Argumentative Essay On Plastic Bags

Plastic bags drifting through the wind have many references in popular culture. From Katy Perry’s song fireworks to a random episode of Family Guy, somehow a mindless act of a piece of plastic being tossed around in the blowing wind has made an impression on today’s culture. Plastic bags, however, have been up for debate as to whether or not they should be used or banned. Some say they use up resources that we can not get back; release toxins into the air, water, and ground; kill animals that do not know the dangers in their consumption; and poses a combination of attributes making it hard to recycle after use. Others say that none of the following claims are true, that the use of plastic bags saves money in the long run; produces the least …show more content…
Every side has a different stake in the game and each side needs to be able to benefit in order for people to get on board. Edwards and Meyhoff Fry set up a strong case, looking at the pollution produced through every stage of the each bag produced gave light on how pollution was truly being produced. Their argument falter though under the fact that less reusable bags would need to be produced in relation to plastic and they ignored the negative externalities on wildlife looking only at material usage and pollution created. The recycling program is another policy that needs to be taken into account, because there is a possibility to just upgrade facilities to be able to recycle this product in place of removing it all together. This however, would be extremely costly since it requires a complete revamp and the ability to sort the plastic bags. That doesn’t even take into account that only clean plastic bags can be recycled. Contamination is a large issue with recycling, sending whole piles to the junkyard because one item contaminated clean materials. Overall, the cheapest cost on the producer and the customer comes from removing the bags all together, which I know has had some success in California and