Reusable Shopping Bags

Plastic bag facts

Australians used 3.9 billion plastic shopping bags in 2007
Nearly half a million plastic bags are collected on Clean Up Australia Day each year (source – CUA)
It takes only four grocery shopping trips for an average Australian family to accumulate 60 plastic shopping bags.(source – CUA)
Plastic bags are produced from polymers derived from petroleum. The amount of petroleum used to make a plastic bag would drive a car about 11 metres. (source – CUA)
In 2005, Australians used 192 HDPE bags per capita. (source – Nolan ITU)
Only 14% of HDPE plastic carry bags are returned to major supermarkets for recycling.(source – ANRA)

How does plastic litter harm the environment?

There are 2 major reasons that plastic bags are particularly problematic in the litter stream:

1. They last from 20 – 1000 years

2. They escape and float easily in air and water, traveling long distances. As a result of this many thousands of marine mammals and seabirds die every year around the world. When the animal dies and decays the plastic is free again to repeat the deadly cycle.

To address this problem we can all reduce, reuse and recycle the amount of plastic bags we use.

The most effective way would be to purchase reusable shopping bags especially ones made out of recyclable or biodegradable materials & SAY NO TO PLASTIC!!!!!