A plastic bag or plastic pouch is used for packaging purpose
for many different purposes. Nowadays the use of plastic bags is increasing day
by day. This is due to them being less costly, easy to carry, light in weight
and able to hold liquid, solid and gels. Plastic can even be used to create
closed system which helps in keeping food fresh for long periods of time.
Plastic bags are reusable and can be used again and again,
which also keeps them being a non biodegradable substance. Plastic is globally
consumed on a very large scale but after some year’s people are starting to
notice some big issues associated with plastic bags. These issues are as
follows…
Garbage: Plastic
bags are cheap and so easy to use-n-throw which results in a large percentage
of garbage belonging to our plastic. Plastic is an artificial product which is
not easy to get degradable, thus it also
makes a cover over degradable things which affect the normal cycle.
Animal
Life: Animals are either
vegetarian or non vegetarian, but not a single type of animal has ability to
digest plastic. As plastic is a product which is developed chemically. After reaching the stomach plastic will stay
there as it is not digestible, and with time it will affect the digestion and
then may lead to death. Birds and street animals do try to eat garbage and a
unintentionally intake plastic will most likely result in death.
Environment: Global
warming, plastic is one of the major causes of global warming this can be
explained with the diagram seen above. From the diagram we can predict how
dangerous plastic bags can be.
So what’s the solution you might ask? Ban plastic bags
completely is a difficult task because we are using it widely in below fields.
Medical: Most of
the medical equipments come in plastic bags to protect them from various rays
and bacteria. So we are using plastic bags packaging for medical purposes for a
long period of time.
Food: In the food
industry plastic bags helps in the transportation of milk products, vegetables,
package food, and many more things for retail purposes. Bulk transport plastic
is commonly used also.
Construction:
Earlier to transport construction materials like plastic was not used
which cause losses. As in extreme whether plastic can protect raw materials
from damage and can also allow easy movement and store facility
Packaging: For
transportation and packaging purposes plastic bags can be used. This helps in
damage free and the transportation of products, this also works in export and
import of products as plastic is highly durable.
As it’s not possible to stop using plastic bags in above
fields and there are so many other fields where plastic is used widely. An alternate
solution can be good quality plastic or recyclable plastic or organic shopping
bags of good material which we can use over and over again, these can also be
seen as an accessory! If you use standard plastic which can be recycling
further you can save earth and try to reduce global warming. Many countries
have already banned cheap quality plastic and switched to environment friendly plastic bags which we will all benefit from. So come on, do your bit and think
next time you are chucking away your plastic bag.