Last year, when I went to a sea side to enjoy with my family I somehow felt that things weren’t the same. First of all, it was really hard to find place to sit and relax. We had to remove all bottles, chips wrappers and poly bags with our hands to get some neat space to sit down. Instead of enjoying the scenic beauty we were finding way to get rid of those plastic bags that were flying in wind.  When I dived in the water, the first thing I came across was a floating plastic bottle.

Everyday plastic bags are destroying the only planet we have. Plastic bags are a pollutant of our water, can clog storm drains (potentially leading towards flooding), and choke our wildlife. This is in addition to the environmental and natural resource impacts. It can take anywhere from 400 to 1000 years for a plastic bag to be completely degraded in the environment. This is crucial for oceans, where plastic bags make up almost 90 percent of all manmade waste. They pollute the land masses as well. If you think that paper bags are better than plastic bags for the environment, reconsider. Although paper bags are biodegradable they don’t make good additions to the landfill. They are also difficult to make because they require the use of trees. For an eco-friendly bag, the best choice is to use a reusable bag. Use your reusable bag everywhere you go and bring it back again and again.

As of now we might not realize what damage we’re doing to mother Earth but trust me the consequences are really bad. We all know that plastic bags are made from harmful chemicals, which cannot be decomposed for many years. It lies there in the landfill. Plastic bags and bottles are made from poor quality of polypropylene. They become brittle in water and start to fall apart. The plastic pieces get swallowed by aquatic animals because they think it is food. It gets stuck in their digestive system blocking the passage and thereby killing them.

Plastic when burned produces smoke, which includes harmful toxins, which is hazardous for lungs. This is the reason why many people suffer from breathing problems. Even worse, to prepare plastic items petroleum is used. This is complete wastage of petroleum because plastic bags and bottle aren’t reused. If we control usage of plastic in our life then petroleum can be saved for fulfilling the cooking needs of many houses.

Many stores have already started using paper bags instead of plastic because they know that these bags will end up in the garbage. However, the point here is – are these paper bags useful? Will they be able to carry heavy items? Well, not really. That’s why some grocery stores and shopping malls have started providing reusable bags, which are made of good quality fiber. You can also purchase online recycled bags by customearthpromos.com that makes many items out of waste products. The company is situated in Florida and has various reusable items apart from bags that can be customized as well.

There are also recycled plastic bags that are made of old or waste products. They help in reducing pollution and save energy consumption.

Here are some benefits of using recycled products –

• If new bags are prepared there is more energy consumed compared to those bags that are being recycled.
• This also helps in reducing oil consumption. Research says one ton of recycled plastic bags save 16 barrels of oil.
• Plastic bags don’t biodegrade thus they end up in landfill. Recycling bags reduce the waste and pollution on earth.
• Recycling is easier and the price involved in recycling an item is relatively low.

There are many programs started in schools and communities where various recycling businesses set up a campaign of collecting plastic bags from people so that they can save environment and recycle them to generate products. You can drop plastics that you don’t use at these places.

Offering reusable bags at grocery stores is another way of saying that we care.  These reusable bags are washable and durable, so that you can use it for minimum 5 years.