Notes

Slide Show

Outline

1	Data released by the United States Environmental Protection Agency shows that somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. National Geographic News September 2, 2003
2	Less than 1% of bags are recycled. It cost more to recycle a bag than to produce a new one.
3	“There's harsh economics behind bag recycling: It costs $4,000 to process and recycle 1 ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32”
4	Then…
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10	Plastic bags have been found floating north of the Arctic Circle near Spitzbergen, and as far south as the Falkland Islands
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20	So…
21	If we use a cloth bag, we can save 6 bags a week
22	That's 24 bags a month
23	That's 288 bags a year
24	That's 22,176 bags in an average life time
25	If just 1 out of 5 people in our country did this we would save 1,330,560,000,000 bags over our life time
26	Bangladesh has banned plastic bags
27	China has banned free plastic bags
28	Ireland took the lead in Europe, taxing plastic bags in 2002 and have now reduced plastic bag consumption by 90%
29	In 2005 Rwanda banned plastic bags
30	Israel, Canada, western India, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Taiwan, and Singapore have also banned or are moving toward banning the plastic bag
31	On March 27th 2007, San Francisco becomes first U.S. city to ban plastic bags
32	Oakland and Boston are considering a ban
33	Plastic shopping bags are made from polyethylene: a thermoplastic made from oil
34	Reducing plastic bags will decrease foreign oil dependency
35	China will save 37 million barrels of oil each year due to their ban of free plastic bags
36	It is possible...