OGP - Whats So Bad About Plastics

Ghana is one of the many countries that has been inundated with plastic bags, particularly single-use.  One thing that sticks out in my mind whenever I am not in the country is those black plastic bags that often don’t make it to the customer, let alone to a second use.  They seem to be intentionally designed this way.  Because of this, the only place in Ghana that I recall not seeing these bags was at Kakum National Park when I went on the canopy walk.  When reading the introductory paragraph of “What’s So Bad About Plastic Bags?” by Zion Lights, my previous point is made.  It seems that in the United States alone, 60 000 plastic bags are used every 5 seconds!  I can only in imagine in Ghana, where plastic bags are used for every little thing, including such things as banku!  As can be seen in Ghana, plastic bags don’t break down, releasing toxic chemicals instead.  Even when they are sent to be recycled, it is difficult to do so and they often block machinery in these plants.  They are generally a terrible product.

Because of all the different ways plastic bags pollute the environment, they are also hazardous to human and animal health.  By blocking drainage systems, they help cause flooding or stop the water from flowing.  When the water stops flowing, it becomes the perfect breeding place for diseases that can seriously harm human health.  This one is huge in Ghana.  I nearly cried when I saw a river that was not only so filled with garbage that I could not see the water, but the river was barely flowing, due to the extent of the pollution of that river.  When I researched it in 2009, Korle Lagoon had already been cleaned twice, though how many more times will this occur?  Cleaning a lagoon does not sound to me like a very easy task!

Due to the difficulty in recycling plastic bags, most either go to landfills (despite being sent to be recycled) or are sent to Asia.  When the plastic bags arrive in Asia, they are recycled in sweatshop conditions with open-melting methods, which are terribly toxic.  This is in the United States.  In Ghana, however, when I researched Korle Lagoon for a paper about waste management, I found nothing about recycling.  Now, a google search shows that in general, recycling is all about pure water sachets, which is good, since along with black plastic bags, they are the most visible of Ghanaian plastic waste.  I did, however, see in the job opportunities of the Keep Ghana Clean website that they are requesting people collect all their plastic waste.  When delivered to one of their dump sites, people can make 1000 ghs per kilo of plastic waste delivered!  This may not be the best way to prevent plastic waste, but it is a great way to at least reduce it.  I just hope people will not be looking for ways to use more plastic so they can have more plastic waste.  Now I understand why I saw children going around collecting sachets; all plastic is included, though, so they should take it all!  I am curious what is done with the plastic after that.  For them to have 1000 ghs per kilo, they must be either affiliated with Trashy Bags, or else are doing something similar on their own.  I can approve of it if they are making something new, rather than just piling them up in a landfill.

Moving along to animals, I have already discussed how plastic affects the ocean when I discussed Garbage Island.  This is not the only way plastic bags affect animals, though.  The most obvious way animals are affected by plastic bags is suffocation from eating plastic shards, which can easily come from the bags as they break down.  With further breakdown of plastic, smaller organisms both on land and in water may eat these, which eventually get eaten by humans (in case that is your main concern), meaning we are inadvertently eating plastic.

Garbage Island also brings up the environmental, non-animal, impact of plastic in general.  Watching the movie, one scene shows a jellyfish coming towards the camera until it got closer and we saw it is a plastic bag (not the best picture but still).  The North Pacific Gyre is not the only place affected by plastic bags.  As stated in “What’s So Bad About Plastic Bags?”, the Wild Studies Institute estimates that 80% of the ocean’s garbage comes from land, since all land drainage systems end up in the ocean.  In Ghana, all waste is tossed anywhere, as people see fit.  Because of this, plastic bags fly around until caught by water and then flow through the systems (when still flowing) to the ocean.

According to a 2002-05 study of marine debris in southern Chile (Zion Lights), marine debris tended to be found in particular areas of the ocean, however this was not the case for plastic bags.  Plastic bags could be found in all parts of the study area.  This is something that is easy to believe after having sat in the water on a Ghanaian beach.  With the water flowing onto me came plastic bags; occasionally other shards of plastic also came, but primarily plastic bags.

“What’s So Bad About Plastic Bags?” does give a likely culprit.  I don’t want to get into that because I feel the best way to solve this problem is to do so by changing our habits, rather than fighting “the man”, whomever that is in this case (read “What’s So Bad About Plastic Bags?” to know).  When living in a capitalist society, change comes through consumer choice.  Look at Wal-Mart moving to more sustainable food products on their shelves; they didn’t do so for ethical reasons, they did so because that is what their consumers are increasingly gravitating towards.

It is possible to eliminate plastic bags, as can be seen in Bangladesh (Zion Lights).  That country banned plastic bags over a decade ago, due to massive floods caused by blocked storm drains.  Since then, other regions large and small have been following suit.  Others, though not completely banned, have imposed a fee for every plastic bag.  In Ghana, the fee is already there in a sense, however a ban is not.  A ban would make a huge difference to Ghana’s landscape!  Imagine banku in traditional containers instead of in plastic bags!  Plastic bags were not always found in Ghana, so why not return to the pre-plastic bag culture?

Like any other form of consumption, there are many ways to reduce, if not eliminate the use of plastic bags.  Most importantly, we need to rethink how we see plastic bags.  I have spoken to Ghanaians who remember the introduction of plastic bags to the country and they are not that old!  So this isn’t so much a re-thinking as a returning-to-the-old-thinking kind of situation.  Any time we go to use a plastic bag, we must ask ourselves why we are using it.  Do we really need that bag?  If so, why do we need it?  Could it be replaced with something else?  Chances are it can.  By thinking about our plastic bag usage, we will automatically reduce and reuse.  As we do this and once we have gotten our journey under way, we can re-educate others about this issue.  How, you may ask?  Talk about it!  Talk about why you are reducing plastic bags and how!  The more we do this, the sooner we can remove our dependence on such an unsustainable product.

This weeks quote by Mason Cooley follows the theme of the post quite closely:
Human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage