I remember years ago supermarkets were giving out paper bags for shopping. Plastic bags were something like a rarity. This is when people were still washing them out and reusing them a few times before they gave out. Nowadays though their price so low - and in some places you get them for free with your shopping - that they are no longer treated as something special. Actually they are dumped all over the place which causes major problems to our environment.
Recently there has been a growing trend of recycling the plastic bags, which is a good thing, as it helps the environment a bit fight the increasing pollution. Sadly though not everybody recycles these bags, so various government offices have started to ban bags made of plastic in their countries. As a matter of fact, I've just read an interesting piece of news about Uganda starting to ban the use of plastic types of bags from this year (2010) and will jail anyone found using them. Might be a bit drastic in terms of solution, but if it does the job...
The main alternative in using the old fashioned plastic bags in order to reduce environmental damages is using biodegradable and reusable bags. You can find these bags more and more in various stores and supermarkets in several countries.
One of the most common biodegradable bags is Ox which is made by use of oil products just the same, however while it breaks down, it does so without harming the ecosystem. First of all the bag will degrade and then the various bacteria will attack and change the plastic material to something called compress carbon. Plus the degradation time compared to regular plastic material is about half the time.
So when you're using a plastic shopping bag, if you already have the regular type, try to reuse it as much as possible instead of getting new ones every time you're shopping. And when you need to get new plastic totes, go for biodegradable ones that are clearly marked on them. You'll make your tiny part in saving the Earth and us along with it.
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Using biodegradable plastic bags is the sensible thing to do these days. To read more about them visit clear plastic bags and read the articles.