A lot is being said about these at the moment, so I thought I'd try and understand a it more than I did. I've only just started looking, and these are just the things I've picked up on so far. I found it interesting though perhaps I'm just a bit sad.
Random stuff that I didn't know until I looked;
There are essentially 4 main choices at this time;
- HDPE (The current bag)
- Paper Bag
- LDPE (bag for life)
- Cotton/woven bag
The greatest environmental impact from these bags is their production. Both raw materials and manufacture.
Consequently, therefore the biggest difference that can be made comes from re-use. e.g. Reusing a bag once halves the impact its production had on the environment.
Typically the current plastic bags are reused in two ways; repeat shopping trips or as bin liners and consequently is used 3 times (in the UK).
[This bit was the biggest surprise for me] For the alternative bags to improve on the environmental impact of an HDPE bag than the following reuse is required;
Paper bag - 9 Times
LDPE Bag – 14 times
Cotton/Woven bag – 500+ times
Clearly that simply isn't possible for the Paper bag. It is very unlikely to be achieved for the cotton/woven alternatives, but is quite viable for the LDPE bag - that is the bag for life.
The benefit from the LDPE bag *IS* it's reuse. It is more robust and therefore shoudl be able to be reused more than an HDPE bag. If it is not reused then it is worse for the environment than the HDPE bag. 14 times doesn't sound like much, but I reckon that's getting on for a year for me.
The largest impact on the environment after production is on Marine Aquatic Toxicity. Bit obvious I suppose.
Less obvious is that an estimated 93% of the flow of plastic bags into the sea comes from just 10 rivers;
Asia
- Mekong
- Amur
- Pearl
- Ganges
- Hai
- Yellow
- Indus
- Yangtze
Africa
- Nile
- Niger
By far the greatest amount comes from the Yangtze. An estimated 1.5 million tons of the 2.75 million tons in total per year. [This is estimated by taking current samples of the river, measuring how much plastic is in it and multiplying that by the annual flow volume into the sea.
Reduce / Reuse / Recycle
- REDUCE how many you make...
- If you must make them, REUSE them
- When you can no longer reuse them, RECYCLE them.
I intend to do a much better job than I have been doing. Sure, I'm not the significant problem, but I can't really expect others to pay attention if I don't.
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