How Many Sea Animals Die From Plastic Bags

The Problem With Plastic Bags

Plastic bags beginning out as fossil fuels and cease upwards as deadly waste product in landfills and the ocean. Birds often error shredded plastic bags for food, filling their stomachs with toxic debris. For hungry body of water turtles, it's nearly impossible to distinguish between jellyfish and floating plastic shopping bags. Fish eat thousands of tons of plastic a year, transferring it up the food chain to bigger fish and marine mammals. Microplastics are too consumed by people through nutrient and in the air. It's estimated that globally, people consume the equivalent of a credit card of plastic every week,^one and it'due south expected that there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050.ⁱⁱ

The fossil fuel manufacture plans toincrease plastic production by 40% over the side by side decade. These oil giants are chop-chop edifice petrochemical plants across the United states to turn fracked gas into plastic. This means more plastic in our oceans, more greenhouse gas emissions and more toxic air pollution, which exacerbates the climate crisis that often disproportionately affects communities of color.

ten Facts Nigh Unmarried-Utilise Plastic Bags

Plastic Bag Facts

Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year, which crave 12 million barrels of oil to industry.³
Americans use an boilerplate of 365 plastic numberless per person per year. People in Denmark use an average of iv plastic bags per year.⁴
It only takes about 14 plastic numberless for the equivalent of the gas required to drive ane mile.⁵
In 2015 about 730,000 tons of plastic bags, sacks and wraps were generated (including PS, PP, HDPE, PVC & LDPE) in the The states, but more than 87% of those items are never recycled, winding upward in landfills and the body of water.^six
Well-nigh 34% of dead leatherback bounding main turtle have ingested plastics.⁷
The plastic typically used in bottles, bags and nutrient containers contains chemical additives such as endocrine disruptors, which are associated with negative health effects including cancers, birth defects and allowed organization suppression in humans and wildlife.⁸
It takes ane,000 years for a plastic pocketbook to dethrone in a landfill. Unfortunately, the bags don't suspension down completely but instead photo-dethrone, becoming microplastics that blot toxins and continue to pollute the environs.^nine
Chemical leachates from plastic bags impair the growth of the earth's most important microorganisms, Prochlorococcus, a marine bacterium that provides one tenth of the world's oxygen.¹⁰
At that place were 1.9 million grocery bags and other plastic bags collected in the 2018 International Coastal Cleanup.^xi
In 2014 California became the beginning state to ban plastic bags. Every bit of March 2018, 311 local bag ordinances have been adopted in 24 states, including Hawaii.¹² As of July 2018, 127 countries have adopted some grade of legislation to regulate plastic bags.¹³

Ways You Can Help

Support the Break Costless From Plastic Pollution Human activity, which would phase out throwaway plastics, hold the industry responsible for its waste product and pause construction on new plastic-making plants. Inquire your members of Congress to cosponsor this crucial bill aimed at tackling the plastic pollution crunch head on.
Practice waste product prevention kickoff and choose to reuse whenever possible. Make sure to always bring a reusable bag when shopping. By regularly washing your bags and drying them thoroughly, you lot can reuse them over and over.¹⁴
One company, Formosa Plastics, is trying to build a mega-polluting petrochemical plant in Louisiana that would damage a Blackness customs, degrade wetlands, and deepen the plastic pollution crunch. Sign the petition request President Biden to revoke Formosa Plastics' federal permit, which is currently suspended and under reevaluation by the Army Corps of Engineers.
President Biden tin can address the plastic pollution crisis rapidly through executive activity. Demand that he take assuming action on plastics for our health, climate and wild fauna.

Learn more about how plastic pollution threatens wildlife.

Source: https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/sustainability/plastic_bag_facts.html

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