Have you ever wondered why we must reduce our plastic bag waste, and how can we do it? Does it matter what kind of bags are you going to use to carry your groceries? People who care a lot about the environment will tell you that it really matters. I’ve Arrived Organic believes in the benefits of reducing the use of plastic bags. That is an example of a decision that you can make on a regular basis, which will have a positive impact on our planet.

Here are some of the most important reasons why you should reduce the use of plastic bags:

 

Pollution

The first reason is that plastic bags are polluting the land and water. If you take a look around, you can notice that the most common litter are plastic bags, whether tangled in fences, trees, floating in rivers, surrounding garbage bins, and similar. Plastic bags can travel long distances when they get picked up by the wind or water, and that way can pollute nature.

Maybe it’s hard for you to imagine that something so small as plastic bags can cause great problems in some areas, but for example, people in Bangladesh have been struggling with flooding during every monsoon season for the past two decades, because plastic bags are clogging water drainage channels on the streets in urban areas.

 

Plastic bags contribute to climate change

You can hear every day how important it is to save energy, for our health, environment, and global climate. What you need to realize is that each time you decide to take a plastic grocery bag, you are actually participating in wasting energy. Most of the plastic bags contain polyethylene, which is a substance derived from natural gas processing and crude oil refining. Through their production, they are causing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change.

 

Plastic bags can be harmful to human health

Some research has shown that every second person might have some microplastic in the body. The microplastics are found in many soft drinks, including tap water, Coca Cola or seafood. That is what contained our food chain, so these statistics shouldn’t be surprising. Plastic products, like plastic bags, contain some substances that can be harmful to our health, and some of them are inorganic dyes that are changing bags’ color.

That one step that anyone can take is to choose organic cotton grocery bags instead of plastic. Organic cotton bags are completely biodegradable, reusable and environmentally friendly.

 

Plastic bags are not so easy to recycle

Many recycling facilities don’t have the capacity to recycle plastic bags and do not accept them at all. Most of these facilities are considering plastic bags as the No.1 contaminant, and their removal costs municipalities around $1 million a year. Recycling them is requiring specialized equipment that will break down the plastic and create a new product from it, so most of the municipalities don’t have a budget for that.

Globally, the actual plastic bags recycling rate is between 5% to 15%, while in the United States makes only 1% a year.

 

The advantages of using eco-friendly packages

The main benefit of eco-friendly packaging is that it’s made from biodegradable, recycled material that is reducing the waste of natural resources in the process of production, which makes their impact on the environment minimal. Besides, sustainable packaging is adjustable, and it’s finding uses in almost every industry. There is an eco-friendly package that will meet your green needs, whether you need to package groceries, cosmetics, or electronics. By deciding to use eco-friendly packages, you will be supporting farming practices that are avoiding pesticides, which will reduce farming debts and production costs. You will also be helping to build soil fertility, which will reduce emissions.