The Plastic Grocery Bag Plague
Plastic Grocery Bags are everywhere because they are cheap and convenient:
- 130 bags per person per year
- 1 trillion used worldwide last year
- overused because they are inexpensive and treated as having no value
A huge problem for the environment:
- pollute our landscapes and roadsides
- not biodegradable
- choking our landfills
- kill birds and small mammals on land
- pollute the oceans
- 300 Million end up in the Atlantic each year
- 8 Million tons of plastic pollute the oceans each year
- more plastic than plankton in the world’s oceans
- They Kill all manner of life in the ocean including porpoises
- virtually no market for recycled bags
- they can’t be placed in Delaware recycle containers
What can we do:
- Stop using plastic shopping bags
- Carry our own cloth bags and refuse the store plastic bags
- Ask for paper instead of plastic
- Return plastic bags to the stores that provide them. (In Milton, Food Lion provides a container to return them.)
- Reuse bags before discarding them.
- Lobby for a ban on plastic bags (Other countries and California have done it)
- Pick up plastic litter before it harms the environment and wildlife.
Benefits:
We are encouraging Milton to reduce its use of Plastic Bags. The benefit to Milton will be less litter, a cleaner River and a more attractive town.