Green Glossary: Plastic Bag

It's not like anyone really needs to know the definition of "plastic bag." But, since such bags are usually made of polyethylene, this term carries more weight than a ton of bricks. Five trillion plastic bags are made each year. Of these bags, one billion are thrown away, with only 1 percent finding their way into a recycle bin. The end result of this is around 1 billion birds and mammals dying each year by the ingestion of plastic.

"In addition to taking a millennium to degrade, plastic uses petroleum as a key ingredient," says Josh Clark at HowStuffWorks. "The same crude oil that eventually fuels cars as gasoline is also used to produce plastic. Since oil is a non-renewable substance, plastic bags aren't a sustainable product."

The folks at TreeHugger add: "The one thing that everyone worldwide can do to help reduce our ecological footprint, is to use a reusable bag whenever we shop for anything. There are movements across the States (and the world) for reusing bags for groceries, but that's it. By using our own bags every time, we are being environmentally responsible. Disposable bags present major ecological problems: drilling for oil and natural gas, deforestation, pollution, over crowding of landfills, litter, and harming wildlife."