Plastic Bag Free Day is a global initiative that aims to eliminate the use of single-use plastic bags in the world. It takes place on the 3rd of July, every year with the aim to build a future free from plastic pollution.
Here are a few facts about plastic bags:
1. Plastic bags, which are made of polythene, causes pollution all its life – from manufacturing to disposal. Its production uses up 8% of our oil resource. Its manufacturing process is harmful to the environment and it remains toxic to the environment after you throw it away.
2. Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade – breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits.
3. A plastic bag can take between 400 to 1,000 years to break down in the environment.
4. As it breaks down, plastic particles contaminate soil and waterways and enter the food web when animals accidentally ingest them.
5. Annually approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. More than one million bags are used every minute.
6. A plastic bag has an average “working life” of 15 minutes.
7. Over the last ten years we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century.
The Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, LASEPA in a move to protect the environment and encourage eco-friendly products banned all single-use plastics within its premises on Monday, 13th January 2020 while advocating for suitable and multiple-use alternatives to prevent pollution and avoid disposal problems.
Single-use plastics represent the epitome of a throwaway culture that ends up in landfills, oceans, waterways and the environment which causes environmental and health hazards.
Eco-friendly replacements such as cloth (cotton) or reusable bags, paper bags, etc can be used several times and naturally decomposes in the environment and also guide against dirtiness, flooding, drainage blockade, soil, and water contamination.