Sustainability and Politics: L.A. Moves Closer to Banning Single-Use Plastic and Paper Bags

Thursday, October 13, 2011

L.A. Moves Closer to Banning Single-Use Plastic and Paper Bags - Encino, CA Patch

L.A. Moves Closer to Banning Single-Use Plastic and Paper Bags - Encino, CA Patch

Good. As per: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_are_plastic_bags_so_bad_for_the_environment

Plastic bags are bad for the environment because with all the growing plastic bags (which are not biodegradable) blowing around, anything can ingest it.
Animals and everything. also the materials to make plastic bags contribute to the global emissions.
Plastic degradation at sea takes between 45-1000 years.
Usually though, plastic bags don't biodegrade. They photo-degrade. Which means they break up into smaller pieces of plastic until eventually becoming plastics dusts.
Plastic which ends up in the sea (through garbage dumps at seaside, river flow etc) winds up becoming food for marine life that mistake it for food especially of the jellyfish variety.
Plastics bags have been found in the stomachs of endangered animals including the leatherback turtles, harbour porpoises and black footed albatross. Ingestion (swallowing) of plastic bags can result in blockages, internal infections, starvation and death.
These occur in deserts as well (garbage dumpsites in deserts) where camels and other desert wildlife have been found dead with plastic ingestion.
If animals don't die from plastic ingestion, they pollute the food chain instead. After all, we are the ones eating fish and meat.
Moreover, it takes about 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million non-degradable plastic bags. And we use 4 trillion to 5 trillion plastic bags worldwide annually. That's using up oil sources without recycling them.
Recycling cost of plastic bags: it takes 250 bags to make 1 kilo of plastic - making recycling economically unviable. Furthermore, plastic is made of recycled materials, making them difficult to be further recycled. Burning plastic results in air pollution and toxic ash. "

No comments:

Post a Comment

I've been thinking some about the Winter Solstice, the Mayan end of the 30,000-year-cycle on 12/21/12.

What if in fact the world did end? Even though this probably will not happen, to live consciously it is honest for us to take a bit of an inventory.

Am I happy with how I've lived my life? (Yesterday, I thought mostly yes, with some areas for improvement, as below.) Are there changes I would make?
Would I have tried to forgive those that were hostile or disappointing to me?
Would I spend more time with those I loved the most, telling them that, feeling that more?
Would I be happier, grateful for what I have, what I've experienced, the joy, the beauty in this world?

Maybe the answer is yes to all of the above.
So this time can serve as a point of rebirth for all of us. If we think about it.

Because somewhere along the line I realized I think maybe mankind deserves it. !
The way we are killing each other, killing the planet.
How selfish we are, and snotty to those around us. Petty, competitive. Why is this? Do we have to behave this way? (I say no, it greatly detracts and misdirects energy from the full-time celebration in which we could engage, the great multi-cultural, multi-rhythmic dance we can sustain here.)

Maybe God or the Great Universe is fed up, and will pull the rug out from under us.
Don't think I can say we could blame Him/Her/It.

But it probably won't happen. (Probably not! This time.)

Still we are finite on this ride.

It is a time to think, am I happy with how I've lived my life?
Hopefully most of us can say yes.

For the part of us that have a little worry, a little sadness....
This is the time to be present.
This is the time to be the person you want to be, that can die at peace, that can hope to every day be able to look yourself and the Universe in the eye and say, how beautiful, smiling, and thank you. Let's do that.