on January 28, 2008

SAY NO TO PLASTIC

Last Sunday you wrapped me
Around the beautiful dress
I looked so nice fine and i shine
But now i have created a mess .
In the earth as i don't decompose or shine .

I wanted to be of use to u throughout
But i just caused more destruction
I am very upset now as i am of no help
I don't know what to do now

I just wanna say please don't use me
As i don't want to cause more stress
I want u to abandon me
Coz am not biodegradable
Coz i let nothing breathe
Coz i am just what u all call me PLASTIC

poem written by : Chandana Bhattacharya , New Delhi


I was trying to answer the question, "People know plastic bags are bad and its use needs to be stopped., then why its not happening, is it really a big problem??? "

Lets see some statistics!!!!

1. The overall society's consumption rate is now estimated at well over
500,000,000,000 (that's 500 billion) plastic bags annually, or almost 1 million per minute.

2.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. An estimated 12 million barrels of oil is required to make that many plastic bags.

3. The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store.

4. Each high quality reusable bag you use has the potential to eliminate an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime. The bag will pay for itself if your grocery store offers a $.05 or $.10 credit per bag for bringing your own bags.

5. The use of plastic in India has more than doubled in the last 20 years. It has increased from 1.8 million tons to about 5 million since 1995-96 up till now.


I found the reasons why its not happening, the problem is "BIG" but can be solved easily but requires massive effort and requires a lot of sacrifices on part of consumers and shopkeepers both as well...

The biggest hurdle is the feeling from each person that his contribution in saying no plastic bag will not be significant enough ... everyone thinks "What good can happen with one less plastic bag where millions and billions of plastic bags are used daily ???"

No one can see that every one thinks the same way hence there individual thinking about the issue dominates the problem .. had everyone had done his share of social responsibility without thinking about what it can contribute into the system, it can create wonders !!!

Each and every person need to do his/her share of responsibility of using plastic less if not stopped... If a person gets a plastic bag after he/she buys something, i am sure it would not be a big pain for him/her to carry it back when they go to buy something. considering the power of Evil plastic that it can be used 10 times before it gets in bad shape or gets torn , each plastic bag can be reused for 10 times at least . it can significantly bring down the consumption levels by whooping 90% , As compared to 1 billion plastic bags used daily globally , it can be mere 100 millions... and that's the very small amount of effort considering the so called "Society" understand there share of "Non-mandatory Responsibility" .

The levels of consumption can be brought down really to very low levels by these collective efforts. people need not say that no body is going to do it except me, you and some handful of "Social" people, but they should do it for themselves, they must have the feeling that they are doing something which is making a difference, though very less but will be a massive effort when every body does it from there side.

People can also use the paper bags which are considered environment friendly but they need trees to be cut ... anyways they are better than plastic if they are in form of bags. So it can reduce the plastic bags significantly.

I would say these efforts needs to be from consumers more than shopkeepers because shopkeepers will not be able to do it very well because they have other factors like they start loosing out customers to other shopkeepers who provide plastic bags which are "convenient" for customers

But even shopkeepers must keep paper bags in place of plastic bags even though they are "little costly" considering it as share of effort in this issue of Global warming and threat to the world in long run...

I guess that if people try to stop using plastic it will only add to problems and it wont be that easy for the "small world now a days". rather the plastic bags consumption can be brought to minimal levels... It like people just for little inconvenience to them don't want to carry a plastic bag with them to the shop if they want to buy something. but they must understand that it will reduce 1 plastic bag and if millions of people do it ... we can bring down the use by millions and millions every single day ... to stop using plastic seems to be rather very tough .. but reducing the consumption seems very optimistic until this point ... i have opted for stopping the plastic bags consumption till me all limits are crossed ...

lets see what the world has to do about it ...

Expecting small but tough support from at least the readers of this article ...

You can make difference ... Save the earth ...

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