If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know how fanatical I can be about taxpayer costs of litter and garbage. Since I have started picking up litter again- well it just pisses me off the amount of plastic bags and waste still in the streets!
I Just Gotta Tell Ya
- Californians Against Waste estimate that Americans consume 84 billion plastic bags annually
- Californians themselves discard about 19 billion bags each year
- The average family of four uses 1,500 plastic sacks a year.
- 4 million trees were cut down in 1999 to produce 10 billion grocery bags for Americans. The production and shipping of the bags also contributes to global warming and air pollution
- Plastic bags cost consumers about $4 Billion a year in increased good costs.
Here Are Some Of The Costs:
- 8 billion plastic bags per year enter the waste stream in the US alone. A typical landfill costs more than twenty million dollars to build and millions more per year in order to maintain. Nearly all that money comes from Taxpayers.
- California alone estimates that landfilling plastic costs taxpayer more than $750 million per year (BEC)
- California landfilled more than 17 million cubic yards of plastic or about a quarter of everything landfilled (BEC)
- Eventually the landfills will leak and can cause immense environmental damage. There will be large costs associated with cleaning up these messes in the future. Plastics in general makes up between 14 and 28% by volume of waste in general. Around the world over 200,000 plastic bags are dumped in landfills every hour (PlanetArk.com).
- City of San Francisco estimates that it alone spends about 8.5 million dollars on cleanup and disposal of littered plastic bags
- CalTrans, the agency responsible for California’s roadways, spent 16 million dollars on cleaning up litter on freeways. This number excludes the work done by volunteers or businesses participating in the adopt-a-highway program.
Bottom line- Get a reusable bag, refuse plastic bags at all stores, recycle and pick up any and all plastic bags floating on the streets.
Resources:
If I don’t get at least some plastic grocery bags, then I end up buying plastic trash bags. Any suggested solution?
Barbara, buy reusable bags, and yes, what I do is use packaging from items such as cereal, bread to put into small trash containers, This works great. Large trash containers, can use larger plastic that come wrapped around toilet paper and other bulk purchased items. I have a whole drawer full of coffee bags, bread bags, worn out plastic bags, tortilla bags, even the cereal boxes are reused as trash liners. You would be surprised at how much plastic you collect that can be reused. I have even picked up cleaner plastic bags off the street, rinsed and reused. The key for anything you buy, is 1.) Can this be given a second chance 2.) Can this be recycled
The other part that I found out, is the only place you need trash liners is in an area like the kitchen, where you might have gunky stuff. Trash liners in bathrooms, under desks don’t make any sense, what is generally thrown away is paper products which can be recycled.
Thanks for the suggestions about what to use in place of plastic grocery or Glad bags for kitchen trash (never use liners anywhere else anyway). Now I have a suggestion for you about paper towels, as I am always looking for a 2nd use for things before tossing. At work, after I dry my CLEAN hands on a length of paper towel, I neatly fold it up (it dries very quickly), and when I accumulate a pile, I take them home and use for wiping up spills, small cleaning jobs, etc. This, plus using washable rags, has really cut down on the # of rolls of paper towels we consume.
During a long career in the textile industry, I became astonished by the waste. Every sample came in an individual plastic bag that is immediately ripped opened and dumped in the trash. This inspired me to start my own business making handbags that are handwoven (low carbon footprint) with recycled plastic bags. I welcome and would appreciate if you all would send me your CLEAN plastic bags: all colors and sizes, solid and printed welcome. Please contact me if interested at handbags@sheilaodessey.com Thanks