Skip to content

The Cost of Using Plastic Bags

The Cost of Using Plastic Bags
Published:

After being mainly ignored during the election period, climate change will again be under the spotlight as the Doha Climate Change Conference, hosted by the UN, will be taking place from November 26 to December 7th.

The conference is meant to progress international goals on climate change. However, environmental issues can be addressed domestically and locally too; the use of plastic bags is a place to start.

Every year, the US uses 280 billions plastic bags, enough to stretch around Earth 29,000 times.

In the Pacific Ocean, there is currently a plastic island twice the size of the continental US.

The billions plastic bags tossed away by Americans every year is equivalent to 12 million oil barrels dumped into the environment.

The following infographic, created by Learnstuff, provides a detailed overview of the environmental scourge of plastic bags as, well as successful initiatives that have been taken to fight it. Credit: http://www.learnstuff.com/

Lucas Eaves

French traveler on a journey to understand the arcane of American politics while enjoying life in San Diego.

IVN is rated Center by AllSides and High Credibility by MBFC — follow our independent journalism in your feed.

Add IVN on Google

Contact IVN

Questions about this article or our coverage? Send us a message. A free IVN member account is required.

Message sent

Thanks, we’ll review it and get back to you if needed.

Message not sent

Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again.

Sign in to send a message

Messages are tied to your IVN member account. Signing in is free and takes a few seconds.