HELPING TO STOP PLASTIC AND PAPER BAGS
Some retailers think making a bag overseas and from polypropylene is “going green”. Fact is: these cheap reusable bags are made from the same material plastic bags are… Oil!
Polypropylene bags are a fossil fuel-based plastic, a byproduct of oil refining! During the process propylene gas which, when put into a reactor, becomes propylene powder.
After stabilizers are mixed with the powder, it is placed in an extruder , which produces propylene pellets, which can then be turned into a range of things including car bumpers and food containers. If the pellets are melted, they can be made into a fiber, which can then be made into bags.
This process does not qualify a bag as green!
This is not a sustainable solution to plastic/paper bags. Do not be fooled by these so called “green” bags.
Reusable bags have become popular these days as people become aware of the negative impacts that shopping with a plastic/paper bags bring. Big retailers are jumping on board trying to green wash their products. This reusable bag retails for $160! What are they thinking? Answer – Profits.
Of course this is an extreme case, there are less expensive alternatives.
There are now 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre of the world’s oceans, killing a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals each year. Worse still, there seems to be nothing we can do to clean it up. So how do we turn the tide? Read the story here
