This is the holiday season in the United States. People are buying gifts and carrying them home, usually in plastic shopping bags. They are only a small amount of the huge number of disposable plastic bags that are used all year long to contain groceries and other items.
Janet Larsen, director of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, D. C. , says too many plastic bags end up as litter, polluting waterways. "They get caught in bushes and trees. In storm water systems, they end up blocking pipes."
In an effort to keep plastic bags out of the environment, California recently became the first state to ban businesses from giving new plastic bags to customers. Some other states and cities charge a small amount of money for every bag given out. That is meant to encourage people to bring their own bags when they go shopping.
Mark Daniels is senior vice president for environmental policy at Hilex Poly, one of the country's largest plastic bag manufacturers and recyclers. He says people should be able to get new plastic bags without paying. Mr. Daniels says they are a good environmental choice. "Every single scientific litter study that has been done always shows that plastic retail (零售) bags are a fraction of one percent."
Some environmentalists claim that plastic bags are blocking landfills. However, Mark Daniels points to a study by the Environmental Protection Agency that is not always true.
"All plastic bags, not just retail bags, are 4/10ths of one percent the waste stream."
Five years ago, Washington D. C. placed a 5-cent fee on every plastic bag given out by businesses in the city. The money is being used to clean up the local Anacostia watershed. And the effort is making a difference. Brian Van Wye heads storm water program implementation at the city's Department of the Environment. He says once people started to pay for plastic bags, they used less of them. Fewer bags ended up in the waterways.
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