Plastic Earth

Tomorrow, April 22^nd, is the international Earth Day. We have so many challenge this decades, we have (the biggest one) global warming issue, we continued our never ending battle with illegal logging, our forest are burned, and we do have problem with garbage. If we don’t start recycle it. Especially because tomorrow is Earth Day (thought this is important to be remembered every day) I want to write a little article about the plastic bag we used, that later will be garbage if we don’t use it wisely.

Every time you go to hypermarket or supermarket, you will see (or you will use) many plastic bag are used by the customers. Not all of them are full, even some of them are not half-full. It’s maybe because the market’s policy to not combine the different category things into one plastic bag. Like fruits are not allowed to be placed in one plastic with tissues. But as my favorite writer, Dee Lestari, once said in her blog “as long as the things are not shaken in cement truck, seriously, what harm can possibly be done with those stuffs?”

Nowadays, the supermarket/hypermarket did the policy to produce and offer a polyethylene bag or plastic-that-can-be-recycled bag to change the normal plastic bag. But, it takes charge. Isn’t it a little confusing that to do something eco-friendly thing, you have to spent more money than doing the opposite, to pollute the earth? Isn’t it should be, you have to pay charge if you want to use normal plastic bag? The only grocery store that I know used this policy was Makro. They used to take charge from the consumer if they want to use the plastic bag. And their plastic is big enough to accommodate your groceries into only one or two plastic. After all, the plastic only used to bring the things to your car and then from your car to your home. But it only used to be because it was now changed to different names, and I don’t think this policy is still legitimate in the new directing. 

So, why don’t we, start from now try to reduce the plastic bag we used? Yes, it is hard because some of our people still have the thought that “it doesn’t really effects the nature” but it is! Here are some facts about the plastic bag:  (from: somedaysdreamer.wordpress.com)

-          Plastic bag are made out of polyethylene which is one product of oil.

-          The production process itself pollute the air and waste much energy

-          4 until 5 trillion plastic bag are produced each year

-          From 100 billion of it using, only 1% are recycled

-          It takes 1000 year for polyethylene to recycled, and it pollute the ground and water in its process

-          About 1 million death each year because they consume plastic bag, which they thought as their foods

Now you see the dangerousness? If you have to use it, please, please, reuse it next time. It’s even better if you bring your own shopping bag. You don’t have to be afraid of inconveniences. You always can put the shopping bag later at trolley then push it to your car. Same thing happened in the mall. If you don’t bring your own shopping bags, at least pick the biggest one and use it for all your needs.

I am too still trying to reduce the use of plastic bag in my life. But let’s try our best to save the mother earth, for the sake of our future, shall we? 

by Kasandika Ganiarsa