Why should we say goodbye to plastic bags?

More than two years have passed since the citizen power got the Mexico City Congress to ban the marketing and distribution of various single-use plastics, first of all plastic bags. However, even this prohibition does not materialize in the daily life of the city, which means that plastic pollution continues to be one of the great environmental emergencies facing the planet.

In this blog we want to remind you of some facts about why we should say goodbye to plastic bags:

1. Due to their proliferation, bags are considered one of the most problematic plastics

It is estimated that each year globally, between one and five billion plastic bags are consumed, which is equivalent to almost 10 million plastic bags per minute. If they were tied to each other, they would go around the world seven times an hour and cover an area twice the size of France, according to data from the electronic site "The world counts", taken up by the United Nations in its report " Single use plastics. A roadmap for its sustainability”.

A 2020 Greenpeace Mexico study found that of the plastic waste found on the coasts of eight Mexican protected natural areas (surface, water column and seabed), 8% corresponds to bags. The foregoing makes this article the one with the greatest presence among the waste found, surpassing bottles (6%), fishing equipment (6%), caps (7%), food and beverage product labels. (4%) and Styrofoam disposables (1%) (59% of the pieces were unidentifiable fragments and 9% other types of plastic).

These figures show how plastic bags, due to their widespread use, generate large amounts of waste that flood our ecosystems.

1. They take more than a century to degrade

Single-use plastics have an ephemeral useful life but as waste they generate enormous amounts of pollution for years. Although there are no exact estimates, according to the previously cited UN report, plastic bags take thousands of years to decompose.

Another Greenpeace report assures that although there are estimates about how long some products could take to degrade, these are made from laboratory tests that are established with certain conditions of pressure, temperature, humidity, among other variables. Under these conditions, it was determined that a low-density polyethylene plastic bag could take 150 years to degrade, depending on its thickness, size, and even color.

1. They threaten marine life

According to data contained in the report "The impact of plastic pollution in Mexican Natural Protected Areas", prepared by Greenpeace, it is estimated that each year more than one hundred thousand marine mammals die from this cause, more than one million seabirds , as well as one in three sea turtles, in addition to other species that are affected by production and consumption models that urgently need to be rooted out.

Likewise, in a study on the impact of contamination by microplastics in fish in Mexico that Greenpeace carried out, it was also documented that in Mexico one out of every five fish of commercial value contains microplastics in its viscera, which consequently could affect the health of fish. people and jobs based on tourism and fishing, etc.

1. They are difficult to recycle

While in Mexico there was between 2001 and 2012 there was an increase of 232% of plastic waste, it was observed that at the national level more than 90 percent of these have not been recycled, according to the report "Recycling, the fallacy of the industry in the fight against plastic pollution”, from Greenpeace. The foregoing shows that although a plastic product is recyclable, such as bags, in practice this does not guarantee that it will actually be recycled.

Recycling is important but it is not what is going to solve plastic pollution, since the percentages of recycling in the world (9%) and in Mexico (6.07%) are very low. For this reason, it is important to reduce our consumption instead of betting on post-consumer solutions that only seek to manage waste that has already been generated. Let's not forget that the best waste is the one that is not generated.

1. They aggravate social disasters

According to the United Nations, due to their lightness and globular design, plastic bags are easily carried through the air to end up on land and sea. Plastic bags can block waterways and exacerbate social disasters. In 1988, sewerage deficiencies resulting from drains clogged by plastic bag debris contributed to devastating floods in Bangladesh, causing several deaths while two-thirds of the country was submerged under water.

Let's demand laws that ban single-use plastics! Join up: