After going through the PowerPoint, I have realized that plastic bags are very popular in most parts of the world especially retailers. The plastic bags are very functional cheap and a good product to transport food with. In the United States, there are over 7 billion plastic bags used in a year. A huge percentage of these plastic bags are high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Most of these paper bags are usually offered by retailers free of charge (Terry, 2015) . Plastic bags have two major environmental factors associated with them. The first one is that they are non-degradable meaning that they do not decompose hence their litter is one of the worst. It is estimated that over 80 million of plastic bags litter our streets, beaches, streets, and oceans each year (Terry, 2015) . Plastic bags take up to 1000 years to break up , and when they do, they become more dangerous (Terry, 2015) .
Their resilience in the environment is very dangerous since they can entangle and harm wildlife and marine life. It is estimated that over 150,000 whales, seals, and birds die every year as a result of plastic bag pollution. A good example is the death of Bryde's whale which died in Trinity Bay on 24th August 2000, an autopsy conducted on the whale showed that the whale’s stomach was filled with plastic bags. The content of the stomach included supermarket bags, food packages and fragments of garbage bags (Terry, 2015) . The whale had no food in its stomach when such animals die they decompose living the plastic bags to be re-ingested by other animals. On land, this litter can block drains and hence cause floods and other disasters like the spread of fire. Plastic bags can also kill livestock especially animals like cows. In Texas, it is approximated that over 500 cows die due to ingestion of plastic bags hence causing losses on the side of the farmers. Cleaning of these forms of litter is usually very expensive, in the United States, the federal government and the local governments usually spend over $ 200 million on picking this litter.
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Secondly, the plastic bags are a symbol of a wasteful society this is because they are usually used only once. It is estimated that a single person in the united states uses 24 bags in one month, making the waste of paper bags by the entire nation be in the billions (Terry, 2015) These paper bags are created with something known as polyethylene which comes from petrol ; it is estimated that the petroleum used to create one plastic bag can drive a car for 200 meters. It is estimated that the 7 billion plastic bags used in one year can drive a car for 800 million kilometers this is roughly 4 times around the world (Singh, 2015) . If the production of plastic paper bags stops then most of the world wars caused by oil will most defiantly stop. Despite the fact that there are recycling facilities in major retailers in the USA like Wal-Mart the number of plastic bags recycled is still less. Only an estimated 5% of plastic bags in households in the United States are being reused as bin liners.
It is important for any government to do an analysis and critical research before banning the use of plastic bags. There are several findings that the government will most defiantly find if they conduct research, without a doubt one of the major problems that they will come across is that plastic bags are one of the leading greenhouse gas emitters, from their production stage, distribution to disposal. Other key findings will be that plastic bags are used only once. Research conducted by the state of California concluded that nearly 20 billion single-use plastic bags are used every year in the state alone (Terry, 2015) . Single-use paper bags are recycled on a higher frequency as compared to plastic bags
It, therefore, recommended for all states in the United States to ban the use of plastic bags, there are high chances that if the ban is implemented there are high chances that it will reduce the effects of climate change. It is also important for governments and their authorities to discourage the use of single-use bags and encourage the reusable use bags. This can be done in many different ways the first one is by imposing high taxes on single-use bags or lowering the prices of reusable bags. It is also advisable for retailers to impose fees on the use of plastic bags and pay a small amount to people who recycle a given number of plastic bags (Terry, 2015) . In conclusion, plastic bags are useful and offer a helping hand however they pollute our land. Saying no to plastic is simply fantastic.
References
Terry, B. (2015). Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too . New York: Skyhorse Publishing.
Singh, S. P., & Singh, J. (2015). Packaging and transportation forensics: Reducing risk and liability . Lancaster, Pennsylvania: DEStech Publications
