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San Francisco Votes to Ban Plastic Bags
San Francisco's city government has voted to ban plastic grocery bags. If the law goes into effect in six months, San Francisco will become the first U.S. city to outlaw plastic grocery bags. The goal is to help the environment. Because unless you are one of the one percent of people who actually recycle your bags, chances are they'll wind up in the trash.
Every year, San Francisco dumps 1,400 tons of plastic bags in landfills. That's 181 million bags! A plastic bag can take up to a thousand years to decay. And when they do break down, they leave behind dangerous chemicals.
Sadly, many bags aren't thrown in the garbage and end up as litter. These often get stuck in tree branches or wash into the ocean where they harm fish and other animals.
It takes over 12 billion barrels of oil to make the 100 billion plastic bags that Americans use each year. That's a lot of oil!
One alternative to plastic bags is paper, but they also cause surprisingly BIG problems. According to the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA, making paper bags generates 70 percent more air and 50 times more water pollution than plastic bags. That's because it takes a lot of trees, energy and chemicals to make them!
If plastic and paper bags are both problems, what should shoppers do? The EPA suggests that people start using cloth bags instead. If people brought their own bags to the store the world would be a cleaner place.
I'm Ben and that's what happened in our nation this week!
We use plastic bags every day, so it's good to know more about them. Let's play Just the Facts and make sure you know your stuff!
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