In order to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and/or in order to conserve an important resource that won’t last forever, should we work to reduce our use of products made from petrolium? Such as plastic bags and other plastic items?
Here is some data selected from the Reusable Bags site (http://www.reusablebags.com):
Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are now consumed worldwide. That’s comes out to over one million per minute!
US annual plastic bag consumption requires an estimated 12,000,000 barrels of oil.
Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, birds and other animals die each year from swallowing plastic bags mistaken for food.
Each high quality reusable shopping bag you use has the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic bags over its lifetime.
According to the industry publication Modern Plastics, Taiwan alone consumes 20 billion bags a year – 900 per person.
Plastic shopping bags aren’t the only problem. Other “use once and toss” plastic bags such as produce, newspaper bags and others add to the problem. One newspaper bag manufacture alone, Continental Products, makes over 2 billion each year.
Well, according to your own cite,
Now, the US 's total oil consumption is something like 20 million barrels of oil per day, so you can see that even if we totally eliminated all manufacture and use of plastic bags (and no doubt whatever was used to replace them would also involve some non-zero oil consumption), we’d be saving less than one day’s worth of oil over an entire year.
Does that mean that conservation in general is a waste of time? Certainly not. Every little bit helps, after all, and conservation practices tend to have a cumulative effect. Avoiding non-essential uses of fossil fuels now, and getting a head start on ways to reduce petroleum use further, will definitely cushion the eventual impact somewhat. But in the long run, the big-ticket items (transportation, heating, manufacturing) are going to be the ones that make the difference.
I’m not so sure this is true. I’d be open for a little more evidence.
Ban Vaseline!!!
Kimstu is right - it’s the fossil fuels that we burn that make the most difference, both in terms of depleting the resource, and in terms of pumping out greenhouse gases. Those are the uses we should be paying attention to.
I don’t know about the numbers of animals involved worldwide. But in my work for the Marine Mammal Center, I can vouch for the fact that many marine mammals wind up swallowing plastic bags (the link gives an example of entanglement in a packing strap, rather than swallowing, but if you like, I can do a bit of asking around to get you some other examples).
I’ve also dissected Albatross boluses (boli? 
) with plastic bags in them. The worst one was about 25% plastic by volume (not only plastic bags), but all of them had plastic.
Ooops! Maybe I should also have commented on the OP. :smack:
I agree with Kimstu, larger uses are the most important conservation targets. However, I also think we need to be careful about where our trash goes. 
When you are asking around, please make sure to specify plastic bags instead of just plastic. While I’m sure plastics in general can cause problems, my scepticism is in the statement concerning plastic bags specifically.
Heh. Yes, the full name is “Vaseline Petrolium Jelly” – it’s made from petrolium.
There’s a product available called “UN-petrolium Jelly,” which I think is actually superior to the better known product.
If we’re using so much oil per day that 12,000,000 barrels of oil per year used to make plastic bags is negligible in comparison – we’re using a lot of oil!
Maybe we should cut down on plastic bag use, give up petrolium jelly, and go back to paper drinking straws, paper cups, etc. (using recycled paper!) in order to get by without destroying the Arctic Wildlife Refuge? Which, I seem to remember reading (correct me if I’m wrong) would, if destroyed, only supply us with a few months’ worth of oil?
I hardly think the ANWR would be destroyed if its hydrocarbon reserves were efficiently (watchword in the industry these days) exploited.
Other posters have made the same point, but it bears repeating; efforts devoted to reducing the major uses of petroleum will yield a greater return.
And it’s not <i>necessarily</i> the case that reducing consumption of plastic bags will help to conserve fossil fuels. If plastic is simply replaced with paper, since paper production is very energy-intensive, it is conceivable that fuel consumption will actually rise. I don’t know if that is so; the point would need to be checked. But energy conservation would be more effectively achieved by reducing the consumption of all forms of packaging.
Re plastic bags, BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag) would be better than switching to paper.
The Master addressed the issue of plastic ingestion by marine life, and the most dangerous forms. There is, alas, no bibliography.
I’ll try and check either today or tomorrow. I may be limited by what our databases record (I don’t know if they have separate categories for plastic bags vs. other plastic trash), but if limited by that I’ll see if I can ask the necropsy people for anecdotal evidence.
I was able to dig into the databases on Friday, and found that between 1992 and 2003 the primary complaint (a metaphorical term when you’re dealing with non-humans ) “Other Marine Debris” category consists of 10 animals out of 7708 total admissions (about one tenth of one percent) for the California coast from San Luis Obispo to Anchor Bay. There is no separation between grocery bags and other types of non-fishing related plastic in this category.
By contrast, the number of animals whose primary complaint was netting, fishing lines, and fishhooks and lures was 188 (about 2.4%).
I haven’t gotten a hold of any of the people who do necropsies yet, so the problem with this number is that it could significantly underestimate the importance of plastic ingestion if:
- The animals have plastic ingestion in addition to another complaint, such as a gunshot wound, or leptospirosis.
Or
- The animals tend to die from plastics ingestion and are not stranded alive to be rescued.
There are some other reasons, but these seem like the most important. I’ll see if I can get a hold of someone who does necropsies this week.
I can honestly tell you mate Turtles do eat plastic bags. The poor buggers mistake them for Jelly-Fish and they pay for it. But if you want simple evidence look at the plagues of Box jelly-fish we now suffer. The Box Jelly is a turtle favourite which is a good thing considering how deadly they are.
Tip for the day: Beware- Stingers
If stung, douse
the WOUND liberally
with Vinegar and
Seek Immediate
Medical Attention.
Trust me the scars are horrific.
My mum bought me some save the planet shopping bags and guess what they're made from?? Petro-Chemical product. Well at least its a start.I think I need more than “I can honestly tell you…” == hundreds of thousands dead each year. Hopefully, wevets can come up with something…It looks like she/he’s on the right track.
Please consider that I am not “pro petrochemical” or an “anti-granola, save the planet” type.
As mentioned before, the bigger bang-for-the-buck is in reducing the utilization of hydrocarbons as fuel. Here we have a raw material that is the primary source of all our synthetics, from trash bags to medicines to composite wings for aircraft, and our primary use for it is setting it on fire.
Moved to IMHO.
-xash
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