International Journal for Quality research UDK- 504.5:675.5 Short Scientific (1.03)

Are Grocery Sacking the Environment?

Abstract:This paper is oriented on analysis impacts of plastic bags on environment. In this paper is analyzed did plastic bags Mangal Gogte are so harmful, and what are the main ingredients of it. One part of this paper is oriented on effects of plastic bags and Economics Department management of their usage. There is also made comparative K J Somaiya College of Arts analysis between impacts of plastic and paper bags on & Commerce Vidyavihar, environment. Mumbai 400 077, India Keywords: environment, plastic, paper, recycle, waste

1. INTRODUCTION in water. Our government has tried to ban plastic bags but so far nothing of that sort has The "paper or plastic" conundrum happened. Many blame the government for not that vexed earnest shoppers throughout the implementing the decision. 1980s and 90s is largely moot today all over the Critics of the bags say they use up world. Most grocery store baggers are not natural resources, consume energy to bothered about it anymore. They drop the manufacture, create , choke marine life and bananas in one plastic as they reach for add to landfill waste. It’s necessary to find out another to hold the six-pack of soda. The pasta the truth and know whether the is so sauce and noodles will get one too, as will the harmful. For this we must know about the dish soap. The development of economies is product. producing more goods and needs more packaging material. Also the upcoming ‘Malls’ are responsible for new ‘Mall-Culture’ that uses 2. PRODUCTION OF up increasing number of plastic and paper bags. PLASTIC BAGS It is estimated that somewhere between 500 billion and one trillion plastic bags The term "" encompasses are consumed throughout the world each year. organic materials, such as the elements carbon In 1977, supermarkets began to offer plastic (C), hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N), chlorine (Cl) grocery bags as an alternative to paper bags. By and sulfur (S), which has properties similar to 1996, four out of every five-grocery bags used those naturally grown in organic materials such were plastic.There is a growing international as wood, horn and rosin Plastics are polymers. movement to ban or discourage the use of The simplest definition of a polymer is plastic bags because of their environmental something made of many units. Think of a effects. Countries from Ireland to are polymer as a chain. Each link of the chain is the cracking down on the bags and action has "-mer" or basic unit that is usually made of already begun in many countries. carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and/or silicon The ubiquitous plastic , Plastic bags are made from , so handy for everything from toting groceries to a gas that is produced as a by-product of oil, disposing of doggie do, may be a victim of its gas and coal production. Ethylene is made into own success. It is important to find out whether polymers (chains of ethylene molecules) called the plastic bags are really as harmful as they are . This substance, also known as said to be. The chaos that Mumbai faces every polyethylene or polythene, is made into pellets, year during monsoon (also the chaos of July 26, which are used by plastic manufacturers to 2005) is said to be partially due to plastic bags. produce a range of items, including plastic They clog the drains and the city almost drowns bags.

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There are two types of plastic 1973: The first commercial system for shopping bags - the lighter, filmy bags you get manufacturing plastic grocery bags becomes from supermarkets and other food outlets, and operational the heavier bags you get from other retail 1977: The plastic grocery bag is introduced to outlets, like clothing stores. HDPE or high the supermarket industry as an alternative to density polyethylene bags are stiff, thin and not paper sacks. transparent or opaque. HDPE (Ethylene 1982: and Safeway start to replace polymer with densities ranging from 0.941 to traditional craft sacks with polyethylene "t- 0.965 grams per cubic centimetre) is normally shirt" bags. used in grocery or t-shirt bags. LDPE (0.916 to 1990: The first blue bag- program 0.925 grams per cubic centimetre) or low begins with curb side collection. density polyethylene bags are thick and soft and 1990: Consumer plastic bag recycling begins can be transparent and glossy in appearance. through a supermarket collection-site network. LDPE is used in shopping bags usually with 1992: Nearly half of U.S. supermarkets have attached handles. Unlike HDPE, LDPE cannot recycling available for plastic bags. be recycled 1996: Four of five grocery bags used are While plastic bags may not be the plastic. most high tech application of plastics 1996 0nwards: Over 80% of all bags used are technology, it is certainly one of the most plastic. Plastic is multipurpose and therefore is prevalent. According to ‘Clean Up Australia’, seen almost everywhere. Whether we are aware Australians use in excess of 6 billion plastic of it or not, plastics play an important part in bags per year. If tied together these bags would our life. Plastics' versatility allow it to be used form a chain that is long enough to go around in everything from car parts to doll parts, from the world 37 times. More than half of these soft drink to the refrigerators they are bags (3.6 billion) are made from HDPE. stored in. From the car we drive to work in to the television we watch when we get home, plastics help make our life easier and better. 3. GREAT MOMENTS IN 2002: Ireland introduces the worlds first PLASTIC BAG HISTORY consumer paid plastic bag tax

Imagine a world without plastic shopping bags. It could be the future. First 4. WHY ARE THESE BAGS introduced in the 1970s, plastic bags now USED? account for four out of every five bags handed out at the grocery store. When one looks at it as Plastic bags are so cheap to produce, a product, it is an unbelievable success story. sturdy, plentiful, easy to carry and store that 1957: The first baggies and sandwich bags on a they have captured at least 80 percent of the roll are introduced. grocery and convenience store market since 1958: Poly dry cleaning bags compete with they were introduced a quarter century ago, traditional brown paper. according to the Arlington, Virginia-based 1966: Plastic bag use in bread packaging takes American Plastics Council. over 25 to 30 percent of the market. 1966: Plastic produce bags on a roll are introduced in grocery stores. 5. THE EFFECTS OF 1969: The New York City Sanitation PLASTIC BAGS Department's "New York City Experiment" demonstrates that plastic refuse bag curb side As a result, the totes are everywhere. pickup is cleaner, safer and quieter than metal They sit balled up and stuffed into the one that trash can pick-up. Beginning a shift to plastic hangs from the pantry door. They line can liners among consumers. bathroom trash bins. They carry clothes to the 1974/75: Retailing giants such as Sears, J.C. gym. They clutter landfills. They flap from Penney, Montgomery Ward, Jordan Marsh, trees. They float in the breeze. They clog Allied, Federated and Hills make the switch to roadside drains. They drift on the high seas. plastic merchandise bags. They fill sea turtle bellies. Once let loose into

364 M. Gogte the environment, plastic bags can cause Agency in 2001 on U.S. plastic bag, sack, and considerable harm, blocking drains and wrap consumption, somewhere between 500 suffocating wildlife mistaking the bag for food. billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed The success of the plastic bag has worldwide each year. Of those, millions end up meant a dramatic increase in the amount of in the litter stream outside of landfills - sacks found floating in the oceans where they estimates range from less than one to three choke, strangle, and starve wildlife and raft percent of the bags. alien species around the world, according to Like candy wrappers, chewing gum, David Barnes, a marine scientist with the cigarette butts, and thousands of other pieces of British junk, millions of the plastic bags end up as Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, litter. Once in the environment, it takes months England, who studies the impact of marine to hundreds of years for plastic bags to debris. Barnes said that plastic bags have gone breakdown. As they decompose, tiny toxic bits "from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to seep into soils, lakes, rivers, and the oceans. being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78° At the end of 2002, it was estimated North [latitude] to Falklands 51° South that Australians were using approximately 6.9 [latitude], but I'll bet they'll be washing up in billion plastic carry bags a year. Plastic bags are Antarctica within the decade." Australia’s highest volume ‘add-on’ packaging Vincent Cobb, an entrepreneur in designed as a single use or Chicago, Illinois, has launched a Web site and are not necessarily essential to product http://Reusablebags .com to educate the public integrity. Approximately 53% of plastic bags about what he terms the "true costs" associated are distributed from supermarket outlets, while with the spread of "free" bags. (He sells 47% come from other retail outlets such as fast reusable bags as a viable solution.) According food shops, liquor stores, and general to his calculations based from data released by merchandising. the United States Environmental Protection

Australians use around 6 billion plastic Plastic Bags on the Thames foreshore. bags per year, 3.3 billion of which are Photo by Thames21 supermarket plastic bags. (www.thames21.org.uk).

High consumption rates of plastic their low weight and ability to ‘balloon’ and bags have led to increased inappropriate travel in wind. One of the key concerns is litter. disposal of bags. Plastic bag litter can In , plastic bags blowing around the negatively impact on the community’s streets are called "white pollution." In South perception of and use of public areas. It can Africa, the bags are so prominent in the also seriously harm or kill wildlife and countryside that they have won the derisive title domestic animals.The plastic bags that are not of "national flower." put in the waste basket end up as litter. Litter is Plastic bag litter can be accidental – a huge burden on society. Approximately 2% of arising during management of an intended all litter items are plastic bags, which are disposal site (whether a bin or landfill) - or may particularly prone to becoming litter due to be due to intentional littering behaviour.

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Plastic shopping bags have a according to Planet Ark, an international surprisingly significant environmental impact environmental group. In the water, plastic bags for something so seemingly innocuous. As well can be mistaken for jellyfish. This makes as being an eyesore (next time you are outside, plastic bag pollution in marine environments have a look around - you'll be amazed at the particularly dangerous, as birds, whales, seals number of plastic bags littering our streets and and turtles ingest the bags and then die from waterways), plastic shopping bags kill large intestinal blockages. Disturbingly, it is claimed numbers of wildlife each year. One of the most that plastic bags are the most common man- dramatic impacts is on marine life. Plastic bags made item seen by sailors at sea. The bags were kill about 100,000 whales, seals, turtles and the fifth most common item of debris found on other marine animals each year worldwide; beaches.

Operation to remove plastic Green turtle gut contents Freedom for one rehabilitated from gut of a green turtle including blue plastic bag and turtle - how long red balloon. will it survive? Images courtesy Taronga Zoo

The biggest problem with plastic bags cleaning up!) once they've been discarded.And is that they do not readily break down in the that is the dark side of the plastic. environment, with estimates for the time it takes them to decompose ranging from 20 to 1000 years. One of the disquieting facts 6. CRACKING DOWN stemming from this is that plastic bags can become serial killers. Some countries are cracking down on Once an animal that had ingested a the use of plastic bags. Here's a look at the plastic bag dies, it decays at a much faster rate issue: than the bag. Once the animal has decomposed, • Countries that have banned or taken the bag is released back into the environment action to discourage the use of plastic more or less intact, ready to be eaten by another bags include Australia, , misguided organism.The incredibly slow rate of Ireland, Italy, South Africa and decay of plastic bags also means that each bag Taiwan. Mumbai (formerly Bombay), we use compounds the problem, because the bags simply accumulate India, also has banned the bags. Plastic bags also clog drains and • Australians were using nearly 7 waterways, threatening not only natural billion bags a year, and nearly 1.2 environments but also urban ones. In fact, billion bags a year were being passed plastic bags in drains were identified as major out free in Ireland before government factors in the severe flooding in Bangladesh in restrictions, according to government 1988 and 1998. This has resulted in a ban on estimates. plastic bags being imposed there early in 2002 • Plastic industry trade associations On top of the significant were unable to provide estimates of environmental costs, widespread use of plastic plastic bag use in the United States. However, based on studies of plastic bags is also costly in terms of dollars and cents. bag use in other nations, the Apart from the price of the bags themselves, environmental group ‘Californians which is four to six cents each, a great deal of Against Waste’ estimates Americans money goes into collecting the bags (i.e. use 84 billion plastic bags annually.

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• The first plastic sandwich bags were where an estimated eight billion plastic bags are introduced in 1957. Department used annually, the government has stores started using plastic bags in the implemented new regulations that will see only late 1970s and supermarket chains thicker, more durable plastic bags produced. As introduced the bags in the early well as making them more suitable for reuse, it 1980s. is hoped that the extra cost associated with their • Overall, the U.S. plastics and related production and supply will prevent retailers industries employed about 2.2 million giving the higher quality bags away, making U.S. workers and contributed nearly their use a more expensive option for $400 million to the economy in 2002, consumers. according to The Society of the . Refuse a plastic bag

In Australia, about 90 percent of The environmental issues associated retailers have signed up with the government's with plastic shopping bags have featured in the voluntary program to reduce plastic bag use. A news in the last couple of years. This has made law that went into effect last year in Taiwan people aware of the menace created by plastic requires restaurants, supermarkets and bags and many have started to refuse the plastic convenience stores to charge customers for bags in grocery shops and stores. This is more plastic bags and utensils. It has resulted in a 69 like depending on moral suasion of people for percent drop in use of plastic products, which environment conscious people or according to news reports. government can keep appealing. In September 2006, more than 354,000 bags -- most of them plastic -- were Levy a tax collected during an international cleanup of costal areas in the United States and 100 other The use of plastic bags is being countries, according to the Ocean Conservancy. discouraged in many countries such as On 23 December 2002, the Singapore and Taiwan, while the tax imposed Environment Protection and Heritage Council, on the use of plastic shopping bags in Ireland Australia, agreed to a package of measures to has resulted in the use of plastic shopping bags reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags being reduced by 90% in just six months. Prior and asked that specific proposals be developed to the 15-euro cent per bag tax, it was estimated for national action, including ways of reducing that 1.2 million plastic shopping bags were the impact of plastic bags as litter. The being handed out in Ireland per year. The Guidelines for Plastic Bag Litter Management money raised from the tax will be used to fund have been developed as a small part of the environmental initiatives. overall response to the plastic bag litter issues. Denmark also instituted a tax on bags; however, Denmark did it differently than Ireland. In 1994 Denmark put a tax of 22 DKK per kilo of plastic bags. This tax is included in 7. MANAGEMENT OF the price charged to retailers and has cut plastic PLASTIC BAG USAGE bag usage by 66%. Since, unlike Ireland, the tax was not levied on consumers it did not With this number of plastic bags in change consumer behaviour by as much as the circulation, it is of little surprise that plastic Irish tax. The Danish market has collected bags are a significant pollutant. On ‘Clean Up around 170 million DKK so far and has used Australia Day’ in 2002 nearly half a million that money to fund many environmental plastic bags were collected. projects.We'll have to wait and see if any of Different countries have adopted a these measures will be adopted in many other range of approaches to discourage the use of countries to address the problem there.In plastic bags in an attempt to cut down on the Australia, in September 2002 federal number of bags finding their way into the Independent MP Peter Andren and Greens environment. In South Africa for instance, Senator Bob Brown introduced private

Vol.3, No. 4, 2009 367 member's bills into parliament that would put a Donna Dempsey, executive director of the Film 25 cent levy on plastic shopping bags, and and Bag Federation, a trade association for the direct the funds raised to an education program plastic bag industry. publicising the environmental costs of your plastic shopping bags bags in Australia. is one of the most obvious courses of action, This bill was not passed, with the however only 10% of Australian households Minister for the Environment and Heritage Dr take their plastic bags to a central collection David Kemp preferring to explore voluntary point for recycling. This could be due to the options for plastic bag control, before imposing fact that HDPE bags cannot be put out for another tax on the Australian public. collection with other household recyclables, "Every time we use a new plastic bag and there is no separate for they go and get more from the them, as the volume does not support the cost. Middle East and bring it over in tankers," said Instead, bags must be taken to central Stephanie Barger, executive director of Earth recycling collection points, such as Resource Foundation in Costa Mesa, supermarkets, where there are special bins to California. "We are extracting and destroying collect the bags. Even at these central collection the Earth to use a plastic bag for 10 minutes." points there is a risk that the bags may end up The foundation is calling for a 25- unsuitable for recycling due to a range of cent tax on plastic bags in California.A bill that contaminants such as LDPE bags, ink, food, would have imposed a 3- cent tax on plastic even supermarket dockets if they are left in the shopping bags and cups was sidelined in the bags. California Legislature 2 years ago after heavy Prior to recycling, of course, the aim opposition from the retail and plastics should be to reuse your bags. According to the industries. Australian Bureau of Statistics, less than 1% of The tax proposals are loosely plastic bags used in Australia are reused, modeled on Ireland's "PlasTax," a levy of about however 82.6% of Australian households say 20 cents that retail customers have had to pay that they reuse plastic bags. This list of possible for each plastic bag since March 2002. The use uses for plastic shopping bags is almost as long of plastic bags in Ireland dropped more than 90 as the lifespan of the bag itself! percent following imposition of the tax, and the If you don't want to take your bags government has raised millions of dollars for back to the supermarket to use again next time recycling programs.Similar legislation was you buy your groceries, there are multitudes of introduced in Scotland and is being discussed ways you can use them around the house, for the rest of the United Kingdom. limited only by your imagination. In less developed countries many Recycle, Reuse, Reduce people do not have toilets. Plastic bags fill this need. The plastic bags are even more beneficial

in that when sealed they prevent others from Menace of plastic bags is not only an being contaminated and as such help prevent environmental strain but also an economic one. disease.Plastic bags are used in other ways as Collecting plastic bags from our drains is only well. They are used by many to seal their roofs part of the cost. We need to reuse and recycle from leakage. these bags. Some tribes’ people in Africa have When a tax is imposed people tend to actually found interesting ways of utilizing reuse the bags. In a few shops in India, and I plastic bags to make money. They roam the have noticed that in Mulhouse, France too; one country side picking up littered plastic bags and has to pay to get a new bag at grocery stores. then weave them into baskets, bowls, and hats Therefore, people tend to carry their own old for sale in the market. bags. So popular have the bags become that The plastics industry took a one group of 132 South African ladies use "proactive stance" by working with retailers to about 30,000 found bags a month to weave encourage greater recycling, rather than items out of. These ladies make their living out "putting on taxes to address the problem," said of making and selling the bags and even donate

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10% of their profits to a women literacy project put them straight in your bin as waste or put which has already taught 41 different women to your other garbage in them, the plastic bags read. will still end up in landfill, and potentially at One thing they should not be used for large in the environment. is lining garbage bins. It doesn't matter if you

Refugees from Ethiopia help keep the environment clean by using their weaving skills in a most unique way - creating useful household items, like these baskets, from used plastic bags.

Given the costs and inconvenience associated with recycling, and the fact that reuse only delays the plastic entering the 8. THE RECYCLING PROCESS environment, the most sensible option is to cut down on the number of plastic bags that you These are the steps in a successful use, or stop using them altogether. recycling program. When necessary, It is estimated that it takes the alternatives can be discussed to maximize average Australian family four shopping trips to accumulate 60 plastic shopping bags. If efficiency and reduce costs. everyone accepted one less plastic bag every • Consumers carry out their purchases time they went shopping, the number of bags in plastic bags coded with 2 (HDPE used would be reduced substantially. high-density polyethylene film) and 4 The Australian Government’s (LDPE/LLDPE low density or linear- National Packaging Covenant (the Covenant) low density polyethylene film). Action Plan 2008–2010 has been approved by • Consumers remove trash, food or register receipts at home and return the Hon Peter Garrett AM MP, Minister for the their clean and dry used bags to the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. The recycling bin at the store (or reuse Covenant is a voluntary initiative them to carry the shopped goods back byGovernment and industry with the key home). objective being to reduce the environmental • At the store recycling site, recycled impacts of consumer packaging and office plastic bags and from paper in Australia. Responsibility for delivery delivered items are sorted, baled and of the Covenant is shared between all sectors of stored in a trailer or out-of-way rack the packaging supply chain, consumers, in the warehouse. collectors, reprocessors and all levels of • When a full load of polyethylene film government. is collected (approximately 40 to 50 Laurie Kusek, a spokeswoman for the bales or 35,000 to 40,000 pounds), it American Plastics Council, said the industry is loaded onto the recycler's truck or works with its U.S. retail customers to delivered to the recycling facility encourage recycling of plastic bags, which are where it is processed. in high demand from companies such as ‘Trex’ • At the recycling and manufacturing in Winchester, Virginia, for use in building plant, the bales are broken down and materials. the polyethylene film is sorted and passed through a metal detector. It is

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then ground into plastic "fluff" to be 9. PLASTIC OR PAPER heated and mixed with waste wood and formed into wood-polymer The Film and Bag Federation, a trade lumber. group within the Society of the Plastics • Wood-polymer lumber is used to Industry based in Washington, D.C., said the build public boardwalks, right choice between paper and plastic bags is playgrounds, marina docks, nature trails, and even home and restaurant clearly plastic.Plastic bags are much more decks. resource efficient. This is mainly because it • Using recycled plastic bags for takes 1/8 of the material to make a plastic bag building materials, like Trex, diverts as it does to make a . Compared to millions of pounds of plastic bags paper grocery bags, plastic grocery bags from landfills each year. This year consume 40 percent less energy, generate 80 Trex plans to buy 80 million pounds percent less solid waste, produce 70 percent of reclaimed - that's equal fewer atmospheric emissions, and release up to to 5.6 billion plastic grocery bags! 94 percent fewer waterborne wastes, according to the federation.

The economic advantage of plastic important part in cutting -edge technologies bags over paper bags has become too used in the space program, in bulletproof vests significant for storeowners to ignore. It costs and prosthetic limbs, as well as in a myriad of very little for a standard plastic grocery sack as everyday products.Disposal is the final stage in compared to a paper bag. a product's life cycle, and the beginning of the Paper bags also come from trees process. Despite the fact while plastic do not. This means that the more that plastics are used in everything from paper bags are consumed the more trees are medical products to beverage , being cut down. Cutting down forests is a huge plastics constitute a mere 9.4% by weight of all resource cost. Once the bags are made they still waste generated in the United States. There are need to be transported to their final destination. only two options when a consumer disposes of They are transported on ships and trucks. Because plastic bags are much thinner and a plastic product: 1) proper plastic disposal that lighter than paper bags, it would take seven 45 results in it being placed in a landfill or 2) foot trucks to transport the same amount of improper disposal, otherwise known as paper bags as one 45 foot truck of plastic bags. littering.Plastic bag litter has become such an This is a large comparable savings on environmental nuisance and eyesore that fuel, congestion and smog caused by the Ireland, Taiwan, South Africa, Australia, India shipping of the bags. and Bangladesh have heavily taxed the totes or Plastic materials and products play an banned their use outright. Several other regions,

370 M. Gogte including England and some U.S. cities, are store owners increase reliance on more considering similar actions.Tony Lowes, expensive paper bags as an alternative. director of Friends of the Irish Environment in Many believe that the Irish tax of County Cork, said the 15-cent (about 20 cents about U.S. 20 cents per bag is too high, but that U.S.) tax on plastic bags introduced there in a tax of 3 to 5 cents could have a positive March 2002 has "been an extraordinary impact on reducing plastic bag consumption by success." According to him, just about changing people's behavior. Having bags everyone in Ireland carries around a reusable charged has some merits because it gets them bag and the plastic bags that once blighted the used more responsibly. For example, instead of verdant Irish countryside are now merely an a bagger using six bags to package a person's occasional eyesore. Cobb believes a similar tax dinner, the bagger might use just two. in the U.S. would have a similar effect on As for Cobb, he hopes people will reducing consumption begin to realize that paper and plastic bags both The American Plastics Council is come at great cost to the environment and wary of such a tax in the U.S. They say it instead of scratching their head when asked would cost tens of thousands of jobs and result which type they prefer, they'll pull a tightly in an increase in energy consumption, packed reusable bag from their pocket. pollution,landfill space, and grocery prices as

When it comes to reducing solid waste, bigger definitely isn't better. The less material you use to make a package, the less waste you have to recycle or dispose of after you've used (and reused) it. Take a look at how the facts stack up for plastic bags.

• The smaller volume of plastic bags atmospheric emissions can help conserve landfill space. • Release up to 94% fewer Nothing degrades fast enough to waterborne wastes extend the useful lives of modern U.S. landfills...not paper, not plastics, nothing,…. according to Dr. William 10. PAPER OR PLASTICS: Rathje of the University of Arizona REUSE Garbage project.

• 30% percent less material is used to Every time you reuse a plastic bag produce today's plastic bag than the you double the environmental savings: you bags made just five years ago save the bag you reused from going to a • Compared to paper grocery bags: landfill, and you save a new one from needing • Consume 40 percent less to be used. energy Here are some common reuses for • Generate 80% less solid plastic bags (and I am sure every reader can add waste many more to the list) • Produce 70% fewer

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Around the Hous store it overnight. Just wrap the brush in the bag and put it in the refrigerator • Use the plastic grocery sacks as until the next morning. wastebasket liners in bedroom, office • Slip them under the car to catch those and bath. last few drops of oil after an oil • A dozen bags rolled up tight fit into a change. small ziplock bag, freeing up lots of • Keep leftover paint fresh by pouring space in kitchen drawers. it into a heavyweight, sealable plastic • Protect water and gas valves in the bag. Squeeze out the air and seal the monsoon/wintertime. bag. Put the bag in the original paint • Take grocery and retail sacks back to can and tap the closed. the store for reuse while shopping. • To clamp irregular shapes, hold them • Plastic bags keep dust away when together with a sand-filled plastic storing off-season shoes. bag. • Take them to the food bank where they can be used to give needy people Out and About their food. • Sort all of my craft supplies in plastic • Keep clothes dry on canoeing trips. grocery sacks. • Use them to keep your clothes dry • Use plastic sacks to cushion during the travel in rainy season. breakable items when moving them • Line your or bicycle pack in . with them. • Store outgrown clothing to pass down • When packing for travel, use plastic to the next child in plastic bags. bags to put shoes/slippers in. • Give them to thrift stores or garage For the Holidays sales for their reuse. • Use as garbage tray in cars. • Make Christmas wreaths with them. • Containers for plants to be • Make Diwali (a festival of lights in transplanted India) lanterns from them or use for • Turn the big ones into ponchos. any kind of decoration during • While planting a cactus put plastic festivals. bags on hands. • Keep crispy eatables in them to avoid them get soggy. For Students • Store umbrellas / raincoats / leftover crackers. • Use as trash bags in dorm rooms • Hide presents from the kids. /your rooms • Protect gifts from rain and snow • Use plastic grocery bags to store our during holiday trips and visits. aluminium cans for recycling. They • To keep needles from your Christmas are handy because they can be hung tree off the carpet, take the tree apart on the door handles. with pruning clippers and put the • To carry lunch pieces into a plastic bag. • To keep small toys etc in one place • Put a sandwich bag on your hands (chess pawns) when handling the tree to keep • Put a plastic bag on a stadium seat at off pine tar. a band competition when it is raining.

In the Workshop or Garage For Kids

• It's the best way to store a paintbrush • Use them to make a kite or another full of oil-base paint at the end of the type of craft. day to use it again the next day • They make a great when you without having to use a solvent to are spending the night with a friend

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• Use them to hold items when in the In fact, despite the fact that plastic process of collecting something, like plays a role in almost every facet of our lives, shells on the beach, stones on the its production accounts for only four percent of banks of river or in mountains, the Unite Disposal is the final stage in a stamps……... product's life cycle, and the beginning of the waste management process. Despite the fact Once home, consumers can reuse that plastics are used in everything from their plastic bags for a variety of household medical products to beverage containers, needs plastics constitute a mere 9.4% by weight of all waste generated in the United States. There are only two options when a consumer disposes of 11. UNDERSTANDING a plastic product: 1) proper plastic disposal that PLASTIC FILM: ITS USES, results in it being placed in a landfill or 2) BENEFITS AND WASTE improper disposal, otherwise known as littering. In addition, since there appears to be a MANAGEMENT OPTIONS growing interest in recycling film, there is a

need to discuss the pros and cons of recovering Plastic bags are the most efficient it for recycling States' energy consumption. bagging option for both convenience and the Another way to conserve resources is environment. Thanks to advances in resin, to recover the energy value of plastic packaging today's plastic bags have reduced their use of items after their useful life has ended. Plastics material by 30 percent in just five years, are a great source of fuel for waste-to-energy without decreasing strength. plants. When plastics are processed in modern Plastic bags can be recycled at energy recovery facilities, they help other waste thousands of locations nationwide. You can burn completely, producing cleaner emissions usually recycle plastic grocery and merchandise and less ash disposal. Burning plastic can help sacks, newspaper delivery sleeves, dry cleaning supply as abundant amount of energy for bags and self-serve produce bags. Recycled electricity, while reducing the cost of municipal plastic bags are made into products such as waste disposal & conserving landfill space. industrial trashcan liners, wood-polymer lumber, drainpipes, plastic and even In today's competitive new plastic bags. marketplace, manufacturers of products Today, more plastic bags and stretch and packages are under increasing pressure wrap are finding their way into decking to satisfy varied and often conflicting material that is unsurpassed for its durability. demands, such as lowering costs, Made of about half recycled plastic and half improving performance and enhancing waste wood, wood-polymer lumber is proving environmental attributes. Within this that it does not decay or crack, resists damage arena, the material that a manufacturer from termites and ants, and requires no chooses to use in its products and packages protective sealants.Plastic materials and products play an important part in cutting -edge can affect its ability to remain competitive. technologies used in the space program, in Plastic film, in many instances, has bulletproof vests and prosthetic limbs, as well allowed manufacturers to meet varied as in a myriad of everyday products. marketplace demands by enabling them to do When it comes to plastics and more with less. Unfortunately, information on conserving resources, recycling is only part of this broad category of materials is lacking. The the story. Conserving the resources means American Plastics Council (APC) hopes to using less raw materials and energy throughout meet this need by providing technical experts aproduct's entire life, from its development and and lay persons with a better understanding of manufacture to its use, possible reuse or what film is, how it is used, how it contributes recovery (including recycling) and disposal. to resource conservation and how it can help Plastics' unique characteristics - lightweight, manufacturers respond to the changing durability, and formability - enable the material marketplace. to conserve more resources during a product's Consumers seem agreeable to giving life when compared to other materials. up the bags, said Claire Wilton, senior waste

Vol.3, No. 4, 2009 373 campaigner at Greenpeace, UK. plastics from electronic equipment and "There certainly hasn't been an angry uprising products. Through leveraging strategic of shoppers (in Ireland) saying we want our partnerships APC has assisted in developing bags for free," Wilton said. "I think a lot of state-of-the-art technologies for recycling people recognize they are wasteful. That's why plastic. This same technology is now breaking they try to save them to use again, although ground in China as one of the largest operations they often forget to bring them with them when of its kind. they shop." Here it is essential to mention that we must understand the advantages of using 12. ALTERNATIVES plastic, e. g. Plastic lumber, made with recycled plastic, holds nails and screws better than There is a range of alternatives to wood, is virtually maintenance free and lasts plastic bags. Some retailers save the cardboard for 50 years! For every seven trucks needed to that stock is packaged in, so customers deliver paper grocery bags to the store - only can use them to pack their groceries. Others one truck is needed to carry the same number of may offer paper bags. Some major supermarket plastic grocery bags! chains have string or calico bags available for Today, over 12,000 communities sale at a very small price. These bags can be provide recycling services to 184 million kept in the car and used again and again. The people. The number of plastics recycling advantage of calico bags is that they are businesses has nearly tripled over the past stronger than the plastic bags, and also much several years, with more than 1,700 businesses easier to carry. In India these are being in use handling and reclaiming post-consumer for generations. The new generation was so plastics. overwhelmed by the plastic world that it has From computers and cell phones to only forgotten the old environment friendly televisions and microwaves, durable, cloth bag.It takes a little thought to get used to lightweight and affordable plastics have helped bringing your own bags, but it is an easy habit revolutionize the electronics we rely on every to fall into and it is such a relief not to have to day. Plastics deliver a range of performance pack the groceries away, and then find room to benefits no other material can match. Their pack away the plastic bags as well! unique combination of performance properties There are of course situations where inspires both innovative new products and the you can't beat a , such as more efficient use of resources. when buying meat or "messy" items. Plastics enable many of our favorite Thankfully, technology is catching up with the electronics to do more with less. For instance, need for a replacement for polythene bags. It plastics are essential to advances in weight was recently reported that supermarkets in reduction and miniaturization in many Australia would introduce biodegradable bags electronic products, so less material is used in made from tapioca starch in April 2003. These production. In addition, plastics can be bags will look and feel like polythene bags but engineered to meet very specific performance will decompose in three months. requirements, often resulting in greater energy But it is important to understand that efficiency over the course of a product’s life. plastic grocery bags are some of the most For more than a decade, APC has reused items around the house. Many, many been helping promote sound plastics recycling bags are reused as book and lunch bags as kids and recovery from electronic equipment and head off to school, as trashcan liners, and to products. They sponsor research and pickup dog's droppings off the lawn. So next development projects, publish new information time you go shopping, hold your head up and support technology transfer initiatives. proudly as you reuse or refuse a plastic bag. Their knowledge base has grown significantly You may not be in a rubber dinghy chasing a in recent years and as the quest for answers whaling boat or pursuing ivory poachers, but continues. They are committed to working with you have made a contribution to the future of stakeholders throughout the plastics, electronics the planet. supply and stakeholder groups to advance the Actually plastic bags are becoming a responsible and cost-effective recycling of victim of their success. We the world should

374 M. Gogte support the development of biodegradable face behind it. If they are harm to the plastic bags. And this is really very important environment in terms of visual blight, then for all of us to understand and know that the people need to stop littering," said Rob Krebs, a plastic has an advantage over paper. spokesman for the American Plastics Council.The new hopes rise too when one reads some research in the new direction to make 13.CONCLUSION plastic more useful. “The Record” (May 22, 2008) newspaper, based out of Ontario, reports The answer to the "paper or plastic?” that a 11th grade student in Ottawa named dilemma is: Neither. They're roughly equal in Daniel Burd, through work on his science pros and cons. While convenient addictions, project, discovered that plastic bags can they both gobble up natural resources and cause actually be at least partially biodegraded in a significant pollution. May be plastic is a little matter of months, when exposed to bacteria less harmful than paper. Although the under the right conditions. The newspaper had development will increase the packing material given the details of the experiment too. ( this and with growing population of the world the article). If this experiment comes to real use waste and the littler is going to increase, we all then plastic will be friendlier for us. have to be more careful about exploiting And we must not forget the available resources. tradition of using cloth bags, which are With all due respect to Kermit the reusable, washable and durable, pollution Frog, it's easy being green. Although we may free and therefore environment friendly!! be overwhelmed by the environmental In fact that should be our gift to the other catastrophes that seem to occur around us with people in the world that will remind them alarming regularity, there is a simple way each and every person can make a difference. It of their own tradition.The solution to bag doesn't involve travelling the world to clean up litter is to change people, not the product. oil spills or standing in the path of bulldozers to In the meantime, the best thing we prevent land clearing. It actually involves can do for the environment is simply reuse, or shopping. better yet, refuse a plastic bag when we go "Every piece of litter has a human shopping. Easy!

REFERENCES

[1] 2006: Environmental and Natural Resource Economics - Tom Tietenberg (seventh edition), Pearson Education, Inc., US [2] 2002: The Economics of Waste – Porter Richard C, Resources for the Future, Inc, Washington DC [3] March 2005, ARA Code of Practice for the management of Plastic Bags – 2004 End of Year report [4] September 2, 2003 ‘Are Plastic Grocery Bags Sacking the Environment?’, John Roach, National Geographic News [5] 2001: Bonn Agreement on Climate change: http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/climat/pressbckgnd.h tm [6] Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World (Paperback) by Daniel Imhoff, Roberto Carra [7] Green Living: The E Magazine Handbook for Living Lightly on the Earth (Paperback) by E Magazine [8] 1989 Plastic Recycling Directory, Society of Plastics Industry [9] February 1996, Marine Biology, Springer-Verlag GmbH, Issue: Volume 124, Number 4,

Received: 15.09.2009 Accepted: 15.11.2009 Open for discussion: 1 Year

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