Plastic Bags a Major Problem for Marine Wildlife
A new study by Dalhousie University in Canada sheds light on an alarming threat to marine life and plastic debris. The study looked at the necropsy reports of more than 400 leatherback turtles, finding plastic in the digestive systems of more than one-third of the animals. Plastic bags were the most prevalent finding, though balloon fragments, fishing lines, spoons and candy wrappers were among the other materials found.
The leatherback turtle is a critically endangered species, with approximately 25,000 nesting females remaining. It is their main diet of jellyfish that caused scientists to focus on the traces of plastic in their systems. Mistaking the increased amounts of plastic bags drifting in the currents for drifting jellyfish is causing the leatherbacks harm.
Turtles often mistake plastic bags for their main diet, jellyfish, due to similar appearance and movement in ocean currents. Photo: dep.state.fl.us
The recently released Ocean Conservancy report, A Rising Tide of Ocean Debris and What We Can Do About It, found that plastic bags accounted for 12 percent of all marine debris collected during their 23rd annual International Coastal Cleanup. Plastic bottles and plastic caps and lids were also prevalent at six and eight percent respectively.
Synthetic materials have replaced organic materials as the most common component of marine debris in recent years. Plastics, for example, are often light weight and highly buoyant, allowing them to travel far distances with ocean currents.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), “Marine litter is one of the most pervasive and solvable pollution problems plaguing the world’s oceans and waterways.”
A simple solution to the plastic bag issue is, of course, reusable shopping bags. Although plastic bag recycling is on the rise, the majority of the EPA-estimated 90 billion plastic bags used in the U.S. each year are not recycled. An increased awareness of the effects of plastic bags have caused many states and countries to implement plastic bag related legislation. For example, when Ireland levied a fee on each plastic bag used by consumers, single-use plastic bag consumption dropped by 90 percent.
Many retailers, like Ikea and Whole Foods, have made great strides in reducing plastic bag consumption by consumers. In fact, a Canadian supermarket was able to divert 328 million pounds of plastic bags from landfills in 2008. With reusable bag use, Loblaw Companies Ltd. aims to divert more than one billion plastic bags and 70 percent of store-generated waste from landfills.
- Ocean Conservancy. http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=icc_report.
- Emily Sohn. Discovery News.(04/09/2009). Leatherback Turtles Consuming Plastic http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/09/leatherback-turtles.html.
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
Ken Holmes
posted on April 17th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Litter is indeed a huge problem in the world, but it won’t be stopped by banning or taxing just one of the MANY products that are littered. Litter is a behavior issue, and outlawing bags will do nothing to stop this tide. I’d like to see someone try to ban soda cans, or fast food wrappers.
It’s also interesting that the picture accompaning this story is the ONLY picture on the internet showing a turtle and a plastic bag. This picture has been used thousands of times. You would think that if this were such a big issue, there would be more pictures.
On to other misleading facts presented here. Ireland’s tax did reduce GROCERY CARRYOUT BAG usage by 90%, but many people were reusing those bags (just like you do), as trash can liners, pet waste pickup, wet messes, etc. After the tax went into effect, sales of packaged bags (which are usually larger and heavier) skyrocketed. One supplier’s sales went up 400%. The net gain or loss is miniscule if anything. The real winner was Ireland’s government collecting revenue from the tax.
Let’s do a little math. The Canadian 328 million pounds of grocery bags listed here is approximately 19 billion bags, which at an average use of 500 bags per person per year equals 37 million people. Actually higher than the entire population of Canada. Regardless of the math on that score, this number HAS to assume that ALL bags went directly into landfills, were not reused, and were not recycled. This number could only be a gross exageration.
90 billion bags not recycled can also only be an estimate comparing manufacturing to recycling, and doesn’t account for the bags that get reused before they are disposed of. And even if that much went directly into landfills, it’s not by any means a staggering number. About 750 thousand tons (sounds like a lot, huh?), which is less than one third of one percent of the estimated 250 MILLION tons of garbage going into US landfills annually.
Want another green fact? Items in most landfills are deliberately protected from decaying. When this stuff biodegrades, it gives off harmful greenhouse gasses, and leaches chemicals into the groundwater. Plastic is inert in this kind of landfill. Another landfill process gaining popularity is burning the trash to convert the energy into electricity. The energy that can be reclaimed from a plastic bag through incineration is nearly 100% of the energy used to make it.
Whole Foods and Ikea have received a lot of publicity for their “banning” of bags from their stores. But lets look closer. They used to give bags away for free, and the five to ten cent cost per bag was rolled into their markup. Now, by selling a bag for a buck or two, they make a minimum of fifty cents per bag they sell, AND they certainly haven’t lowered prices to account for the costs they no longer have. I suspect it’s an entirely financial decision with the marketing bonus of being able to appear “green”.
When you do the math, if you know how to do math, plastic bags always come up on top.
kaycee bowen
posted on April 20th, 2009 at 8:47 am
recycling is a great importance in our enviorment. only if everyone would do it.
Alex
posted on April 21st, 2009 at 4:44 am
Nice to see that real action is being taken here by Loblaw and its store banners.
Places like Walmart are doing nothing except a few store modifications just to claim pr for the company image.
Good work Loblaw. Action is better than talk.
Battle of the Bag « Bay Area Wildlife Blog
posted on April 29th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
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