Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Plastic bag ban thesis
Thesis statement The Effects of the Use of Plastic Bags and Plastic in the World
Thesis statement The Effects of the Use of Plastic Bags and Plastic in the World
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Plastic bag ban thesis
Plastic bags are very popular for shopping purposes because they are cheap, convenient and easy use, but people never think of the negative effects of plastic. Plastic bags are banned in many countries because they have a negative impact on the agriculture and environment. It has become a challenge for living life to form because many countries are trying to develop their countries without considering the environmental impact of degradation and pollution of agricultural lands. People are using many plastic bags for shopping purposes, even though these bags are environmentally dangerous products that are causing the environment to become polluted. Even though the business sector has reduced its amount of environmental and agricultural land …show more content…
Therefore, plastic bags should be banned all over the world and their alternatives should be biodegradable and should be introduced to resolve these toxic and horrible problems. Plastic bags are extensively dumped in millions of landfills all over the world which emit dangerous methane and carbon dioxide gases during the decomposing stages. It effectively blocks sewerage pipe lines, litters agricultural lands, canals, rivers and oceans. They take incredibly long time to break down and when they do, they break down into powdery plastic dusts which contaminate all life forms including the soil and the …show more content…
Even though the business sector has reduced its amount of environmental and agricultural land pollution, consumers have increases their amount of environmental and agricultural land pollution by emitting harmful carbon gases into the atmosphere. The emission of carbon dioxide has increased by 2% from1990 to 2006 and the emission of poisonous gases in the residential sectors has increased by 24%. People began to use plastic bags in the 1970s and these bags became rapidly more popular in the last quarter of the 20th century. There is no accurate amount recorded for the number of plastic nags that have been reduced so far, but today about a trillion plastic bags have been casually used worldwide every year. These bags are very popular amongst consumers and retailers because they are very cheap, lightweight, functional and is a hygienic way of carrying foods and other
Which means their obviously bad for the aquatic marine life environment & are cause many different forms of damage for them & us as one. On p.g. 23 of The New York Times upfront magazine “Birds,fish, sea turtles, & others are getting tangled in plastic bags or mistake them for food & choke”. Someone else might argue that they could the plastic bags in landfills instead of oceans. But that counter- argument is flawed because you’re just polluting by burning plastic which is bad on our part we’re not doing our part to support & taking care of the earth. Plastic in the ocean isn't just bad for plants & animals but for humans too because of the food chain some of us eat animals as a meat source such as aqua marine life like fish. If the fishermen catch fish that have been eating plastic then it's in our food supply if we eat that fish it's gonna be bad for us so many will end up getting sick from the plastic inside of the fish then what will we do our aqua marine food supply will go down the drain we couldn’t eat the fish since it's basically contaminated with plastic that we’re dumping there instead of trying to fix it & getting rid of plastic bags for good for the good of the earth. We’re causing damage towards the earth by dumping all that plastic into the ocean which damages our water supply it’ll poison us although we clean the water it depends on how big the plastic particles are, it’ll make us sick & sense it’s been lying in the oceans could bring in new pathogens &
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.
There is also debate on how much better biodegradable plastics are in the first place. This is because as biodegradable plastics break down, they break up into smaller and smaller pieces, but never quite disappear. This leaves the potential that the plastic would continue entering the food chain. But although biodegradable plastics aren’t perfect, they are still much safer than standard plastic and present a much lower risk. In addition, by making the shift to ban single use plastics, research towards better plastic alternatives will speed up and better solutions will become available. Over time, these new alternatives to plastics may spread to other items that aren’t single use, making an even greater impact on the health of humans and the
The bill passed against this prevented cites from banning plastic grocery bags or charging an extra fee for the bags. Many argued that current plastic bags are mostly made from recycled items and that they produced the same harm as paper bags. However, other argued that the excess use of these bags and the impact that they cause to the environment is uncontrollable. Several farmers also argued that their animals were becoming sick because they were exposed to them and would often eat them. Many industries would also be affected by this ban, but if we look at the issue with the environment in perspective, the benefits that would come with a reduction of plastic bags is numerous. These bags are consumed every day, and it would be interesting to see how much less damage and other benefits would come from this practice. There are many cities in Texas where this ban was passed on successfully. For example, in a comparison between Austin where the ban was approved, and some of the requirements are that the bags must contain a minimum percentage of recycled content, and Fort Worth were the ban was disapproved. “Advocates of the policy are supported by a comparison with Fort Worth, which has no plastic bag ordinance and had four times the amount of plastic bags in its litter stream as Austin. The amounts were calculated based on local litter sweeps done earlier this year in each city” (Miller par. 6). This shows the benefits of the ban and how it has impacted the cities environment. Other places are still pending the approval and in the other hand Dallas is one of the places where this ban was
In the United States, several laws have been enforced in order to create an efficient community that won’t manifest trouble. Citizens have viewed a couple of these rules as “Dumb” or “Good” for multiple reasons. Anyhow, three of the most controversial bills have included some type of relation to plastic bags, dog ‘waste’, and the pursuit of bears. To begin, plastic bags have become an exceptional necessity in the US, but , in some cities, like San Jose and Sunnyvale, have become limited. Even if plastic has obliterated itself from a consumer's view, something has not disappeared, yet.
... converting plastic waste into useful products are being affected by pollution; this contamination is found within containers where plastics are collected. But the same risk of pollution carries downside consequences in which workers and people responsible for cleaning and disinfecting the plastic materials are not doing the best to eliminate plastic waste, and to disinfect the infected bacteria and microorganisms from the atmosphere and environment. Organizations from China and India are the largest in the world, they collect and purchase used plastic from United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America (Minguez 2013). These companies do not bother to sanitize the products before the recycling process; for this reason the planet earth is getting a worse environmental condition, and it is destroying lives of living beings, and natural resources as well (Uddin 2014).
The industrial world in earth contributes carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels in factories.Fossil fuels give out carbon dioxide when burned and trees are cut down which also gives out carbon dioxide as plants absorb carbon dioxide. The vehicles that we use also gives out nitrous oxide when being driven. Animals like cows give out methane which is also a greenhouse gas. The gas is produced as much as 30 billion metric tons or more every year. People make their own needs and don’t know that they are killing the earth day by day. They make more factories, burn and use more and more fossil fuels. The earth’s use of coal, oil, petroleum, natural gas are increasing more and more. Coal is the ...
Plastic or paper, is a choice that people face when going to the grocery stores. Plastic bags are often the choice that is made. A controversial issue in the world today is the use of plastic bags. Plastic bags are used because of the convenience they give, by being able to carry several items at once. However, in the article, “Banning Bans, Not Bags”, Jennifer Schultz claims, “Plastic bags clog up local waterways, litter roadways, and get swallowed up by unsuspecting fish” (6). Plastic bags are used once, then are discarded or, littered all over the place. When they are littered all over they become problems for more than just humans. These plastic bags pose a big hazard for animals on land and in especially the ocean. Humans eat land and
Humans and animals breathe out Carbon Dioxide, often referred to as the greenhouse gas, as a waste product. Plants take in this CO2 and use it to make food. This is called photosynthesis. During this process oxygen is released which is then breathed in by humans and animals. This procedure is repeated over and over and a natural balance is obtained. However this natural balance is disrupted by human activity. People of the world are putting more than 5.5 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. 75% of this is caused from the burning of fossil fuels. These fuels are burnt all the time to run factories, power plants and vehicles. The main sources of CO2 emissions are electric utilities, residential buildings, industry and transportation. The other 25% is induced by the destruction of the world's forests. The reason for this is that there are less trees and plants to take in the CO2 but there is just as many, if not more, humans and animals to breathe it out.
Demand is less than supply. Even though it has already made much more plastic, for this the fastest growing developing country and at the same time it has the most population in the world, this quantity is not enough for the needs of China. For example, packaging in China. Statistics show that China's annual consumption of plastic bags goes up to 400,000 tons in supermarkets. The plastic bags of shopping mall, food markets, fruit stalls are about 3 times of that in the supermarkets. In other words, each year, the demand of plastic bags in supermarkets, shopping mall, food markets, fruit stalls in China is accumulated to be 1.6 million tons of plastic. In fact,
Millions of plastic bags are given out to consumers by supermarkets and stores to carry their goods in. They are also cheap, light, durable, easy to carry and in many cases, free. The most commonly used shopping bag is made of High Density Polyethylene (HDPE). This type is used in the majority of supermarkets and stores. After these bags are used, they often end up in landfills or as litter, roughly only three percent of plastic bags is actually recycled per year (Planet Ark, 2011). The materials used in making plastic bags make them non-biodegradable. According to the science dictionary, 2011 refers to “these materials cannot be decomposed into environmentally safe waste materials by the action of soil bacteria.” These harmful substances are toxic and take approximately four hundred years to break down, or in this case photo-degrade; which is how plastics made from (HDPE) break down. Since they are not biodegradable, they remain in the environment and are absorbed in soil or water (Indian Centre for Plastics in the Environment, 2010). 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.
Many people jump to the 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 less harmful to the environment than paper bags because it takes more water to make paper bags, it takes more energy to make them, and the resources to make paper bags are limited. The misconception is that only paper can be used.
It is sad to say but humans have played their part in deteriorating the earth. We have polluted and killed the very thing that takes care of us. If you ride by any lake or river you find trash and debris around it. In the “The Call of the Wild” the author says that we have committed war against the earth by the dumping of poisons and explosives upon it (337). Unfortunately, plastics are the things that are doing the most harm to our environment. Plastics are convenient and we use them everyday and these are the things that we find in the oceans, rivers and lakes. They are harmful to the earth as well as human health by directly intoxicating us with lead, cadmium and mercury. Plastic debris laced with harmful chemicals are often found inside of our marine life and can poison them. Plastic can survive for thousands of years and many invasive species are found in them which can disrupt our habitats. We need to limit our consumption of plastics and make sure that they are disposed of in their proper places.
While walking through the park last Sunday, I observed a shocking scene. There were two cans: one for recycling and one for trash. The recycling receptacle had only an empty Dr. Pepper can and a few used Ozarka water bottles. On the other hand, the trash can had a plethora of half eaten meals, wrappers, banana peels and disgustingly even bottles, cans, newspapers and plastics that could have been recycled. Because people do not understand or do not care to understand about conserving our resources, many reusable items are being put in landfills when recycling these items could help save the environment. People should know the negative impact of throwing away a water bottle or newspaper, purchasing meat from the grocery store or consuming gasoline has on the environment, and many do not. By informing society about how their decisions affect the environment, we can help save our planet and change our attitude toward the land we live on, the water we drink and the air we breathe” and truly show respect for the stuff that we depend on.
Human activities add to the levels of these gasses, causing more problems. “Automobiles, heat from homes and businesses, and factories are responsible for about 80% of today's carbon dioxide emissions, 25% of methane emissions, and 20% of the nitrous oxide emissions.” (3) The increase in agriculture, deforestation, landfills, industrial production, and mining contribute a significant share of emissions also. These gases that are released into the atmosphere are tracked by emission inventories. An emission inventory counts the amount of air pollutants discharged into the atmosphere. These inventories are important in studying the affects of global warming on the Earth.