THE PROBLEM IS PLASTIC

I live in a world and country where everyone uses and needs plastic bags for one thing or the other in their everyday activities. After the usage, they fail to properly dispose of the bags thereby fostering plastic pollution all over the environment both on land and in the waters and as we know, plastic produces do not decay. I am sure that in tears to come, plastic pollution is going to be one of the biggest problem facing the environment right after global warming. Why I am not writing about global warming in this essay is because a lot of assays and researches have been carried out into the dangers and progress of global warming and its effect in the future if not taken care of and also because global warming is a world-wide problem much like plastic bags pollution. But unlike the issue of global warming, we can control and eventually minus the use of plastic bags in our daily activities.

Plastic bags are very cheap and easy to obtain as it is used everywhere starting from the homes, to churches, markets and to banks. After beds and chairs, plastics bag is another item that is common to every household. It is true that presently in Nigeria, we do not have an easy and safe way of disposing used bags that is both save for humans and the environment. That is why the used ones always end up in the streets and surrounding waters especially the ocean with the humans thinking that by doing that, it gets the rubbish away from their eyes. What they are actually doing is creating a bigger problem that will impact the future. Choosing to dispose them in the seas and oceans is dangerous to both the sea lives and the humans who eat sea food. Some people have been seen complaining about encountering pieces of plastic and nylon in the fish they bought from the market. Now, these are the ones they saw, what happens to the ones they ate without knowing?

This begs the question of how best to dispose of plastic bags to the healthy satisfaction of both humans and the environment. For that, two things can and must be done. A recycling system that will slowly and surely removed plastic bags from our environment will have to be established and also be easily accessible to people. If the plastics bags in houses, streets, oceans, banks and everywhere possible could be gathers, dissolved and recycled into something bigger and stronger and with longer life span of use, like shields, shoes, glasses and such, this could take care of the first part which is removing the product from the community.

One would at this point wonder what to do about getting grocery and other products from one point to the other since plastics bags has been removed from the picture. Dears not because this brings us to the second part of the issue that I call the safer alternative. The second thing to be done is to introduce a much better alternative to plastic bags that will be easier to manage and dispose while being harmless to the environment. That alternative could be paper bags. Paper bags are strong and can accomplish all that plastic bags are expected to as long as they are not wet. After their usage, they can either be recycle or disposed. The recycling of papers is easy and fun to do for those committed to doing that.

The government will of course have to play a role in the bagging reformation and they can do that by banning the use of plastic bag or at least, doing a general public sensitization of the damages they can do the environment while at the same time, offering them a better and safer option; the paper bags. It would be most effective if the paper bags could be made much cheaper than the plastic bags. If plastic bags are banned and paper bags installed, that will be healthy for everyone involved including the fishes because even if they should be disposed careless, they are will not as deadly threat as the plastic did.

As the essay has shown and as is evident in the way plastic bags are been used, the issues of plastic bags disposal and replacement are ones that must be handled immediately as it poses a big problem to everyone and everything involved especially to the future generation. I wish and hope that by doing as the essay proposes, the problem will be taken care to the satisfaction of all humans and their surrounding waters.