When we go to the groceries shop and buy six-pack of soda and noodles. Did we notice that they drop the six-pack of soda in one plastic bag and noodles will get one too. The uncontrollable usage of plastic bags nowadays always make the environment lover cannot swallow their food. According to Wikipedia, plastic bag is the type of flexible packaging made of thin, flexible, plastic film. This academic writing contents are about facts about plastic bags, plastic bags are destroying Mother Nature, how to deal with plastic bags and my role as a teacher to overcome this matter.
The facts about plastic bags are very interesting. Actually, plastic bags are made of ethylene, a gas that produced as a by-product of oil and coal production. Ethylene then made into polymer called polyethylene. There are three types of ethylene; high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low- density polyethylene (LPDE) and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE). It is clear that plastic bag is non-biodegradable. That means every plastic bags will last for 20 until 1000 years. They will remain in the environment even after you are dead.
We realize that plastic bag is very useful in many ways until we forgot that they are destroying our mother nature. As a result, in 2001, between 500 million and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. These plastic bags always find their own way to our streets, parks and into our waterways, washed out to sea. Plastic bag is a serial killer. More than a million birds and marine mammals and sea turtle die every year from eating or getting entangled in plastic bag. Plastic bags have change their status form being rare in 90s to almost everywhere today.
When Alexander Parkes first introduced plastic bags to the world in 1862, he never dreams that this product will be a great success as a product and also become the biggest enemy for sea turtle. How to solve this problem? In April 2003, Australia introduced biodegradable plastic bags made from tapioca starch. These bags will look and feel like polythene bags but will decompose in three months. Instead of plastic bags, we can use paper bags or calico bags to pack our groceries. These bags can be reuse. When we go shopping, refuse plastic bags but use our own reusable bags. Make it a habit.
People should know the true identity of plastic bags. They do help us but in return they pollute our mother nature. Even a six years old kid should know this fact. So, our roles as a teacher are to make them clear how harmful plastic bags are to nature. Conduct a seminar, hold a campaign and make a forum to make them understand better about the danger of the existence of plastic bags on earth. Besides, show a good example by using calico bags instead of plastic bags to pack our stuffs. Show our students how an environmental lover should act to deal with this problem.
The problem with plastic bags is not just where they end up; it is they never seem to end. But still, we must try our best to solve this matter. In March 2002, Irish had introduced 20 cents USD tax for plastic bags, resulted in a 95 percent reduction in the use of plastic bags. Since our country has not made any move yet, why don’t we start? Next time we go shopping, proudly raise our head as we say no to plastic bags. This is a simple move but we have made a contribution to the future of our planet.
Narrator: ren (march 2010)
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