Comment

Comment by imeem love on April 7, 2011 at 7:25am

i like the message...

will remember to use paper instead of plastic at the grocery...

Comment by Swëët♥ԼƠƔЄ♥ on April 6, 2011 at 10:37am

Over 80% of marine pollution comes from land-based activities - - - - - 
. . . . . . . . . Every year, around 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. 500,000,000,000. Five hundred followed by nine zeros. That's a lot of bags. So many that over one million bags are being used every minute and they're damaging our environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Big numbers can be daunting so let's put it another way. Every man, woman and child on our planet uses 83 plastic bags every year. That's one bag per person every four and half days. Of those 500 billion bags, 100 billion are consumed in the United States alone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plastic bags are difficult and costly to recycle and most end up on landfill sites where they take around 300 years to photodegrade. They break down into tiny toxic particles that contaminate the soil and waterways and enter the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plastic bags are now amongst the top 12 items of debris most often found along coastlines ranging from Spitzbergen in the north to the Falklands in the south.

Animals and sea creatures are hurt and killed every day by discarded plastic bags - a dead turtle with a plastic bag hanging from its mouth isn't a pleasant sight but mistaking plastic bags for food is commonplace amongst marine animals. Plastic clogs their intestines and leads to slow starvation. Others become entangled in plastic bags and drown.

Because plastic bags take hundreds of years to break down, every year our seas become 'home' to more and more bags that find their way there through our sewers and waterways. Every bag that's washed down a drain during rainfall ends up in the sea - every bag that's flushed down a toilet (many small bags are), ends up in the sea - every bag that's blown into a river will most likely end up in the sea.

But the problems surrounding waste plastic bags starts long before they photodegrade. Our planet is becoming increasingly contaminated by our unnecessary use of plastic bags. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From plastic bags to pesticides - most of the waste we produce on land eventually reaches the oceans, either through deliberate dumping or from run-off through drains and rivers. . . . . . . . . . Solid garbage also makes its way to the ocean. Plastic bags, balloons, glass bottles, shoes, packaging material - if not disposed of correctly, almost everything we throw away can reach the sea. . . . . . . . . Plastic garbage, which decomposes very slowly, is often mistaken for food by marine animals. High concentrations of plastic material, particularly plastic bags, have been found blocking the breathing passages and stomachs of many marine species, including whales, dolphins, seals, puffins, and turtles. Plastic six-pack rings for drink bottles can also choke marine animals. . . . . . . . . . . Take a walk along any beach anywhere in the world and washed ashorewill be many polythene plastic bags, bottles and containers, plasticdrums, expanded polystyrene packing, polyurethane foam pieces, piecesof polypropylene fishing net and discarded lengths of rope. Together with traffic cones, disposable lighters, vehicle tyres and toothbrushes, these items have been casually thrown away on land and at sea and have been carried ashore by wind and tide.