The Plastic Grocery Bag Plague

Plastic Grocery Bags are everywhere because they are cheap and convenient:

  • 130 bags per person per year

  • 1 trillion used worldwide last year

  • overused because they are inexpensive and treated as having no value

A huge problem for the environment:

  • pollute our landscapes and roadsides

  • not biodegradable

  • choking our landfills

  • kill birds and small mammals on land

  • pollute the oceans

    • 300 Million end up in the Atlantic each year

    • 8 Million tons of plastic pollute the oceans each year

    • more plastic than plankton in the world’s oceans

    • They Kill all manner of life in the ocean including porpoises

  • virtually no market for recycled bags

  • they can’t be placed in Delaware recycle containers

What can we do:

  • Stop using plastic shopping bags

    • Carry our own cloth bags and refuse the store plastic bags

    • Ask for paper instead of plastic

  • Return plastic bags to the stores that provide them. (In Milton, Food Lion provides a container to return them.)

  • Reuse bags before discarding them.

  • Lobby for a ban on plastic bags (Other countries and California have done it)

  • Pick up plastic litter before it harms the environment and wildlife.

Benefits:

We are encouraging Milton to reduce its use of Plastic Bags.  The benefit to Milton will be less litter, a cleaner River and a more attractive town.