by T Marie Allman

Created on: September 15, 2010   Last Updated: September 17, 2010

It is a well-established truth that people love convenience.  We love it so well we are willing and able to brush aside the negative consequences of those conveniences.  One of the most pervasive and costly of our modern amenities is the plastic bag.  This seemingly innocuous element of our daily lives is too environmentally damaging for us to ignore any longer. 

In the 1970’s when the world was a far more innocent place, consumers were introduced to an innovative new product.  Plastic ‘use-and-toss’ bags were touted as easy, practical and inexpensive.  They were an instant success.  It was not long before grocery stores, department stores and take-out food places were using them for everything.  Two factors that made them so popular were their convenience and that they were ‘free.’  The popular belief that the bags are free has resulted in mass overuse.  Baggers often place only one or two items in a single bag.  What people have failed to realize is that while they weren’t paying for the bags at checkout, the costs of the bags were quietly piling up. 

Consumers use between 500 billion and one trillion plastic bags every year.  The cost of annual plastic bag production is around four billion, a cost that trickles down to consumers in the form of higher prices.  Spending more money at the grocery store is not the only price we pay.  We need to consider the environmental costs as well when up to three percent, or several millions, of all plastic bags become loose as litter each year. 

The plastic the bags are made of can take as long as one-thousand years to degrade.  They sit in landfills where they slowly release toxins. Bags are broken into pieces that find their way into our soil and water.  In the oceans plastic bag bits absorb toxins such as PCB’s and DDT’s which cause harm to anything that eats them.  Approximately 100,000 marine animals die every year as the result of eating a piece of a plastic bag.  The pieces act as plugs in the animals’ intestines or choke them.  Land animals also ingest the plastic which can lead to their deaths.  

Another downside to plastic use-and-toss bags are the way they are produced.  Non-renewable resources are used in the production of the bags, including natural gas and millions of barrels of oil.  The processes used to manufacture the bags release

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