Why ban plastic - an overview:
Shopping is almost a daily chore in the modern day world. There are a lot of shops and chains of supermarkets booming nowadays which help us people get goods and groceries easily. We all knew this. But, did you know that there is a more eco-friendly way of shopping? Let’s learn.
Today, anywhere you go get anything, shopkeepers either wrap it up or bundle them and give you the good in covers. This was not the case in the last century.
In that way, we can say that the concept of covers has been a rapid adoption amongst our country, as we started using them extensively in the past two decades.
Now comes the fun fact. The banning of such covers is much more rapid than their adoption itself. Why? Because, we see impacts. Mostly negative. What are they? Let’s see them in detail.
Plastic bags were introduced to reduce our burden. And yeah, they did help us with that. Until we knew the real fact. Though they are light, they are now leaving some hard prints on our living place. Some of which we are going to get aware of in the subsequent paras.
Unfavourable effects that are unknown:
According to the new rule, no vendor or shopkeeper in India can use plastic bags of size less than 50 microns as they impose a great threat of disposal as they never fully degrade.
The world wide consumption of plastic bags is 2mn units per minute in the last year, according to external sources. This is a humongously large number, especially when it comes to the challenge of disposing of them.
Plastic bags are non biodegradable and they take upto 1000 years to decompose. Oh man, that is a lot of time. And remember, we are using 2mn bags per minute. Just imagine.
When we carry food in plastic bags, there are high chances of carcinogenic elements getting mixed up in the food and contaminating our health causing minor to major issues.
Also, they are a threat to underground sewage and drainage if not disposed of properly. They prevent rain water seeping into the ground and hence affects a lot of groundwater flow thereby could also scarcity on a large scale.
Not only this! Generally, they are disposed of in a pit in mass numbers. And over time, the soil surrounded by the pits can also go infertile , making it impossible to cultivate crops.
Can we burn them then? Yes, provided we release some poisonous gases in the stream of air we breathe in. In that way, it causes a lot of respiratory problems to every being that breathes to live, including the flora.
There is also a possibility where people dump plastic wastes in the oceans. No problem then? Absolutely false. The aquatic life is severely affected by doing this causing some species to go extinct aslo. Also, it causes biomagnification problems.
Carry natural, care nature:
Now that we know why plastic bags are banned, keeping in mind the quantity used at the current rate and the effects it is causing, we should also know what to replace it with.
In fact, there are many alternatives. But, the one that interests us now is canvas bags.
Canvas bags are cotton bags that are strong, thick and more sturdy than plastic bags themselves. They are biodegradable, obviously, since they are made out of cotton fabric.
They can be used for all shopping purposes just like how plastic bags are used nowadays. The only thing is it is quite pricey when compared to the existing plastic bags. But, this price difference comes nowhere close to the cost we pay to the effects of using plastic bags.
Conclusion:
What difference am I going to make by making the switch? Not much, yes. But definitely a huge change compared to what happens when we do not change to organic alternatives, especially on a large scale.
So, I recommend you to carry eco-friendly carriers the next and the following time you go to shopping directly. Oh, did I forget to mention where you can get the bags? Hmm. I will leave a link to some of the eye-catching eco-friendly canvas bags here. Do check out.
Let us all pledge to ban plastics in our home, and make use of better alternatives. Peace.
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