Every year Millions and Millions of metric tons of plastic end up in Ocean as their ultimate destination. Plastic bags and various single use plastics start out as fossil fuels and end up as deadly waste in landfills and the ocean. For hungry sea animals, it’s impossible to differentiate between jellyfish and floating plastic shopping bags. Fishes eat thousands of tons of plastic a year, transferring it up the food chain to bigger fish and marine mammals and then to Human beings.
Worldwide shoppers use around 500 Billion of single use plastic bags per year, whereas the average American family takes home 1500 Plastic shopping bags home per year. But the fact is only 1 percent of plastic bags are returned to recycling center and rest all are making it to the landfills and then to oceans. It can take few hundreds of years for these plastic bags to breakup and those doesn’t break down, turn into polymers and toxic chemicals and approximately 100,000 marine creatures die a year from plastic entanglement. Even though the life expectancy of these plastic bags is hundreds of years before they break down, the average actual usage of these bags is only 12 minutes.
Despite all of this, plastic bags are in almost every home because retail giants continue to use them for nearly every purchase made in their stores and these stores have to spend around $4 Billion every year.
Few countries are taking measures to reduce the usage of single use plastics but it’s a very long way to go unless the awareness comes with the consumer and prefers to carry “Re-usable shopping bag” or “Environment friendly bags”.