The plastic shopping bags have now emerged as an omnipresent product found in every nook and cranny of the world. This item produced at an amazing rate of up to one trillion bags per year, can be traceable in the darkest womb of the ocean to the pinnacle of snow-capped Mount Everest. Being ubiquitous, plastic bags have become a nuisance and are intensifying some major environmental challenges and posing threat to humanity in general.

Now, let’s come to the origin of polythene bags. Polythene bags originated from the accidental discovery of poly-ethylene in at a chemical plant in Northwich, England in 1933. Though initially polythene bags were used surreptitiously by the British militia in World War II, the industry smelled a lucrative opportunity. It is to be mentioned in the same breath that the modern one-piece polyethylene shopping bag is patented by the Swedish company Celloplast, designed by the Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin in 1965, designed to be reusable. His vision was eco-friendly as he tried to save trees by replacing paper bags. Plastic bags require less energy and fewer trees to produce these, but we expect (as envisioned by Thulin himself) that people would reuse them. However, their low cost and convenience happily led the mass to make it a single-use item, creating significant waste that prompted global efforts to ban/curb them, a trend that continues till today amidst ongoing innovation and policy changes.

After their introduction in the U.S. in the late 1970s, they quickly dominated the market. Plastic companies begin to aggressively market their single-use product as superior to paper and reusable bags. Discoveries in ocean and different studies showcase the long-lasting and harmful effects of single-use plastic products. It is no wonder that soon, it led to widespread environmental concerns and the first nation-wide ban by Bangladesh in 2002, sparking a global movement towards restrictions and alternatives. Following its footsteps, small countries like Rwanda and Kenya also banned polythene bags.

Globally, approximately 2 million plastic bags are used every single minute, catapulting to hundreds of billions or even trillions annually, highlighting its massive overconsumption. As polythene bag is non-biodegradable, this is a real threat to environment. This rapid usage leads to significant environmental damage, with plastic bags becoming a major source of litter in oceans and natural environments, impacting wildlife and breaking down into harmful invisible micro-plastics. In big cities, we find mountains of plastic materials. But the plastic menace is here to stay for a long time. Various environmental organizations like Greenpeace are working on this. But it is high time that we, as global citizens, needed to find some solutions to curb the use of polythene bags or even if we can’t stop using it, we must be re-using it. We should keep in mind the mantra of re-cycling.

In 2018, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) conducted a study and found that 127 out of 192 countries have enacted some form of national legislation to address the problem of plastic bags. For example, supermarkets in Thailand have started using banana leaves as packaging. China has developed a bamboo-based plastic that is as strong as regular plastic and it is totally biodegradable within 2 months. India also banned the use of plastic carry bags having thickness less than 120 microns with effect from the 31st December, 2022. But who cares?

In my own case, I have been practicing some measures for a decade to minimize the use of polythene carry bags. Several others must be taking similar measures in different parts of the country. While visiting vegetable market, I always carry a jute bag or a nylon bag or cotton bag. I don’t take polythene bags normally. After the insistence of the shopkeeper, even if I take one for carrying some items, I make it pretty sure to recycle that a hundred times. While going to a grocery shop, I follow the same method. But for carrying some items, take for example, sugar, I have to take a polythene bag. In that case too, recycle is my sole mantra. We get plenty of plastic carry bags from shops. Instead of throwing them hither and thither, I re-use them very adroitly. We do buy many a Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) product. I use the packets of eatables to store vegetable peels etc. and ultimately hand those over to my garbage-collecting municipality van. Now-a-days, we purchase many items from e-commerce platforms. I suggest the re-use of durable polythene packs and the emptied food packets, instead of throwing them away in the dustbin.

Alternatives to polythene bags include reusable options like cotton or jute bags, which are durable and washable, alongside eco-friendly disposables such as recycled paper bags, and plant-based materials like corn starch bags, offering strong, biodegradable, and sustainable choices for shopping and daily use. Japan introduced potato starch grocery bags that dissolve in water. But the problem is that these alternatives come at a higher cost in comparison to plastic bags. People should laud Bangladesh for at least one reason as it developed the “Sonali Bag”, a 100% biodegradable and eco-friendly bag made from jute cellulose, which can break down in just 3 months. Several other countries, led by Bangladesh, are actively using eco-friendly alternatives to polythene bags, with many turning to plant-based materials and biodegradable solutions.

If we can’t help using and littering polythene bags, we must adopt some methods to re-use these. There is a polythene recycling machine in a private university in our locality. Our institute sometimes sends plastic litters to this university for recycling purpose. When the world dreams of decarbonization, the mass of India basks in the heat arising out of burning polythene bags (which 90% people of India do on regular basis, hurling polythene bags at log fires to get warmth during winter evenings). In this way, the situation takes a worse turn, affecting the environment and human health as well. There is no swift solution (because 100% electric vehicles is still a utopian idea) at hand to alleviate pollution or to improve AQI in metro cities and maximize oxygen generation, though a start-up in Japan is developing “smart moss bricks” that can absorb pollutants and generate oxygen.      

Coming to address the plastic pollution in India, Dr. Rajagopalan Vasudevan, a retired chemistry professor from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, developed a method to mix shredded plastic waste with bitumen to build stronger, more robust, and cost-effective roads, earning him the epithet “Plastic Man of India”. He was also honored with Padma Shri award for his groundbreaking research on re-using waste plastic. With his innovative technique, over 100,000 km of such roads have been built in India, reducing pollution. His innovation, introduced in 2002, uses molten plastic to bind asphalt, making roads resistant to rain water damages. Using the same process to merge waste plastic and stone with materials like limestone, ceramic waste, and granite, Dr Vasudevan has created another eco-friendly building material that consumes up to 40% more waste plastic than that used in the road-laying process. He christens this material “plastone” and affirms that it is lasting, durable and cheap. With this, he got many eco-friendly toilets built in his state. Today, many NGOs from various states across India, local citizens and schools are engaged in helping Dr Vasdevan collect waste plastic.

As per a report by Reuters, in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, some scientists of Germany have identified plastic-eating fungi (mainly the fungus named Parengyodontium album) that could offer a glimmer of hope in lessening the problem of millions of tonnes of waste polluting the world’s oceans every year. But that news should not make us thinking of throwing more and more plastic materials into the water bodies. There is still a need to reduce food packaging and other debris from entering the oceans where it can take decades to degrade because this fungus breaks down plastic at a rate of roughly 0.05% per day. Recently, some researchers from the University of Surrey (UK) developed a robot fish, named “Gillbert”, that can eat plastic particles floating in the ocean and generate power for itself. But all these are in experimental phases.

So, there are some rays of hope, but a question still pops up in our minds: are we ready to make a strong commitment to ameliorate the situation arising out of this plastic menace? If we fail to do so, our progeny will be choked to death in near future.