Plastic bags are flooding our planet, lying in landfills, polluting forests, rivers and other places of the natural environment. They are even present in the oceans, often eaten by other creatures, which results in their death. The useful life of a plastic bag is very short, it is estimated that it takes as long as packing the shopping, transporting it home and unpacking it. The bag is then thrown away and goes to a landfill. In extreme cases, it litters forests or flows into rivers. Producing a plastic bag takes only a few seconds, but its decomposition process takes hundreds of years. According to calculations, a plastic bag can take from 400 to even 1,000 years to decompose.
However, the negative impact of plastic bags on the natural environment is not due to the prolonged decomposition time of the bags, because there are other ways of disposing of the bag . Burning a plastic bag in a waste incineration plant at high temperature means that the only substance produced in the combustion process is carbon dioxide, and additionally, the energy generated in the combustion process can be used to produce electricity or heat energy. Plastic bags can also be recycled to provide raw material that can be used to produce other products.
Problem with habits
As you can see, it is not the hated plastic bag that is a global problem, but society's waste disposal habits, as well as too few collection points for items intended for recycling and waste incinerators.
Until societies are able to cope with the surplus of long-decomposing waste, the most beneficial solution will be to change shopping habits and invest in eco-friendly fabric bags . By giving up plastic bags, we will reduce the presence of garbage in the environment, and thus its presence in landfills, rivers, forests and oceans.
A better choice
Today, no one really needs to be convinced that paper bags are a better choice than plastic ones. Consumers feel the benefits of their use not only in relation to the natural environment - unfortunately, these effects still require time and changes in the habits of entire masses. Replacing a plastic bag with an eco bag will also affect our pocket because for some time now the European Union has imposed a recycling tax on sellers, and plastic bags available at checkouts are no longer free. Since the simplest ecological bag can be purchased for a few zlotys, it is an expense that will not only pay off quickly, but will also save money in the long run.
A fashionable choice
Using eco bags is not only sensible, but more and more fashionable. Showing up on the street with a plastic foil net is a kind of faux pas. Replacing the net with a green bag is absolutely timely, especially if we decide on one of the new products offered by ecological bag manufacturers. Those made of cotton are not only durable and ecological, but also extremely aesthetic and fashionable! That's why celebrities, stars and public figures use them. The manufacturers' offers include not only the classic eco bag in the color of natural cotton, famous by Anja Hindmarch and Karl Lagerfeld, but also bags in a whole range of colors, in various styles with eco-leather accessories, with handles in the form of a sailor's rope, with a print, decorated with embroidery. . Eco handbags will meet the requirements of even the biggest fashion fans. Therefore, their original purpose, which was to carry purchases, has become obsolete. Today, an ecological bag , or green bag, as fashion houses call it, is a must-have gadget, a styling element, and often even a classic bag, differing from the traditional one only in that it is made of natural, ecological materials. Bags of this type are most often hand-sewn by seamstresses, using classic overlock or lockstitch machines, and not mass-produced by industrial machines, as is the case with bags from chain stores.