Plastic that poisons
THE State Council said last week that shops across China will be banned from handing out free plastic bags from June 1. Shoppers will have to pay if they want a bag. And an outright ban will be imposed on the production of ultra-thin plastic bags less than 1.025 mm thick, \"as they are easy to break and thus disposed of carelessly\". Environmental damage is cited as the reason for the new regulation. Here, 21st Century explains the damage caused by plastic bags.Damage to soil
Plastic bags are recyclable. But in practice, recycling is infrequent. The US Environmental Protection Agency said only 5.2 percent of plastic bags in the US were recycled in 2005. China is estimated to have recycled even fewer. Most bags end up in landfills. Plastic bags are mainly made of polyethylene and are not biodegradable. It takes hundreds of years for the bags to degrade. And they break down into tiny toxic particles, such as hydrogen chloride, which contaminate the soil. If they enter the food chain, they damage our blood and kidneys.
Dangers to sea life
Plastic bags are among the top 12 kinds of debris found along coastlines worldwide. Animals and sea creatures are hurt and killed every day by discarded plastic bags. A dead turtle with a plastic bag hanging from its mouth isn't a pleasant sight. But mistaking plastic bags for food is commonplace amongst marine animals. Plastic clogs their intestines and causes the animals to starve to death. Others become entangled in plastic bags and drown.
Alternative solutions
Some countries have introduced biodegradable bags. They take several years to degrade. But the process of breaking them down produces methane, a greenhouse gas that damages the environment. The best solution is to use paper bags, cloth bags or even baskets.
In New York, bags now have a home
PLASTIC bags have created problems in many countries. Australia and Ireland require stores to charge for plastic bags. However, cities in the US have taken different approaches. According to the New York Times, 90 percent of all bags in the US are plastic and, for the most part, non-biodegradable.
In 2007, San Francisco became the first US city to ban non-biodegradable bags. However, doing so significantly raised the cost of doing business. (A non-biodegradable bag costs 1 cent to produce, while a biodegradable one costs as much as 8 cents.) As a result, few cities have been willing to take such measures.
More common is the policy that New York City recently adopted: The city passed a law last week requiring major stores to provide special trash cans to collect customers' unwanted plastic bags. These cans streamline the recycling process.
VOCABULARY BUILDER
biodegradable plastic bag 可降解塑料袋
cloth bag 布袋
food bag 食品袋
paper bag 纸袋
shopping bag 购物袋
throwaway plastic bag 一次性塑料袋
trash bag 垃圾袋
ultra-thin plastic bag 超薄塑料袋
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biodegradable 可降解的
clog 阻塞
contaminate 污染
debris 废弃物
degrade 使降解
entangle 使缠上
hydrogen chloride 氯化氢
intestine (动物的)肠
landfill 垃圾掩埋堆
marine 海洋的
methane 甲烷
outright 彻底的
polyethylene 聚乙烯
streamline 使精简
toxic 有毒的
ultra-thin 超薄的
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