Plastic Bags or Not?

Supermarkets are full of grocery items like milk and eggs. At the checkout stand, the cashier asked me, “Would you like these things in paper or plastic?” Why did she ask me this? The answer is this: in the United States, customers have the opportunity to choose whether to use recyclable paper bags or durable but not recyclable plastics ones. It has been estimated that there are one trillion plastic bags in the world, and when it comes to these bags, especially the kind used in grocery stores, they are not generally recyclable. Despite the fact that plastic bags can be placed in “recycled garbage” receptacles, they are still a problem because they contribute to economic and environmental concerns and it takes more than a 1,000 years for a plastic bag to decompose.

In 1977, a North Carolina inventor by the name of Gordon Dancy invented a compact, grocery-style plastic bag. Dancy did this in response to the logging of trees in tropical countries, economic inflation, and the public’s heightened environmental consciousness, especially in light of the first celebration of Earth Day in 1969. The plastic bags he developed were effective enough to hold all kinds of grocery items, particularly milk and eggs, and to allow them to be transported safely and securely. In addition, plastic bag were considered an economical tool not just for companies seeking lower costs on transportation and commerce, but also for supermarkets, which need to keep large quantities of bags on hand. According to the Plastic Board of the American Chemistry Council, a plastic bag, with different sizes, weighs less starting at four ounce and can hold up to 17 lbs. of necessities compared to a one-sized paper bag that can hold up to ten pounds of stuff. Also, transporting plastic bags to stores like supermarket can be delivered in just one truck compared to seven trucks to transport them. With these factors in mind, what is the problem with plastic bags?

After close examination, one can see that there are a number of disadvantages to using plastic bags. In particular, plastic bags are derived from a chemical called polyethylene. Polyethylene is an organic chemical compound composed of carbon and hydrogen atoms. It also contains oil-based products, which add flexibility and durability to plastic grocery bags. However, polyethylene is also considered a toxic material, thus rendering bags toxic, despite the minimal amount of polyethylene present in them. Those minimal amounts of toxicity in polyethylene can still have a carcinogenic effect on humans and may also affect food-based products when they come in contact with the bags. Not only are the bags somewhat carcinogenic, they are rendered non-biodegradable if they contain these chemicals; when a plastic bag ends up in the landfill, it will not decay. In fact, it takes more than a 1,000 years for a single plastic grocery bag to decompose. Compare this to a paper bag, which will last only one day.