Plastic Bags Should be Banned : Plastic bags are a major cause of environmental pollution.
A truly wonderful and magical material, plastic was invented in the year 1907 by Leo Hendrick Bakeman in New York, United States of America. This wondrous material was made from phenol and formaldehyde in a cheap and easy method. Ever since this revolutionary invention, the world as we knew it changed. Plastic replaced many materials in industries.
Plastic is so widely used around the world because of its following properties:
- Plastic is a hard material
- Plastics are a highly dense material
- Its tensile strength is high
- It is resistant to heat and high temperatures
- It is a non-conductor of electricity and heat
- It is light in weight
- The production of plastic is cheap and simple
All these properties make plastic the most popular material for factories as well as consumers. With the invention of plastic bags, things started to take nosedive in terms of the per capita plastic produced in the world. Everything was hunky-dory until people started to realise that plastic can’t be degraded by natural causes. Its a non-degradable material and will stay in the environment for more than 500 years to come. It is estimated that more than 6 billion metric tons of plastic waste are lying on our earth with no place to go.
Enzymes and bacterias cannot degrade plastic because plastic is not made up of naturally occurring materials. It is a purely man-made material. Most of the plastic is dumped in open lands and far away in oceans. While this seemed like a logical idea until people released that they were polluting the environment, air, water and land. The hazardous chemical in the plastics started to be seen in fishes and crops we eat which ultimately meant that plastic waste that we assumed was gone, was slowly making its way back to our bodies through our food chain. It is said that human beings have already started consuming plastics in small portions and a plastic worth the weight of a debit card in consumed every year by a person.
While plastics can’t be banned completely, because it has made our lives better. Plastic is used in advanced medical equipment to save lives. They are used in the pharma industry, the travel industry and clothing industry and the truth is, human beings cannot live without plastic. But we can surely reduce the consumption of plastic. Banning plastics completely is not a sensible idea.
Heres why plastic bags should be banned: There are various alternatives to plastic bags. Jute bags, paper bags and gunny bags are some of them. Plastics bags are not so much necessary that man cannot live without it. And certain kind of plastic bags can not be recycled as well. But they surely can be reused. The habit of reusing the same plastic bags comes into effect only when the manufacture of new plastic bags are banned.
More than 20 million metric tonnes of plastic waste is dumped in the ocean and open lands. More than 50% of these are plastic bags. They are creating enormous pressure on our environment and causing irreversible pollution. It will take a herculean task to get rid of all the plastic that is produced in the world as of now. If it is not banned, then it will be impossible to get rid of it ever and the existence of the human race will be in question.
There are areas in several parts of our ocean which is covered with plastic as big as the size of India. The aquatic life is consuming these plastics and we are consuming them which disturbs the whole food cycle in our ecosystem. Banning plastic bags will at least, if not totally eliminate plastic from our earth, reduce this disturbance to our environment.
