WHAT’S IN THE BAG?
Plastic bags are one of the most common items polluting our rivers and oceans and harming wildlife. In July, we mark International Plastic Bag Free Day, an initiative that wants to inspire us to give up single-use plastic bags and take a reusable bag whenever we go shopping.
Our sustainability expert Sarah Walkley looks into the plastic bag to find out why we should be trying to do without them for more than just one day.
The number of plastic bags used in the UK has reduce by 97% since 2015 when shops first began to charge for bags. That means the average person now takes home four bags compared with 140 bags eight years ago.
Bangladesh was the first country in the world to completely ban plastic bags. Many more countries have followed suit.
Even so, there are still 160,000 bags produced in the world every second. That’s more bags per second than there are people living in towns like Ipswich, Cambridge and Dundee! Watch the ticker at The World Counts to see how many bags have already been produced this year.
Less than 3% of the plastic bags produced have been recycled, compared with 9% for all plastics and 75% for aluminium drinks cans.
If we joined all the plastic bags together that exist in the world, it would make a rope that is long enough to go around the world over 4,200 times.
The average single-use plastic bag is used for 12 minutes before being thrown away. That’s about the same time as the first space walk or the time it takes most of us to walk 1km to get home from the shops.
We don’t know for sure, but our best guess is that plastic bags could take up to 1,000 years to degrade and become more toxic as they break down. That means that if William the Conqueror had brought a plastic bag with him when he invaded England in 1066, it would still just about be around now!
Marine creatures such as turtles eat plastic bags because they mistake them for jellyfish.
As well as polluting our oceans, plastic bags also clog up our drains, resulting in flooding whenever we have heavy rain. Flash floods are becoming more common with climate change.
We use fossil fuels to produce plastic bags. In fact, the amount of oil needed to make one plastic bag would fuel a car to drive 11m.
But we can all do something about it. If just one person decided never to use another plastic bag ever again, that person would save 22,000 bags in their lifetime!
Sarah Walkley is a freelance writer and researcher on a mission to empower everyone to play their part in addressing climate change and nature loss.
She set up Purplefully to help organisations develop their sustainability strategy and communication.
