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Plastic shopping bag

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Plastic shopping bags

Plastic shopping bags, carrier bags or plastic grocery bags are a common type of shopping bag in several countries. These bags are sometimes called single-use bags, referring to carrying items from a store to a home. However, reuse for storage or trash (bin bags) is common. According to the UK's Environment Agency, 76% of carrier bags are reused.[1] An estimated 90% of individuals reuse plastic bags, and 56% of individuals reuse all plastic shopping bags.[2] Heavier duty plastic shopping bags are suitable for multiple uses as reusable shopping bags.

History

Plastic bags are often made from polyethylene, which consists of long chains of ethylene monomers. Ethylene is derived from natural gas and petroleum.

Patent applications relating to the production of plastic shopping bags can be found dating back to the early 1950s in the United States and Europe, but these refer to composite constructions with handles fixed to the bag in a secondary manufacturing process.

The lightweight shopping bag as we know it today is the invention of Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin.[3] He developed the idea for forming a simple one-piece bag by folding, welding and die-cutting a flat tube of plastic in the early 1960s for packaging company Celloplast of Norrköping, Sweden. His idea produced a simple, strong bag with a high load carrying capacity and was patented worldwide by Celloplast in 1965. US Patent Copy of US Patent 5669504.

Celloplast was a well established producer of cellulose film and a pioneer in plastics processing. The company's patent position gave it a virtual monopoly on plastic shopping bag production and the company set up manufacturing plants across Europe and in the US. However, other companies saw the attraction of the bag, too, and US petrochemicals group Mobil overturned the Celloplast US patent in 1977. The Dixie Bag Company of College Park, Georgia, owned and operated by Jack W. McBride ("The Bagman") was one of the first companies to exploit this new opportunity to bring convenient products to all major shopping stores. McBride's Dixie Bag Company, as well as Houston Poly Bag and Capitol Poly were instrumental in the manufacturing, marketing and perfecting of this bag by the early 1980s. Kroger, a Cincinnati based grocery chain, agreed to try this innovation.[4] So, the real change in grocery bags did not start until 1982, when two of America’s largest grocery companies Safeway and Kroger started replacing paper bags with more affordable plastic bags.[4]

Without its plastic bag monopoly, Celloplast's business went into decline, and the company was split up during the 1990s. The Norrköping site remains a plastics production site, however, and is now the headquarters of Miljösäck, Sweden’s largest producer of waste sacks manufactured from recycled polyethylene.[citation needed]

From the mid 1980s on, the use of plastic bags became common for carrying daily groceries from the store to vehicles and homes. As plastic bags increasingly replaced paper bags, and as other plastic materials and products replaced glass, metal, stone, timber and other materials, a packaging materials war erupted with plastic shopping bags at the center of highly publicized battles. Currently, while no peer reviewed study or government survey has provided estimates for global plastic bag use, environmental activists estimate that between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used each year worldwide.[5] In 2009 the United States International Trade Commission did report that the number of bags used in the United States was 102 Billion.[6]

Manufacture and composition

Plastic shopping bags are commonly manufactured by blown film extrusion.[citation needed]

Plastic shopping bags are made of polyethylene. This can be low-density, resin identification code 4, or most often high-density, resin identification code 2. Most plastic bags are derived from natural gas.[7]

Biodegradable materials

Although not in use today, plastic shopping bags could be made from Polylactic acid (PLA) a biodegradable polymer derived from lactic acid.[8] This is one form of vegetable-based bioplastic. Bags can also be made from degradable polyethylene film. Most degradable bags do not readily decompose in a sealed landfill[9] and represent a possible contaminant to plastic recycling operations.

Environmental concerns

According to Vincent Cobb a seller of reusable bags, each year millions of discarded plastic shopping bags end up as litter in the environment when improperly disposed of.[10] The same properties that have made plastic bags so commercially successful and ubiquitous—namely their low weight and resistance to degradation—have also contributed to their proliferation in the environment. Due to their durability, plastic bags can take up to 1000 years to decompose.[11] As they slowly decompose, plastic bags break into tiny pieces and leech toxic chemicals into soils, lakes, rivers, and oceans.[10]

On land, plastic bags are one of the most prevalent types of litter in inhabited areas, becoming an eyesore to local residents. At their worst, plastic bags can clog drainage systems and contribute to flooding, as occurred in Bangladesh in 1988 and 1998.[12] When plastic bags are washed out to sea, they pose a threat to animal life. In the decades since plastic bags first came into wide use, there has been a dramatic increase in the quantity of plastic bags found floating in oceans around the world. Once in the ocean, these bags can strangle wildlife or, if ingested, can choke or cause wildlife to starve to death.[10] Some marine animals including sea turtles, and dolphins have been killed as a result of ingestion of plastic marine litter, including plastic bags.[13]

Littering is often a bigger problem in developing countries, where trash collection infrastructure is less developed, than in developed nations, however once plastic bags are swept out to sea they can travel long distances in ocean currents.[14]

Reuse and recycling

Heavy duty plastic shopping bags are suitable for reuse as reusable shopping bags. Lighter weight bags are often reused as bin bags (trash bags) or to pick up pet faeces. All types of plastic shopping bag can be recycled into new bags where effective collection schemes exist.

Since internet rumours started to claim that the Environmental Protection Agency had reported only 1% of plastic bags were recycled, significant attention resulted in a 700% growth in the recycling industry as new capacity led to a 7% rate. This resulted in more than 800 million lbs of bags and other film being recycled in 2007 alone [15] Each ton of recycled plastic bags saves the energy equivalent of 11 barrels of oil, although most bags are produced from natural gas derived stock.[16] In light of an Australian study showing more than 60% of bags are reused as bin liners and for other purposes,[17] the 7% recycling rate account for 17.5% of bags available for recycling.

Bag legislation

Bans

Plastic bags are either restricted or completely banned in more than 25 percent of the world.[18] Belgium, Italy (total ban since January 1, 2011), Ireland and Hong Kong have legislation discouraging the use and encouraging the recycling of plastic bags by imposing a fixed or minimum levy for the supply of plastic bags or obliging retailers to recycle.[19][20][21] In other jurisdictions, including three states and territories of Australia, Bangladesh, South Africa and Thailand, plastic bags are banned.[22][23]

In the United States bans were imposed on local level, starting with San Francisco in 2007. In 2008, Westport, Connecticut banned plastic bags in grocery stores. [18][24] In 2009, Edmond, Washington banned plastic bags at retail stores.[25] In 2010, Los Angeles County, Brownsville, Texas, Bethel, Alaska approved similar bans.[26] [27] In the first few months of 2011, bans went into effect in North Carolina’s Outerbanks Region, banning all plastic bags at all retailers. [28] Similar bans on municipality level were imposed in India, Mexico and UK.[19]

Taxes

The plastic bag levy introduced in Ireland in 2002, resulted in a reduction of over 90% in the issuing of plastic shopping bags;[29] the total reduction in plastic bag use was less than that due to increased use of commercial trash bin-liners in place of the free shopping bags previously used by many consumers. Sales of bin-liners have increased by 400% according to one industry source.[30] The "ban on free plastic bags" in China introduced in 2008 resulted in a reduction by two thirds.[31] In the United States, the five-cent tax levied on plastic bags in Washington, DC in 2010 resulted in a decrease in consumption from 22.5 million to 3 million bags in the first month alone.[32] A study issued by the non-profit group American for Tax Reform found that the District of Columbia’s five-cent bag tax had a disproportionate impact on the city’s poor and cost the city over 100 jobs. [33]

Recycling

Many cities and states in the United States - including California, New York, Chicago, Delaware and Baltimore - have addressed bag litter and landfill by enacting new recycling laws.[34][35][36][37][38]

See also

References

  1. ^ Environment Agency (2011). "Evidence: Life Cycle Assessment of Supermarket Carrier Bags" (PDF). Environment Agency. Retrieved 7 April 2011.
  2. ^ Irena Choi Stern (2011). "Greening Up by Cutting Down on Plastic Bags". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  3. ^ European Plastics News: Plastic T-Shirt Carrier Bag (1965)
  4. ^ a b Natural Resource Defense Council
  5. ^ Joan Lowy (2004). "Plastic left holding the bag as environmental plague". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved 1 December 2010.
  6. ^ http://www.usitc.gov/publications/701_731/pub4080.pdf
  7. ^ US Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, US Life Cycle Inventory Database
  8. ^ Notes from the Packaging Laboratory: Polylactic Acid – An Exciting New Packaging Material
  9. ^ The Guardian – biodegradable plastic bags carry more ecological harm than good
  10. ^ a b c John Roach (2003). "Are Plastic Grocery Bags Sacking the Environment?". National Geographic News. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
  11. ^ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0902_030902_plasticbags.html
  12. ^ "Planet Earth's new nemesis?". BBC News. 2002. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
  13. ^ "Marine litter - trash that kills" (PDF). United Nations Environment Programme. 2001. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
  14. ^ Brett Israel (2010). "Plastic bag found floating near Titanic shipwreck". Today. Retrieved 1 December 2010.
  15. ^ 2007 National Post-Consumer Recycled Plastic Bag & Film Report
  16. ^ Questions About Your Community: Shopping Bags: Paper or Plastic or . . .?
  17. ^ Waste and recycling. Environment.gov.au (2010-06-13). Retrieved on 2010-11-23.
  18. ^ a b Zev Yaroslavsky; Tim Shestek, Matthew Dodson; Giles Slade (Friday, 19 November 2010). "LA County Bans Plastic Bags" (audio) (Interview). Interviewed by Warren Olney. Retrieved 21 November 2010. {{cite interview}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |callsign= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |program= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ^ a b Rachel Cernansky (August 17, 2010). "How Many Cities Have a Ban on Plastic Bags?". Planet Green. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
  20. ^ "Environmental Levy Scheme on Plastic Shopping Bags". Government of Hong Kong SAR: Environmental Protection Department. 2009. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
  21. ^ "Plastic Bag Recycling". NYCWasteLe$$. NYC Department of Sanitation. 2010. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
  22. ^ Andrew Darby (November 12, 2010). "Ban on plastic bags spreads to Tasmania". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 18 November 2010.
  23. ^ Kathrine Mieszkowski (August 20, 2010). "Plastic bags are killing us". Salon. Retrieved 18 November 2010.
  24. ^ Ali Eaves (August 9, 2010). "States weigh bans on plastic grocery bags". Stateline. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
  25. ^ Lynn Thompson (28 July 2009). "Edmonds is first city in state to ban plastic grocery bags". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |access date= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  26. ^ "Bethel, Alaska bans plastic bags". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |access date= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  27. ^ Emma Perez-Treviño (5 January 2010). "Brownsville commission adopts ban on plastic bags". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |access date= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  28. ^ Erin James (1 October 2010). "North Carolina bans plastic bags at all businesses on Outer Banks". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |access date= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  29. ^ "Plastic Bags". Irish Government: Dept. of Environment, Heritage, and Local Government. 2007. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
  30. ^ Matthew Knight (November 16, 2007). "Plastic Bags Fly Into Environmental Storm". CNN.COM Technology. Retrieved 25 January 2011.
  31. ^ Xing, Xiufeng (2009). "Study on the Ban on Free Plastic Bags in China". Journal of Sustainable Development. 2 (1): 156–158. Retrieved 19 November 2010. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  32. ^ Brian Merchant (2010). "Plastic Bags Used in DC Drop From 22 Million to 3 Million a Month". Treehugger. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
  33. ^ "Impact of Bill 18-150 on the Economy of Washington, D.C." (PDF). The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University. 2011. Retrieved 08 February 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  34. ^ Assembly Bill No. 2449. Chapter 845
  35. ^ NYCWasteLe$: Plastic Bag Recycling – consumer info. Nyc.gov (2008-12-13). Retrieved on 2010-11-23.
  36. ^ Plastic Bag Recycling in Chicago. Chicagorecycling.org. Retrieved on 2010-11-23.
  37. ^ Governor Markell signs bill promoting plastic bag recycling. Governor.delaware.gov. Retrieved on 2010-11-23.
  38. ^ Plastic Bag Reduction. Cityservices.baltimorecity.gov. Retrieved on 2010-11-23.

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Plastic bags.
  • Selke, Susan. Packaging and the Environment, 1994, ISBN 1566761042
  • Selke, Susan. Plastics Packaging, 2004, ISBN 1569903727
  • Stillwell, E. J. Packaging for the Environment, A. D. Little, 1991, ISBN 0814450741
  • Scheirs, J. Polymer Recycling: Science, Technology and Applications, 1998, ISBN 0471970549
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