plastic shopping bags , carrier bags , or plastic shopping bags are types of plastic bags used as shopping bags and made of various types of plastic. Used by consumers around the world since the 1960s, these bags are sometimes called disposable bags, referring to carrying goods from store to house. However, reuse for storage or waste is common, and modern plastic shopping bags are increasingly recyclable or biodegradable. In recent decades, many countries have introduced legislation that limits the sale of plastic bags, in an effort to reduce waste and plastic waste.
Some reusable shopping bags are made of plastic films, fibers, or fabrics.
Video Plastic shopping bag
Histori
American and European patent applications related to the production of plastic shopping bags can be found since the 1950s, but this refers to the construction of composites with handles mounted on the bag in the secondary manufacturing process. The modern lightweight shopping bag is the invention of Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin. In the early 1960s, Thulin developed the method of forming a simple one-piece pouch by folding, welding, and chopping plastic tubes for the packaging company Celloplast of Norrköping, Sweden. The Thulin design produced a simple and powerful bag with a high load-carrying capacity, and was patented worldwide by Celloplast in 1965.
Hasminin is an established manufacturer of cellulose films and pioneers in plastic processing. Amer Mansour is the CEO of this company. But the company's patent position gave it a virtual monopoly on the production of plastic shopping bags, and the company set up factories throughout Europe and in the US. However, other companies saw the attractiveness of the bag, as well, and the US petrochemical group Cars canceled US patent Celloplast in 1977.
The Dixie Bag Company of College Park, Georgia, owned and operated by Jack W. McBride, was one of the first companies to take advantage of this new opportunity to bring convenient products to all major shopping stores. The Dixie Bag Company, along with similar companies like Houston Poly Bag and Capitol Poly, was instrumental in the manufacturing, marketing and refinement of plastic bags in the 1980s. Kroger, a Cincinnati-based shopping chain, began replacing paper shopping bags with plastic bags in 1982, and was soon followed by his rival Safeway.
Without the monopoly of his plastic bag, the Celloplast business suffered a setback, and the company was split during the 1990s. The NorrkÃÆ'¶ping site remains a plastic production site, and is now the headquarters of MiljÃÆ'¶sÃÆ'¤ck, a manufacturer of waste bags made from recycled polyethylene.
From the mid-1980s onwards, plastic bags became common for bringing daily groceries from stores to vehicles and homes throughout developed countries. Because plastic bags are increasingly replacing paper bags, and because other plastic materials and products replace glass, metals, stones, wood and other materials, packaging material erupts war, with plastic shopping bags in the midst of published disputes.
In 1992, Sonoco Products Company of Hartsville, SC patented a "pile of open polyethylene plastic bags". The major innovation of this redesign is that removing bags from the shelf opens the next pouch in the pile. The team is led by Wade D. Fletcher and Harry Wilfong.
Maps Plastic shopping bag
Production
Although few studies or government surveys provide estimates for the use of global plastic bags, environmentalists estimate that between 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used annually around the world. In 2009, the United States International Trade Commission reported that 102 billion plastic bags are used annually in the United States alone.
Producing and sorting
Traditional plastic bags are usually made of polyethylene, which consists of long chains of ethylene monomers. Ethylene comes from natural gas and petroleum. The polyethylene used in most plastic shopping bags is low density (resin identification code 4) or, more often, high density (resin identification code 2). Color concentrates and other additives are often used to add color to the plastic. Plastic shopping bags are generally produced by blown film extrusion.
Biodegradable Materials
Some modern bags are made from vegetable-based bioplastics, which can decompose organically and prevent the buildup of toxic plastic bags in landfills and the natural environment. Bags can also be made from degraded polyethylene films or from polylactic acid (PLA), biodegradable polymers derived from lactic acid. However, most of the degraded pouches are not easily decomposed in a closed stockpile, and represent the possibility of contaminants for plastic recycling operations. In general, biodegradable plastic bags need to be kept separate from conventional plastic recycling systems.
Plastic carrier bag for biodegradable and manufacture
Biodegradable plastic is a plastic that decomposes by the action of living organisms, usually bacteria. Two basic classes of biodegradable plastics exist: Bioplastics, whose components come from renewable raw materials, and plastics made from petrochemicals containing biodegradable additives that enhance biodegradation.
Environmental issues
Because plastic bags are very durable, this makes them worry about the environment. They will not be easily damaged and consequently can endanger wildlife. Every year millions of plastic shopping bags are discarded end up as plastic waste bins in the environment when not disposed of properly. The same properties that have made plastic bags so commercially and ubiquitous - that is their low weight and resistance to degradation - also contribute to their proliferation in the environment. Because of its durability, plastic bags can be for centuries to decompose. According to The Outline, it can take between 500 - 1,000 years for plastic shopping bags to break down. Age of use of the bag about 12 minutes of use.
On land, plastic bags are one of the most common types of waste in uninhabited areas. Large buildup of plastic bags can clog the drainage system and contribute to flooding, as happened in Bangladesh in 1988 and 1998 and almost every year in Manila. Littering is often a serious problem in developing countries, where garbage collection infrastructure is less developed than in rich countries.
The plastic bag was found to be a significant part of the sea litter floating in the waters around southern Chile in a study conducted between 2002 and 2005. If washed into the sea, plastic bags can be carried over long distances by ocean currents, and can strangle the oceans. animals.
Reduced, reused and recycled
Plastic shopping bags are in most cases not accepted by standard roadside recycling programs; although their compositions are often identical to other plastics received, they pose problems for a single flow recycling process, since most sorting tools are designed for rigid plastic such as bottles, so plastic bags often end up with wheels or plugging belts, or become confused like paper and polluting the porridge produced later in the river.
Several major chain stores have banned plastic shopping bags like Whole Foods in the US and IKEA in the US and UK.
The heavy duty plastic shopping bag is suitable for reuse as a reusable shopping bag. Lighter weight bags are often reused as garbage bags or to pick up pet litter. All types of plastic shopping bags can be recycled into new bags where effective collection schemes exist.
In the mid-1900s, the expansion of recycling infrastructure in the United States resulted in an annual plastic bag recycling rate of 7%. This equates to more than 800,000,000 tons (360,000 tons) of plastic bags and films recycled in 2007 alone. Every ton of recycled plastic bags saves energy equivalent to 11 barrels of oil, although most bags are manufactured from natural gas-derived stock. Given a 2002 Australian study which showed that more than 60% of bags were reused as bin liners and for other purposes, 7% recycling rates accounted for 17.5% of the plastic bags available for recycling.
According to the UK Environmental Agency, 76% of British carrier bags are reused. A survey by American Plastics Counsel found that 90% of Americans answered yes to the question "Do you or is there anyone in your house who is reusing plastic shopping bags?" The UK Environmental Agency publishes a supermarket bag review and compares the energy usage of the current styling bag.
Bag legislation
Several countries, regions and cities have enacted laws to ban or greatly reduce the use of disposable plastic shopping bags. The direct ban has been introduced in several countries, especially China, which banned the very thin plastic bags nationwide in 2008. Some other countries impose taxes at the point of sale.
See also
- Photodegradation, the process by which chemicals decompose when exposed to light
References
Further reading
-
"Ireland's new five-pence tax carrier bag". BBC News. April 8, 2013 . Retrieved August 28 2017 . - "The Kenya plastic bag ban imposed after years of delays". BBC News. August 28, 2017 . Retrieved August 28 2017 .
- Seloplast 1965 US Patent: Copies of US Pat. 5669504
- Scheirs, J. Polymer Recycling: Science, Technology and Applications , 1998, ISBNÃ, 0-471-97054-9
- Selke, Susan. Packaging and Environment , 1994, ISBNÃ, 1-56676-104-2
- Selke, Susan. Plastic Packaging , 2004, ISBNÃ, 1-56990-372-7
- Stillwell, E. J. Packaging for the Environment , A. D. Little, 1991, ISBNÃ, 0-8144-5074-1
External links
- Media related to plastic bags in Wikimedia Commons
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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