How Big a Problem are Plastic Bags?

The Eighth Continent of the World isn't Atlantis or Mu, it is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Located in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii and measuring in at roughly twice the size of Texas, this floating mass of human trash is home to hundreds of species of marine life and is constantly expanding. It has tripled in size since the middle of the 1990s and could grow tenfold in the next decade Weighing in at approximately 3.5 million tons with a concentration of 3.34 million pieces of garbage per square kilometer, it is 80 per cent discarded plastic.

Due to the Patch's location in the North Pacific Gyre, its growth is guaranteed to continue as this Africa-sized section of ocean spins in a vortex that effectively traps flotsam. What little air movement there is blows inwards, further trapping the garbage.

Plastic resists biodegrading. That plastic bag you used for 20 minutes to bring home a jug of milk 20 years ago, still exists and will still exist 500 years from now. Plastic shopping bags or pop bottles photo-degrade over a lengthy time frame, meaning that they break down into smaller and smaller pieces but retain their original molecular composition.

The result is a great amount of fine plastic sand that resembles food to many creatures. Unfortunately, the plastic cannot be digested, so sea birds or fish can eventually starve to death with a stomach full of plastic. Even if the amount of plastic in a creature's body is not enough to block the passage of food, the small pellets act as sponges for several toxins, concentrating chemicals such as DDT to 1 million times the normal level.

This concentration then works its way up the food chain until a fish is served at our dinner table.

In Toronto, when not blowing down our streets or clinging to our bushes or tree branches, our plastic goes to land fill sites where it will outlive all of us. The Scarborough Guildwood Green party of Ontario, urges the City of Toronto to declare itself a plastic bag free zone. And urges the Minister of the Environment to work toward a ban on plastic bags in the Province.