RSSTips On What To Do With Plastic Bags
March 20, 2007 · Written by Adam
Plastic bags can take around 20 to 1,000 (I presume that’s a guess) years to degrade, depending on sunlight and air exposure. Most will take a long time as they’re buried under tons of other rubbish at landfills.
But new degradable plastic bags have been introduced by some supermarkets – some are bio-degradable plastics, which contain a small percentage of non oil-based material, such as corn starch; and others are photodegradable plastics, which will break down when exposed to sunlight.
There are concerns over the use of degradable plastics – a photodegradable plastic product will not degrade if it is buried in a landfill site where there is no light, and they may cause greenhouse gas.
However the biggest concern if that if people think they will degrade, we may find more thrown away. So reusing plastic bags is the best idea (as mentioned here). Keep a stash in the boot of your car or even in your handbag or coat pockets so you don’t have to get a new one when you go the supermarket.
If you find you have too many and they’re taking over the cupboard, then there are other things you can do with them:
- Recycle them. Most supermarkets have a ‘bin’ where you can put your excess bags in. Be careful to only put supermarket bags in there as the thicker bags from other retailers are a different sort of plastic and food waste and even reciepts can contaminate them.
- Art. Artists are finding different ways to use them. Like Hannah Greenaway.
- Knit with them. I wrote a story many moons ago about someone making clothes from old carrier bags and now you can get tips on how to do it on the internet. Presumably you can use standard patterns.
- Other ideas include using them as ties for garden plants (although they won’t last forever), using them as bin liners (yes, you’re still throwing them away but at least you’re not buying bin liners as well), and giving them to a local charity shop (or indeed any local shop) – it’ll save them buying bags and saving them money and of course helping the environment too.
- That’s about it for recycling them, but if you want do just learn more about plastic bags, there’s a website just for you.
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Something that has really taken off well in NZ is the use of eco bags. There’s nothing amazingly complex about them except that they are cotton (or polyester [I think]) and you can buy them for less that a dollar in the supermarkets. It’s encouraging to see a lot of people making use of them.
I don’t know why we don’t have them in the UK. Well we do, but they’re not very common, seems a simple idea. Thanks for your comment
We have cotton bags or hemp ones but they’re usually fashion bags and not sold in supermarkets, as Joel said, I’m not sure why we don’t.
[...] can read more about it here. Or see Life Goggles and their article on what to do with plastic bags. Related articles other people have read:Designer Handbags QuickieHandbag Designer [...]
[...] 2. Reuse your plastic bags. It takes around 20 to 1,000 (I presume that’s a guess) years for plastic bags to degrade, depending on sunlight and air exposure. Most will take a long time as they’re buried under tons of other rubbish at landfills. But new degradable plastic bags have been introduced by some supermarkets – some are bio-degradable plastics, which contain a small percentage of non oil-based material, such as corn starch; and others are photodegradable plastics, which will break down when exposed to sunlight. However the biggest concern if that if people think they will degrade, we may find more thrown away. So reusing plastic bags is the best idea. Keep a stash in the boot of your car or even in your handbag or coat pockets so you don’t have to get a new one when you go the supermarket. Ideas of what to do with them can be found here. [...]
[...] Plastic bags – not very good for the environment. Read some tips on what to do with plastic bags. [...]
I think the Adam is right. The best idea is to re-use or recycle these bags. Personally I have switched to jute bags for my shopping / everyday-use sort of bag and I’m in favour of taking plastic bags out of the supermarkets entirely and re-cycling them all. Plastics are being used everywhere still and although I think re-using them is FAR better than throwing them away I would rather see them recycled and taken out of shops for good.
Tell
Jute bags link again as i didn’t manage to post it properly last time.
Soz guys
Tell
Thanks Terry. Actually we’re testing and reviewing a Jute bag very shortly. Also thanks for the link.
No problem Joel. Glad to contribute. I’ll keep my eye out for the jute post.
I am very happy when i visit your web because i am doing research about how to decrease the abuse of plastic bags. I really like this topic. It’s very necessary in our life. now i really need more information bout how to reuse plastic bags. My teacher said that people printed 10 ways which help us reuse plastic bags in themselves. Can you help me find the web told about that? If you know the web or the information, please send it to me. My mail address is sharamt2003 [at] yahoo [dot] com. Thank you for your help.
I think that recycled durable bags are great educational tools in conjunction with plastic bag recycling programs.
We now bring our own cotton bags to supermarkets and there are small zipped up bags you can keep in your handbag or coat pocket just in case you do some (unplanned) shopping. However, I still have two big bags full of old plastic bags. I am thinking of buying a beanbag cover and stuffing it with these bags. Any other creative ideas?