and even the towns and cities we live in. In the ocean alone, it is believed that 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic pollutes the waters (“Plastic Statistics”, Ocean Crusaders).The majority of plastic pollution can be traced back to single-use items, such as grocery bags, bottles, and plastic packaging. According to United Nations Environment, “At the rate we are dumping items such as plastic bottles, bags and cups after a single use, by 2050 oceans will carry more plastic than fish…” (“UN Declares War on Ocean Plastic”, UN Environment). This pollution is a major problem and endangers not only the environment, but human
People need to think about the objects that they throw away, those items can affect the animals around the world. For example, when people throw away the plastic rings that go around pop cans, can kill animals by being stuck around their little necks. So, before people throw those plastic rings out, they need to make sure that they cut a slit into each ring so in case an animal does get stuck in one of them, then they can get out safely. Recycling does not just have to be about plastic, but when the plastic is recycled, Americans can use it for many different things. For example, the plastic can make park benches, plastic crates, and wire tubing. Many people do not understand where all of the recycled objects go, but the objects do not go anywhere they are just recycled to make other things, recycled objects also help reduce the price of the objects that they make. The best part about recycling is the fact that people can recycle almost anything and turn it into something completely different. For example, Keen’s Harvest makes bags, wallets, and totes from recycled airbags that come from automobiles. Another example is Looptworks uses cotton jersey, nylon, vinyl, and recycled polyester to make their upcycled leather iPad cases. Skateback is another company that uses recycled material to make iPhone backs; they use the discarded post-industrial skateboard materials. Vinylux
Using plastic bags are second nature to people in this day and age. Warner acknowledges, “Much to the dismay of the environmentally conscious citizens worldwide, the ubiquity of the free plastic carryout bag has bred nonchalant consumers who take this modern convenience for granted” (646). Although some people are conscious about the environment, people strive more for convenience and do not think about the impacts using bags have not only on the environment, but on themselves as well. If something is bad for the environment, it will alternatively be bad for humans as well. When plastic bags are exposed to the sun from being littered all around, the ultraviolet rays cause the substances of plastic bags to weaken. After the substances weaken, the substances become invisible to the naked eye. The substances that are no longer able to be seen are toxic to humans (Warner 649). As a result of plastic bags being littered around, animals consume plastic bags. This is negatively affects humans because animals are often consumed. When humans consume animals like, fish, there can be plastic in the fish’s belly, which then transfers to the humans and this poses a concern for human’s health. Humans are negatively affected by plastic bags because of the toxic chemicals in plastic bags, as well as, consuming animals with plastic in their
In conclusion, humans need to realize the benefits of recycling plastic bags can do for the environment because with recycling, we can clean up parks, roadsides, parking lots and many more other places that has a massive amount of litter. This will also have an enormous impact on future generations, thus to the fact that we can decrease pollution by just charging ten extra cents for plastic bags. Furthermore, plastic bags are unnecessary because humans can just purchase a reusable bag instead of using toxic
A new proposal has surfaced: A small tax on plastic grocery bags. This proposed fee would add a 25¢ fee per grocery bag to your grocery bill. Some supporters of this tax say that it will help reduce the usage of non-reusable grocery bags and help keep our water cleaner. However, opponents of the tax argue that it will make groceries not affordable for some, and that reusable grocery bags are health hazard as well.
One reason is that recycling can help save the earth from waste and trash build-up. For example, fifty percent of roofing and construction on houses is made from recycled aluminum cans. Using recycled materials to produce new products costs less money and less energy than new materials. It can also save valuable landfill space. People have trash everyday. Pretty much anything is recyclable. If you throw them away, it?s a waste of natural resources, a waste of energy, and a waste of money. Instead people should take the time collect these things and put some effort into helping in the world we live in.
When the plastic material was first invented in the 60’s, I think people had no idea what’s going to happen a couple years later. While wood, paper and some other materials just decay or decompose, plastic materials do not. They persist for much longer. Imagine using some plastic bottle for about one minute and then throw it away. Now imagine thousands of people who do it right now, during this minute.
This essay will discuss the various harmful effects of plastic bags, and demonstrate the risks that these bags impose on humans, animals, and the environment. It will also discuss a series of suggested solutions that could help reduce plastic bag usage. Although plastic bags appear to be fragile and light, their negative environmental effect is devastating. Plastic bags may cause large amounts of pollution at every step of their limited life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials, production, transportation, and recycling or disposal. Plastic bags can be defined as the most damaging form of environmental pollution.
Do you hate seeing litter on the streets, or seeing and smelling heaps of garbage sitting, and rotting away? Humans recycling more will help to reduce this. We throw many things that can be recycled. Recycling glass, plastics, paper, and metals will reduce solid waste dumped into the ecosystem daily. “96 percent of U.S. plastic, and 50 percent of its paper, goes into landfills. Mexico, not exactly a bastion of environmental awareness, recycles more glass than the U.S.” (Alice Horrigan 1). That’s 96 percent of the millions of tons of plastic, which will outlive most of us in a landfill that we could recycle and keep it out of our landfill. Paper is made from trees, if we recycle it, we can decrease our rate of ugly deforestation and the destruction of animal habitats. When paper gets to the landfill, it is guaranteed to get wet. The wetness and decomposition of paper atracts mold spores, which produce an odor and are potentially bad for your health. Also k...
The advantages of paper are it is inexpensive to buy, second it is easy to fabricate and has a lot of uses like plastic bags and inexpensive patio furniture. The disadvantages are it is not biodegradable since it is not biodegradable it makes a large quantities of landwaste, second the production of plastics requires large amount of crude oil as the major ingredient. Increasing the oil prices and difficulity on obtaining oil has meant that the costs of producing plastics have risen. In a study last Feb 2012 that was done by the city government of Illinois showed that 24% most of the time used plastic bags. Also in a pie graph it showed that 31% infrequently used plastic bags and 24% chose to use plastic bags most of the time. 42% infrequently chose paper bags in retail stores and 34% chose to never use paper bags. Therefore I conclude that we should use plastics more than papers but use it properly and wisely should be used. The disadvantages of paper are you are using more tress and the costs it holds every time you cut trees. Therefore I conclude that we should use plastics than paper for the earth to be maintained properly. My recommendation is to have an association for every region to monitor the usage of plastics and if paper is still being used. Also that even though we recommend of using plastics we should still be conscious of how we shall use it. Overall I can say that if we shall use plastics than paper we will
one can reuse nearly anything from paper bags and newspapers to even motor vehicle. by doing so, humans can help in decreasing landfills. Try to use the unnecessary things into some other casing but, simply don't discard them. Reduce your need to purchase new items or utilize less, bringing about a littler measure of waste. Regardless of the possibility that you have to purchase, consider purchasing eco-friendly
Plastic and paper are two of the most used items in the entire world, and, conveniently, they are the most commonly found items. Some people may take the idea that one person can make a small difference a little too literally. they may think that one little piece of a cigarette butt or a candy wrappers won't make a difference in protecting our world; however, if everyone thinks that way, each piece of litter thrown will take us one step closer to the pollution of our
In the 1870’s, plastic was discovered in the United States when John Wesley Hyatt was trying to create a different material to make billiard balls (Manrich, 3). Little did he know it would majorly evolve into material we use everyday. However, plastics are now taking over our landfills. The average American throws away one-hundred and eighty-five pounds of plastic a year (Popescu, 121). The answer to decrease this statistic is easy: recycling. I believe that recycling will help eliminate littering and the growth of landfills, while also creating jobs for the unemployed. Not only does recycling plastic help eliminate littering, but also reuses the plastic so there is not a production of additional unneeded plastics. The