As a nation we take home around twelve billion plastic bags every year. TWELVE BILLION!

Most of them end up in a landfill site, never to decompose, since they are impervious to natural decay. Plastic bags cheat the laws of nature. They never die. They just get older!

Hundreds of years from now people may be mourning the extinction of tigers, elephants or blue whales, but if they were to excavate one of these landfill sites, they could still experience 20th century packaging first hand. Billions of sweaty plastic bags with the word "Gap" or "Next" printed on the sides would still be there.

Even recycling them is a problem. Different types of plastics exist which cannot be recycled together. The mixing of different plastics can create an unusable product which will never biodegrade. Even when successful, plastics can only be recycled a few times. They're an ecological nightmare.

They litter the countryside and cause suffering to wildlife and farm animals. Grazing cattle eat them and this causes ulcerations of their bellies. The cows die, their bodies decompose, but the bags live on!

It's not just the land which is affected. The sea is becoming increasingly polluted with plastic. Take a walk along any beach in Britain and it won't be long before you find a washed up plastic bag. They even get washed up on uninhabited South Pacific islands.

Plastic bags bob along the Mediterranean sea. Turtles in the Bay of Biscay commonly die of ingestion of plastic bags. They mistake them for jellyfish. In California many sea-lions end up in rehabilitation centres with plastic wrapped around their necks. Seabirds too, have plastic fragments in their stomachs, and plastic molecules in their muscles.

Unlike some other environmental problems, this is one we can do something about. We can use non-disposable bags to carry shopping, or just refuse a bag when we buy something. Make a difference - Start now!

Litter and Wildlife
The Shelf Life of Litter