However, this is clearly the case, as according to both “Telling Plastic to ‘Bag It’”, by Patricia Smith, and “Plastic-Bag Ban Full of Holes”, from USA Today, plastic bags are a chief source of litter. Americans depend on these deathly bags, using up to 100 billion per year. If they are not discarded and brought to landfills, where it can take a thousand years for them to decompose, they unceremoniously become litter. This litter is most commonly found in the ocean, where it is the cause of thousands of deaths of marine animals who mistake the substance for food and ingest it. One of the most serious consequences washed ashore during the year of 2010: a deceased whale. Upon examining its stomach contents, it was discovered by scientists that the whale had consumed over 20 plastic bags before its death. These omnipresent bags take hundreds of years to decompose, an unpleasant aspect of using them. This becomes an even graver problem as the United States alone uses between 70-100 million of them each year. Through a less environmental aspect of damage, cities spend millions of dollars cleaning the discarded bags from the streets- money that could be used, if plastic bags were proscribed, for more important
However, this is clearly the case, as according to both “Telling Plastic to ‘Bag It’”, by Patricia Smith, and “Plastic-Bag Ban Full of Holes”, from USA Today, plastic bags are a chief source of litter. Americans depend on these deathly bags, using up to 100 billion per year. If they are not discarded and brought to landfills, where it can take a thousand years for them to decompose, they unceremoniously become litter. This litter is most commonly found in the ocean, where it is the cause of thousands of deaths of marine animals who mistake the substance for food and ingest it. One of the most serious consequences washed ashore during the year of 2010: a deceased whale. Upon examining its stomach contents, it was discovered by scientists that the whale had consumed over 20 plastic bags before its death. These omnipresent bags take hundreds of years to decompose, an unpleasant aspect of using them. This becomes an even graver problem as the United States alone uses between 70-100 million of them each year. Through a less environmental aspect of damage, cities spend millions of dollars cleaning the discarded bags from the streets- money that could be used, if plastic bags were proscribed, for more important