By Landon Roberts

Ed. 630

How much oil could I save in a year if I used cloth bags instead of plastic

bags to do my shopping?

Keep track of the plastic bags I collect over a two week period.

Find the average for a week.Multiply the average by the number of weeks in a year.

Estimate how many plastic bags a barrel of oil can produce.

Calculate how many barrels of oil I consume annually using plastic bags.

The U.S. consumes approx. 100 billion plastic bags a year.

It takes 12 million barrels of oil to produce this number of plastic bags.

Less than 3% of plastic bags are recycled.

Close to 1 trillion plastic bags are used world wide annually.

38 bags collected over a two week period

19 plastic bags averaged a week.19 x 52 weeks in a year = 988

plastics bags used a yearApproximate number of plastic bags

produced by a barrel of oil? 8333How many gallons are in a barrel of

oil? 42

How many barrels of oil could I save using a cloth bag instead of plastic bags? 12% of a barrel or about 5 gallons.

What if I was able to convince my wife’s, and my family to do the same? (14 people) 1.66 barrels, or about 70 gallons.

How about the City of Ketchikan? (14,000 people) 1660 barrels, or approx. 70,000 gallons.

Individual Family Community

.12 1.66 1660

Barrels of Oil Saved in a year using cloth bags instead of plastic bags

Oil saved was much lower than expected. Hypothesized two or three barrels a year. Individual data was low, but community

data has some weight.

But wait…….. As always, research leads to more

research

The effect of plastic bags on our environment is a REAL problem.

100,000 marine animals die every year because of ingesting or being entangled in plastics.

Being a petroleum based product, plastic bags are non-biodegradable. They are a huge source of litter problems.

With less than 3% of plastic bags being recycled where do our plastic bags end up?

Using cloth bags keeps plastic bags out of our landfills.

Individual Family Community

988 14,000 14,000,000

Thousands of animals die every year from un-recycled plastic bags.

Plastic bags are a considerable littler issue in our landfills and environment.

On a community level, re-usable cloth bags could have huge impacts on environmental health.

Bangladesh – plastic bags are totally banned from the country.

Ireland - 15 cent tax on all plastic bags, plastic bag used reduced by 90%.

San Francisco – first city in the U.S. to ban all plastic shopping bags.

http://greenerloudoun.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/no-future-for-plastic-bags

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_shopping_bag http://www.reusablebags.com http://www.earthresource.org

Pictures www.energyshift.us www.captainpao.com www.fremantle.wa.gov.au www.sas.org.uk environe.blogspot.com www.vaporsmagazine.com hyattsville.wetpaint.com