Advocacy letter: What is the solution to littered plastic bags?

March 17, 2009

Senator Jamie Raskin
House Office Building, Room 122
11 Bladen St.
Annapolis, MD 21401

Dear Senator Raskin,

My name is Juan A., a senior at Northwood High School in Montgomery County, and a member of PATC/NHS Student Trail Stewards. I am writing this letter to inform District 20 State representatives of an ongoing problem in our community, littering of plastic bags. The PATC/ NHS Student Trail Stewards conducted a small, but yet very effective clean up behind Northwood High School on March 8th, 2009, and we were able to collect 267 pounds of trash. Shockingly more than 40 pounds of the trash collected were plastic bags.
The huge amounts of plastic bags being improperly disposed all over our community is affecting not only our community, but all the other communities where non degradable plastic bags are being used by supermarkets and other retailers. All over the community, one notices the concentrations of plastic bags in small areas of land, and most of these are found along neighborhoods, where individuals dispose of bags because there are no fines being enforced by the authorities for littering. The collection of so many bags affects the community in different ways, from clogging up the draining system along the road to affecting the ecosystem in general. When all these bags are located on a small area of land, the affect on the ecosystem is tremendous from affecting the natural cycle of plant growth to the affect it causes on organisms. The process of plastic bags breaking down is long and intoxicating. It takes hundreds of years for the bags to completely break down, and during the process of them breaking down they release toxins that join with the soil, rivers and other bodies of water.
The reason there is an abundant amount of plastic bags in the neighborhoods is due to human nature and how we behave. We are accustomed to having our groceries and other articles placed inside a bag, and after we are done using them, we dispose of them and many times not thinking twice about it. We don’t have to change this, but what we do have to change is what our bags are being made of. By changing to biodegradable bags, not only are we helping the environment, but we are also helping the community because the bags will effectively decompose. Because biodegradable bags are made of easily oxidize materials such as corn, they decompose at much higher rates than oil based bags. When bio bags are littered in the environment they break down faster due to moisture and sunlight. Changing human behavior is often difficult but changing what plastic bags are made of will improve our environment.
Data collected in 2001 by United States Environmental Protection Agency states that there is an average of 500 billion to a trillion bags used worldwide every year, and this means that when all these bags break down our soils are being contaminated as well as our bodies of water. In order to solve the problem of plastic bags taking over our communities and affecting our ecosystems we need to change to an alternative solution, biodegradable bags. By encouraging businesses to use biodegradable bags we are ensuring the safety and well being of our community and our ecosystems.

Sincerely,
Juan A.