Why switch to reusable organic cotton bags?
Only in the USA., more than 100 billion plastic bags are used each year. From 300 to 700 bags per person, which requires 12 million barrels of oil for its manufacture. The shelf life of a plastic bag is only 12 minutes when it takes 500-1000 years to decompose into microplastics. Plastics do not disappear. They were designed to last forever and yet in this case we only use them for a few minutes. So what about all those many plastic bags that the planet can’t digest? Approximately only 1-3% of plastic bags are recycled according to Waste Management, one part ends up in landfills as garbage and the other part ends up in our oceans and bodies of water. This utter nonsense is turning our oceans into plastic soup, our land is strangling, and the health of all beings living on earth and future generations are at risk. There are an estimated 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile in the sea that is killing 100,000 sea creatures and turtles and 1 million seabirds a year.
More than 700 different species, some endangered, die each year after becoming entangled in plastic or ingesting it. Because plastics take a long time to decompose, when animals die, they remain in the environment and continue to kill new species. Finally, this plastic is degraded by the action of waves, heat or UV rays and turns into microplastics that are more dangerous than the material itself. And why are you wondering? Microplastics act as sponges for persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) substances. (PBTs) resist degradation and persist for years or even decades and can biomagnify, increasing the risk throughout the marine food web, including humans. Fish eat thousands of tons of plastic a year, which is transferred by larger fish and marine mammals to the food chain, and microplastics also come to our table in the fish, molluscs and crustaceans we eat. Every year, Americans consume at least 70,000 microplastics.
Nanoparticles of plastic are also in the air that we breathe and absorb toxic chemicals and harmful bacteria. They can also remain suspended in the air for long periods and can travel long distances. Research has shown that synthetic textiles are the primary source of microplastics in the air in the form of fibers. They also contribute to microplastic contamination in aquatic environments. For their part, the plastic bags deposited in the soil make the soil less fertile. Since they do not dissolve, they break into smaller and smaller pieces, slowly releasing toxic chemicals that some animals use as a resource.
Finally, when the plastic burns, they release toxic chemicals that settle in the soil, surface water, and plants. The convenience of plastics is not worth the many risks that these carry.