Plastic bags can take up to 1000 years to decompose in a landfill, look awful as litter and for those that find their way into the marine environment they can have devastating consequences for wildlife.
According to the Australian Geographic most of the 4 billion plastic bags used every year, are used for just 12 minutes. With only a minor percentage being taken back to recycling bins (in supermarkets), 3.76 billion head to landfill, that’s 400,000 checkout bags dumped every hour.
So what to do with those plastic bags that you can’t bring yourself throw away? Well here’s what we found out from spending an afternoon googling.
- Take them to the local supermarket’s plastic bag recycling facility.
- Keep a stash in bags, pockets or the car for when you pop in a shop unexpectedly.
- Give them to a local charity shop (to save them buying bags).
- Knit them into tote bags or clothes.
- Get creative you could use them to make items such as coasters, purses, rugs, you name it.
- Use and reuse them to wrap your lunchbox to save any leakages going over the contents of your bag.
- Use plastic bags to freeze food.
If you are using old plastic bags to line bins, that is better than buying separate bin liners, but try lining the bin with sheets of newspaper instead.
Biodegradable plastic bags are becoming more common, however, these require elements such as water, microbes and sunlight to degrade, none of which are present in landfill sites. So whilst they are better than plastic bags made from fossil fuels, they are still not ideal.
If you have any ideas for what to do with old plastic bags then email us and we’ll include them.
