Plastic bags are the devil

An estimated one percent of thrown-away plastic bags never make it to the landfill. Instead, in New York City, too many of them become street litter which first gets washed into the City’s storm drains and then, when a heavy rain comes and the system overflows, gets dumped through one of the 450 “outfalls” into the New York harbor estuary. From there, it washes into that part of the Atlantic Ocean known as the New York Bight where it becomes accidental food for the 7 species of sea turtle, 300 species of fish, 350 species of bird, 10 species of whales and several species of seals and porpoises who live there (case in point in the picture on the right).

For leatherback turtles, it turns out, New York’s “urban tumbleweed”—the 30 to 90 million estimated plastic bags that end up littering the streets each year—is a particular hazard. In 1988, alarmed marine biologists, trying to figure out why 15 dead leatherback turtles had washed up on the beaches of Long Island in only two weeks, found that the stomach openings of 11 of the turtles had been blocked by ingested plastic bags. Leatherbacks have the unfortunate combination of loving to eat jellyfish and bad eyesight. To a nearly blind jellyfish lover, it seems, a submerged plastic bag looks pretty yummy (if your eyesight wasn't too good, that bag on the left would look like a jelly fish, right?).

According to a report by the National Academy of Sciences, between one third and one half of sea turtles swimming in American waters already has at least some kind of plastic impacted in their stomachs. A recent study on Sand Island in the northwestern Hawaiian chain showed that 97 percent of Laysan Albatross chicks had ingested plastic, picked up by their parents from the ocean surface and regurgitated as though it was food. An estimated one million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals and turtles starve to death each year after plastic blocks their digestive tracks. A number of countries, including Ireland, have actually taxed plastic bags out of popular use.

And here’s what we did. We began bringing our own bags to the farmers’ market (pretty much the only shopping we do on this project). We saved all the various shopping bags—like the great ones from the clothing store Scoop—that had come our way and bought some large organic cotton net bags like the French use. We also got some light, organic cotton cloth bags for use when buying produce, instead of the plastic bags you find at the grocery store.

Want to get some yourself? You can find them at Reusable Bags or Ecobags (anyone have other suggestions?). For the many other reasons plastic bags are the devil, read what the Worldwatch Institute has to say here and some fast facts from Reusable Bags here.