Plastic that poisons

gzlaser

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