Plastic Bags

Developed by the Swiss in the 1960s and introduced in the U.S. in the 1970s, the common ‘t-shirt’ plastic shopping bag took off in the 1980s as a cheap alternative to paper bags at grocery stores. In the 1990s the impacts of plastic pollution were becoming evident with marine life dying from ingestion of or entanglement in plastics and the ‘discovery’ of the Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre by Charles Moore.

Some people initially claimed that plastic grocery bags were better for the environment because too many trees were being cut down for paper bags. Over time it became clear that plastic bags also posed a problem as the simple convenience turned into a major addiction. By 2009 the average American used 360 shopping bags, often double-bagging and sometimes taking a plastic bag for a single item that’s already in a packaging bag or easy to carry. It’s becoming clear that reusable bags are the best alternative to any type of carryout shopping bag.

The U.S. EPA estimates that 380 billion plastic bags were made in 2009 and 102 million of those were plastic shopping bags. Most 'conventional' plastic bags are manufactured from oil or natural gas and it is estimated that somewhere between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used yearly worldwide. Nearly 20 billion are used annually in California and most end up in landfills or as litter. In addition to harming the marine environment, producing these bags requires the equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil per year and an unknown amount of natural gas according to plastic industry statistics.

Are bioplastic bags the answer? Read more about those here.