Bags
Bag
Every week each person in Britain uses an average of 4 plastic carrier bags. This means that in Wales we are using 12 million every week.
Bags
Getting rid of all those bags is a problem but all the energy and resources used to make them in the first place is a bigger problem. There are no magic solutions.
Bags
If they are recycled it still uses a lot of energy and causes pollution. Most plastics for recycling are taken to China to be processed.
Bags
Plastics made from oil produce 2.5Kg of CO2 per Kg of plastic
Bags
If they are biodegradable that means that they have been made from plants. That means that if they do degrade (rot) in the open air they give off CO2 which is a greenhouse gas.
Bags
The plants that made the biodegradable bag absorbed that carbon out of the air recently so it is all part of a cycle - new plants grown to make more biodegradable bags can absorb that CO2.
But...
If they end up somewhere enclosed where there is no oxygen around, like a landfill site, they will produce methane, which is another greenhouse gas, but it is twenty times more powerful in the Greenhouse Effect than CO2 is.
Biodegradable
These biodegradable bags have often been made from a crop such as corn or potatoes. These use chemical pesticides and fertilizers which take a lot of energy to make. Then there is the energy used to make the bag.
Biodegradable
These crops have occupied good agricultural land and our lifestyles in Wales already use up 3 times too much land per person.
Bags
Thin plastic carrier bags go with a culture where we do our shopping by car. If you put a lot of shopping in them and walk home the handles will probably break before you get there.
Bags
The petrol or diesel that people use driving to and from the shops has a bigger impact on Climate Change than the production of the plastic bags we use.
Activities
Recycling
Most plastics for recycling are taken to China to be processed. How is energy used in the whole process?
Activity
Collect a lot of plastic bags (don’t get them specially from shops). Count and weigh them to calculate how much CO2 is given off by all the plastic bags used in Wales in a year.
Design activity
Design a container for your shopping that you can go on using for a long time.
Would you be seen dead with one of these?
It has to be
robust
big enough to hold a reasonable amount of shopping
a shape that is easy to carry, with a comfortable handle
made of low impact material
attractive to look at, so that you want to go on using it
Homework/research
Investigate bags that are available. Test them for strength, capacity (how much shopping they will hold), how easy they are to use and how attractive they are. What market are they aimed at?