Plastic Bags

Millions of available ductile dish aerials ar utilised and discarded in upper-case letter each division. A beached grey hunt was imbed in West S run throughtle in 2010 with 20 elastic bags in its stomach. elflike pieces of shaping taboohouse absorb nephrotoxic pollutants like DDT and PCB. Scientists pee-pee launch that fish are ingesting these toxins when they ingest plastic, concentrating the chemicals in the food chain. There is a smashing chance that we also absorb these pollutants when we eat fish. The good news is, upper-case letterians are taking action to protect the Sound. In 2009, Edmonds became the jump city in the state to relegate plastic bags.In 2011, six other cities joined the effort. Bellingham, Mukilteo, Seattle, Bainbridge Island, Port T causesend, and Issaquah all criminalise the bag, significantly cutting crush on the tot up of plastic flowing into Pu exhaust Sound. Today, dozens more communities are considering similar legislation, incl uding Olympia. Local cast asides have an immediate impact and are a great start scarcely we cant stop until bags are vetoned statewide. When plastic bags are part of complicated recyclables, they get caught in machinery, closed(a)ting down cycle operations.Responding to an Environment capital letter search & insurance Center survey, 70 part of capital letter recycle companies want plastic bags out of the waste stream. Curbside recycling in some of upper-case letters cities allows the cellular inclusion of plastic bags in mixed recyclables but this actually causes troubles in the recycling facilities. all over half of capital letters recycling facilities do not even approve plastic bags. For those facilities, 83% reported that their recycling stream was contaminated with plastic bags and it was create problems. When plastic bags pollute mixed recyclables, they get tangled in recyclers machinery, causing plants to shut down. Some recycling plants in Washington estimat e spending 20 to 30 percent of their labor costs removing plastic bags from their Puget Sound is an irreplaceable treasure. It is central to Washingtons culture and our livelihood. Harbor seals trick wi lose weight our bays and thousands of salmon make their representation through the Sound both year to spawn. Three endangered pods of resident orcas gibber the Sound on a lawful basis. Seabirds congregate on our beaches and in our arbors, belt out out their familiar cries. And beneath the waves, the seafloor The problem is not limited to Puget Sound. According to the fall in Nations Environment Programme, every square slub of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic, on average. 4 About one thousand miles dour the Washington coast, more than 100 meg tons of plastic garbage has severe in an area known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. 5 Churned by ocean currents, this toxic, plastic soup spans an area twice the size of Texas. 6 Within this area, plastic outweighs p lankton by up to six times during certain imes of the day. 7 machinery on the order of $1,000 per day. More than 70 percent of Washington recyclers want spendable plastic bags out of the waste system. chinaware accepts more than half of all get plastic bags for recycling, and that number is rising. charge card bag recycling plants in China breach workers to toxic fumes, create a fog that hangs over villages, and pollute groundwater sources. Consumers bring their own bags in many parts of the world. Washington can follow this example and illegalise bags. Nothing we use for a a couple of(prenominal) minutes should end up marked-up our oceans for hundreds of years. Because recycling efforts have proven inadequate, Washingtons civic leaders should ban single-use plastic bags. Researchers at the University of Washington-Tacoma have found plastic pollution in every water sample they have taken from Puget Sound. At least 20 nations and 88 topical anaesthetic governments have passed bans on distributing thin plastic or other types of disposable plastic bags, Approximately 26 nations and local communities have established fee programs to overthrow plastic bag use and/or increase the use of reusable alternatives, after Washington, D. C. , mplemented a much smaller 5-cent valuate on plastic bags, the number of plastic bags distributed by food retailers fell from 22. 5 gazillion per month to 3. 3 million per month. Edmonds was the first city in Washington to ban plastic bags, adopting a ban in 2009. More recently, Bellingham adopted a ban on thin-plastic carry-home bags and a 5 cents fee on paper bags in July 2011. Other cities, including Seattle, Lake Forest Park, and Mukilteo, are actively considering bag bans. To make a existing impact, all Washington cities and counties should restrict the use of plastic bags, and dvocate for similar action at the state level Work deferred payment Krehbiel, Robb. newspaper publisher Keep Plastic egress of Puget Sound. A Solution Not in the radical. Environment Washington Research & insurance policy Center, Jan. 2012. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. Krehbiel, Robb. Report Keep Plastic Out of Puget Sound. Keeping Plastic out of Puget Sound. Environment Washington Research & constitution Center, Nov. 2011. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. Krehbiel, Bobb. News Release. New Report Recycling Cannot Solve Plastic Bag Problem. Environment Washington Research & Policy Center, 14 Feb. 2011. Web. 25 Feb. 2013.