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Here we are at the first Tuesday of the year and for a while yet that will mean more indestructible stuff day and today it is Plastic Bags.
You might have heard that a plastic bag can take between 500-1000 years to degrade as in break down of course no really knows if that is or ever was true they guessed. We all know that it takes a bloody long time to break down.
Plastic is made from oil and has long chain like strands of molecules. Things normally rot away because bacteria feed on them, but most bacteria doesn't see plastic as food.
Sunlight does break down the chains making it disintegrate which just makes lots of tiny bits of plastic. This ends up in the water, air and soil causing harm to wildlife.
One solution is to make bags from plant material which rots away easy, which are now quite common.
This I knew! And so sad that we didn't know this for so many years! We try to use cloth bags now and some stores have bags that are supposed to disintegrate fast. Not sure what they are made of, though.
ReplyDeleteDear Jo-Anne, I so want to stop using plastic bags, but I continue to so so because each morning when I scoop the four litter boxes (I live with three cats), I put the scooped clumps in a plastic bag, tie it, and then put it in the trash. After reading your post, I'm thinking I should just put it in a paper bag and dump the contents in the trash. I'll work this out . . . thanks to you. Peace.
ReplyDeleteDearest Jo-Anne,
ReplyDeleteThat is a very negative 'indestructible' thing!
During Covid we are not even allowed to bring our own cloth shopping bags in... double negative!
Hugs,
Mariette
So why haven't we figured out how to turn plastic bags into buildings and cars?
ReplyDeleteRita......Same here I have been using re-usable bags for years
ReplyDeleteDee.......Yes they are handy paper isn't always possible
Mareitte......I know for a whihle we also couldn't use our own bags
Chris......No bloody idea
🛍
ReplyDelete