I know most of you will straight away think, quot;plastic bags! of course, duh!quot; well, yes, more of them are used than plastic bottles. but at least with plastic bags, you get a choice whether you want a plastic bag, a paper bag, a cloth bag or no bags at all right? but with plastic bottles, you only get the choice of plastic bottles. Lots of countries and cities have already banned plastic bags, but I don't see any headlines on the news about places like china banning plastic bottles, and China is basically the biggest place where plastic bottles are used!! so my arguement is, why aren't people banning plastic bottles too? what fills the landfill more and why don't we have a choice between plastic bottles?
It's like comparing apples and oranges. Plastic bags aren't used the same way a plastic bottle is. You can carry your groceries out of the store without using any bag, you can't carry juice or other fluids without a container. If you are talking about bottled water, that is a whole separate issue. A few large companies are draining several water systems and habitats and communities are suffering. There is no need to buy water that is in a plastic bottle. Other fluids, like juice, olive oil and other foods need to be put into a container and plastic is lighter and less breakable so that is a good choice. You ask why don't we have a choice when it comes to plastic bottles and I say we do. When it comes to water, I use my sink, when it comes to food we often have choices, glass, cans or plastic bottles, some items can also be found frozen etc. There is also non processed foods which would need no container. There are huge lawsuits agains both Nestle and Pepsi for the damage they are doing to water systems in several states. Plastic bottles do create litter and can damage wildlife and pollute our oceans, but they don't have the same fly away risk as a plastic bag.
Nope. I think bags are more of a problem. Just for the simple fact that some states like NY make up for it by requiring everyone to recycle their bottles into those machines. If they made every state like this...that would improve things dramatically!
It is popular - and easy - to demonize plastic bags. But plastic bags actually have a smaller carbon footprint than paper bags. They take less resources and create less wasteful byproducts to manufacture, and they take up less room in a landfill. And far less than a cloth bag. You have to use a cloth bag over a dozen times to even out its carbon footprint, and that does not include washing the reusable bag, which of course, is necessary to be sanitary. Plastic water bottles - well, you have to use a stainless steel refillable water bottle 500 times to even out its carbon footprint to plastic bottles. I don t know about you, but my stainless steel water bottles don t last that long. We too often jump on the bandwagon without getting all the facts.
Plastic bags are worse because they are less easily recyclable, more easily blown long distances by the wind, and more harmful to wildlife--especially sealife. There are plenty of alternatives to plastic bottles. You can buy most drinks in aluminum cans or glass bottles (if you look around a bit). Dry products are often distributed in cardboard boxes. Next time you go shopping, vote with your pocketbook. Buy as many products as you can in glass bottles or cardboard boxes instead of plastic bottles. If a product that you want isn't available in any form other than a plastic bottle, contact the company and let them know that you want an alternative packaging.
Plastics are worse for the environment for many reasons: First they are made of petroleum products. The drilling and production of petroleum products is very harmful to the environment. Also many areas will only recycle plastics with a 1 or 2 number on them. The plastics with a 3-7 will often times find themselves into the regular trash. depending on your recycling program, if you have plastics with a 3-7 in with the 1's and 2's your recyclers will just send the whole batch to the landfill rather than spend the time to separate them. Finally plastics use many toxic chemicals to produce and to recycle. Glass is 100% recyclable and does not use any toxic chemical to produce or recycle. I think there needs to be a move back to glass bottles. They are much more friendly to the environment and are not as dependent on fossil fuels to produce.
