Love Your Mother Earth
Though Earth Day comes but once a year (April 22), it's easy to be a friend to the environment every day. The simplest way we can think of to protect Mother Earth is to cut back on the use of plastic bags. Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide -- that's more than one million per minute. Next time you head to the store, reuse an old plastic bag or take a canvas one. With luck, you'll inspire others and, in time, there won't be any bags left to snag in trees like the one we see here. A few quick facts about plastic bags from our friends at Reusablebags.com:
- Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.
- Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest the material.
- Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC, one group harvests 30,000 per month.
- According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone "from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78° North [latitude] to the Falklands 51° South [latitude]."
- Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation.
