International Plastic Bag Free Day 2024: A Call to Action for a Cleaner Planet
Celebrate International Plastic Bag Free Day 2024 on July 3rd by joining the global effort to combat plastic pollution. Learn about the history, significance, and activities of the day, and discover how you can make a positive impact on the environment by reducing, reusing, and recycling plastic waste.
The International Plastic Bag Free Day is celebrated every 3rd of July of each year, wherein citizens from around the world come together and raise awareness on plastic pollution and encourage sustainable activities like recycling and composting. This day is a part of the global effort to set a framework that will help lessen environmental issues caused by plastic wastes, particularly plastic bags.
The Environmental Impact of Plastic Bags
Though touted as a convenient staple in our everyday lives, plastic bags’ convenience is actually their cost to the environment. Decaying for as long as 500 years, these bags have contributed to massive accumulation in our ecosystems, consequently clogging drainage systems, disturbing recycling operations, and causing waterway pollution that endangers both terrestrial and marine life. Sea animals like turtles, whales, and dolphins confuse plastic bags with food, which in turn kills them. Moreover, plastic-bag crises are also certain to raise the increasing risk connected to microplastic emission of plastics that get into our food systems and water due to dire risk to human health.
In the history of plastic bags
The story of the plastic bag began in the early 1930s, when the most used plastic today, polyethylene, was produced by mistake in a chemical plant in Northwich, England. This new material first produced secret military gloves for World War II. Only in the 1960s did the big breakthrough come: the one-piece polyethylene shopping bag was patented by the Swedish company Celloplast. These bags quickly became very popular, thus replacing the cloths and paper bags in Europe and then around the world.
Small pieces of plastic or plastic bags are consumed by these animals out of misconception that it is food, which in turn kills them. Plastic bags also block the digestion of real food by animal intestines, resulting in malnutrition deaths. In 1997, the discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a gigantic batch of plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean, made the world realize the horrible condition of plastic pollution. This floating “island” of trash has brought devastating impacts on the marine ecosystem, thereby proving how immediate attention to the situation is required.
Significance of International Plastic Bag Free Day
On International Plastic Bag Free Day, almost 1,500 organizations join forces across the world under the Break Free From Plastic Movement. The movement seeks to provide a sustainable solution toward plastic pollution and ensures a safe planet to all living beings. Thus, it sets the reminder for the common responsibility lying on each one for the given problem.
Activities and How You Can Participate
On International Plastic Bag Free Day, people can feel a sense of taking some practical action to reduce plastic waste. Here’s how you can participate in this process:
- Refuse Plastic Bags: When shopping, instead of asking for plastic bags, use reusable bags. This simple action would significantly cleanse the environment of plastic bags.
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Assist in reducing plastic consumption by reusing as much as one can and making sure plastics are in good condition to be recycled.
- Share Awareness: Tell your friends and family the impacts of plastic pollution and try to involve them in activities that relate to preserving nature.
- Take Part in Community Cleanups: Join cleaning processes within your community to help collect plastic wastes around you and ensure that they do not get into the acquatic or sea systems.
- Legislate: through policy restriction on the use of single-use plastics and support for alternative sustainable solutions.
Through engaging in all these activities, we can help reduce plastic pollution around the world and thus conserve the planet for future generations.
International Plastic Bag Free Day 2024 is more than an awareness day; it’s a call to action. We all can make a difference in being part of solving this plastic pollution crisis by living consciously and supporting practices that are kind to the environment. Let’s take this day to reflect on what our repercussions might be against the environment and pledge to build a cleaner, healthier planet. We can do it.
