Plastic: Wasteful product 'that impose hidden costs on our health'

Plastic is an amazing material. Used in cutting-edge technology such as 3-D printing and medical devices, it helps to both save and improve the quality of our lives.

Plastic keeps us safe when used in children’s car seats and hard hats, and enables green technology like solar panels and lighter, more fuel-efficient cars and planes.

At the same time plastic, especially in the form of single-use plastic bags, is wasteful of our natural resources and harmful to our environment, our economy and ultimately our health.

Americans throw out approximately 100 billion plastic bags annually and use about 12 million barrels of oil to produce them.

Single-use bags clog drains and streams, leading to flooding and millions of dollars in cleanup costs. They end up in rivers, oceans and open fields, ingested by both land and sea animals causing painful death, and because they do not biodegrade, they cause contamination of our soil, our water and the food we give our children.

The negative economic, health and environmental impact of single-use plastic bags outweighs the convenience they may provide.

Shouldn’t we be conserving our natural resources and tax dollars for products and projects that create a positive impact on our quality of life rather than for wasteful products that impose hidden costs on our health and economy?

Michelle Desveaux
Warwick