Celebrate International Plastic Bag Free Day Every July 3

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Do you still let stores pack your purchases in those flimsy single-use plastic bags? Or do you choose paper when you have a choice? Or have you joined the reusable bag movement?

If you’re still choosing plastic you may want to reconsider for International Plastic Bag Free Day on July 3.

The goal of this day is to raise awareness of just how bad plastic bags (and really most plastics) are for the environment and encourage people to find alternatives.

Most plastic bags take hundreds of years to degrade, and many aren’t even easy to recycle. They collect in the ocean, affecting wildlife and even making their way back into the food we eat. Yuck!

International Plastic Bag Free Day started as part of the Bag Free World initiative, organized by Zero Waste Europe, gaia, and Fundacio Prevencio de Residus i Consum.

 

Plastic Bag Trivia

Did you know these things about plastic bags?

• Most plastic bags are used for no more than 25 minutes.
• Depending on the kind of plastic they’re made from, they take at least 100 years to degrade. Some stick around for as many as 500 years. That means your great-great-great-great (and even a few more greats) grandchildren could come across a bag you throw away today.
• The United States uses about 380 billion disposable plastic bags each year. Only about 1% of these get recycled.
• Every minute the world uses 1 million plastic bags
• The vast majority of disposable plastic bags are made of crude oil. This is a finite resource that has many more important uses.

 

 

Plastics and the Environment

Most of us (if not all of us) have seen plastic bags flying down the street, tangled up in tree branches and floating in ponds and rivers. Besides being ugly and irritating, all those bags damage the world we live in:

• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a giant clump of plastics roughly the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean.
• Even biodegradable plastic bags don’t decompose readily in landfills. Some degradable bags need UV exposure to break down, but if they’re buried in a landfill that can’t happen.
• Microplastics are tiny bits of plastics 1 mm or smaller. Fish think they’re food and eat them. Then we eat the fish. Which means we’re eating plastic … Yum.
• Many plastic bags, when they finally do degrade, don’t disappear completely. Instead they turn into microplastics. Some beaches have a surprisingly large amount of microplastics mixed in with the sand. We don’t see it, but it’s there.
• “Micro-beads” in body washes and other products are another kind of microplastic. They’re also non-biodegradable and often are too small to filter out of the water supply. Several countries have banned the use of micro-beads in cosmetics and other products.

 

In the US, Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) introduced the Microbead-Free Water Act of 2014 on June 18, 2014. It proposes banning “the distribution of a cosmetic that contains synthetic plastic microbeads” nationwide starting January 1, 2018. Although it didn’t pass in 2014, it was reintroduced and passed (with some changes) in 2015.

Scroll down for some ideas on celebrating this unofficially green holiday.

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Celebrating International Plastic Bag Free Day

Go plastic bag free, at least for the day.

When you see how easy it is, you may just swear off the things forever.

• Reusable bags rarely tear, spilling your groceries all over the floor
• Reusable bags usually hold more, so you really can get all your groceries/treasures into the house in just one or two trips.
• Reusable bags are prettier than cheap plastic.

 

Many stores even give you a small credit (often 5 cents) on your purchase for every reusable bag you bring in.

Consider ways to reuse the plastic bags you do take (and the ones you have stuffed under the sink):

• Line your bathroom waste basket.
• Pick up your dog’s poop (most dog owners we know already do this).
• Use for the poop and clumped litter you scoop out of your cats’ poop boxes.
• Use as cushioning when storing or shipping things.
• Keep a few in your car to hold wet swimsuits, muddy shoes, etc.

 

You can even find all kinds of crafty uses for them (some of which involve turning them into reusable bags. Pretty cool!):

• Plarn. Plarn stands for “plastic yarn,” and you can make it out of plastic grocery bags. Then you can use the plarn to make all kinds of cute and useful things, like this Plarn Market Bag or one of these Plarn amigurumi buddies (you do need to know how to crochet for these crafts).
• Plastic bag beads. Then turn them into jewelry.
• Coasters from layers of fused bags.
• Flowers.
• Crinkle toys.

 

You can find dozens more ideas by searching for “plastic bag crafts.” Bags, flower pots, pompoms and so much more, all using plastic bags!

If you already have more plastic bags stored around your house than you can ever use (even for all these fun crafts), collect them and return them for recycling. Many grocery stores now have bins where you can deposit bags, and they can be from any store.

Zero Waste Europe invites you to submit your stories or opinions about going bag free.

If you’re organizing an event for this day, let Bag Free World know about your event. They’ll include it on their map.

What will you be doing for International Plastic Bag Free Day this year?

 

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