Between Using a Grocery Store’s Plastic Bag and Reusable Bag

By

Dayu Ardiyuda

B1J008086

Today, people are shopping without bring a bag. However, most of them are buying a lot of stuff. They go to the market or department store to buy everyday needs. You know, “twenty million Australians use almost 7 billion plastic bags a year nearly one plastic bag per person per day in 2002. Fifty three per cent of these bags come from big supermarkets and the rest from other retailers (http://150.theage.co.au)”. That’s only on Australia’s region. What about Indonesia? Just imagine it! 220 million people use one or more plastic bags in a day. The reason why people like to use it is because instant, cheap, and easy to handle. Cheap here means that the customer less to pay the plastic bags. Even in Indonesia, it is freely for customers who expense in a big supermarket.

In a world with fast, instant, and accurate need, they don’t want to get waste their time. They just go inside the shop, take some need, cash it, and take the expense with plastic bag packaged. But, do you know the negative effect by using a plastic bag? First, it makes us lazy by its careless. Second, if you burn it, it will produce a heavy black gas that causing a green gas effect. Third, after using a plastic bag, people just throw it into trash. And if it threw to soil, it is hard to decomposed by bacterial. Because, the basic material are made from oil. So, the bacterial who decompose the organic things can’t decompose an anorganic things. Dangerously, some of an animal thinks that it is a good food and they it them. It is toxicly hazardous. Plastic bags cannot be digested or passed by an animal they stay in the gut, causing pain and certain death. According to Planet Ark, an international environment group that has taken a leading role in the push to reduce plastic bag use, at least 100,000 birds, whales, seals and turtles are killed by plastic bags each year worldwide.

In some region, their government made a law about using a plastic bag. Some of the country using a substitute use beside a plastic bag, such a paper bag. Paper is made from pulp. So, it is easy to decomposed by bacteria. Even if it was fired, it is easy to dissolved. But it also produce a second product, there are black smokes. So, even it is friendly for soil, but if fired makes a pollution, same as the plastic. In some company, such a fastfood restaurant or Tetra Pack co. (package company in Indonesia) using this material. Their reasons using this are because the product primer cost is cheaper than using a glass or plastics. Cup which made from paper now can be served in some restaurant such a Mc Donald, KFC, Pizza Hut, e.g. And package made by paper now have been produced by PT Tetra Pack in products such a Ultra Milk, Real Good Milk, etc. But, the trace of paper can be recycle into another product. If recycled into pulp, it can produce another paper again. And if fired, it useful for fertilizer because it contains carbon which improve the soil fertility.

Did you know Green Bags? In Indonesia, it was sold in Alfamart supermarket. It used for reusable bag when we go to shopping. And how about it materials? It made from Non Woven Polypropylene (NWPP) which 100% recyclable and totally re-usable with the basic concept and shape of the original standard Green Bag first was developed in Ireland. It fundamentally influenced by customers and supermarket checkout staff, so it really was created by customers for customers. And now, the world had known the Green Bag and affiliated in many country including Indonesia too.

In some nation, they adding tax for each plastic bag to reduce a new bag propose. In Denmark, a tax on shopping bags was introduced in 1994, reducing consumption of plastic and paper by 66 per cent. Bangladesh banned the manufacture of plastic bags in 2002. Hong Kong prohibits retailers over a specified size from providing plastic bags free of charge, and the manufacture and use of plastic bags is banned in the Indian city of Mumbai. In Finland, supermarkets pay a levy on the number of plastic bags used, Italy has a tax on plastic bags and Taiwan bans the distribution of free plastic bags. In Australia, the plastic bag problem is still under discussion. In an arrangement with the Federal Government, Australian retailers have agreed to reduce the number of plastic bags they use by 25 per cent by the end of this year and by 50 per cent by the end of next year (source : http://150.theage.co.au).

So, basically many positive and negative perspective in using those bag. There are many ways to make people realize and change they habit about using a plastic bag. People are trying hard to find another solution in keeping this earth friendly. So, lets start to understanding the world.