DEBATE

ENGLISH VI

ISSUE: Should plastic bags be banned in all countries?

STAND: WE ARE NOT IN FAVOR OF BANNING PLASTIC BAGS.
GROUP: CON
LEADER:
LYZARA R. CABRERA
Members:
Maureen Mendoza Manacsa
Louan Gabay
Shantal Antoneth Tolentino
Aron
A. INTRODUCTION :
Plastic bags are harmful to the environment and pose a threat to wildlife. Some countries have banned them to protect
the environment. However, banning them is a complex issue. They have become an integral part of our daily lives and banning
them can cause inconvenience.
Plastic bags have been widely used for various purposes. Due to their convenience, durability, and low cost. Here are
some reasons why plastic bags have been popular:

• CONVENIENCE • VERSALITTY • LIGHTWEIGHT

• COST-EFFECTIVE • DURABILITY
wikipedia.com
B. Points of Information (POI’s)
1. A multi-use product
Plastic bags were designed to satisfy a need. Thin plastic can do many things that paper, which is recommended as a good
substitute for plastic, cannot. Indeed, there are ways in which thin plastic may be more useful than paper.
For example, plastic bags are widely appreciated for their use in wrapping food, and holding water and other wet goods.
They are also useful as a protective lining for rubbish bins, as a protective wrap for delicate clothing material, or as a way of
temporarily sealing roof and tap leaks.
These and many other functions make the plastic bag a versatile, practical invention of the twentieth century.
Another advantage of the plastic bag is that it is reusable. Although some plastic bags are too thin for reuse, the solution is
to manufacture stronger and more durable plastic film bags, not discard them altogether.
One reason that plastic film bags are widely seen as an environmental nuisance is that most are non-biodegradable. But if
they were manufactured from a biodegradable material — such as the bio plastics that are now being produced in some
European countries — the main reason for banning them would disappear.
scidev.net

2. Consumers may shift to worse alternatives

Evidence from previous plastic bag restrictions shows this does reduce their use, but sometimes leads to more
environmental harm if customers switch to other materials with larger resource footprints.
Paper bags can require 400% more energy to make, not to mention the harvesting of trees and use of noxious chemicals in
production. Growing cotton “requires land, huge quantities of water, chemical fertilizers and pesticides”.
Plastic bags use fossil fuels, a nonrenewable resource, and are permanent, entering the waste stream forever. They may
cause more pollution on land and in waterways, but have less effect on climate change and land use than other types of bags.
Biodegradable bags, perhaps surprisingly, could be “the worst option” in terms of their impact on climate, harm to soil,
water pollution and toxic emissions.
In the end, a decision on the type of bag becomes about which particular environmental issue takes priority.

theconversation.com

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 3. Consumers, who feel good about not using plastic bags, may do more harm in other ways
Researchers in psychology have observed people often harm the environment when they try to save the planet. For
example, they might buy more of a product, like groceries, because they are labeled as eco-friendly.
This is related to the concept of compensatory behavior.
For example, people may feel that, since they recycle, they don’t need to consider the extra meat they ate that week. Or
because they walked instead of driving to the store, they deserve to buy an extra piece of clothing.
Sometimes compensatory action takes the form of attempts to account for previous harms. For example, buying carbon
offsets for flying might make a passenger feel good, but from an environmental perspective it’s less desirable than not boarding
in the first place.
The point here is that reducing plastic bag use might grant people mental license to take other actions that are more
detrimental to the environment.
the.conversation.com

4. They are not the largest sources of plastic pollution

Plastic waste is indeed a very serious problem. Humans use as many as 1 trillion single-use “carrier bags”, about 128 per
person per year. The total for all single-use plastic is much greater, at 150 million tons per year. Think of this as 19.23kg of
single-use bottles, cutlery, straws, packaging and more for every single person on the planet.
However, the latest research shows plastic bags make up only a fraction of marine debris in the waters of Greater Jakarta.
Thin or thick plastic wraps and sacks constitute just over 13.5% of all debris items found and 8.5% of their weight.
In Japan, plastic shopping bags account for only about 2% of all plastic waste produced in the country.
Moreover, while plastic bags are visible to us all, we need to remember that what is in them is often more harmful to the
environment than the bags themselves. For example, products with heavy plastic packaging and containers can weigh many
times more than the bag. Or consider the actual items, from toxic cleaning solvents, to high-food-mile imported strawberries, to
soda in an aluminum can.
theconversation.com
5. Good environmental management is key
The answer to the problems associated with thin plastic bag use is not a ban, but better management. The 3Rs — reduce,
reuse and recycle — of solid waste management (SWM) also apply to plastic bags.
But only a few countries in Asia have sound SWM systems, even though all of them have regulations on solid waste. This is
a result of a general misconception that managing is the same as regulating.
Managing plastic bags means knowing how to use and store them properly so that they can be reused many times, and
knowing how they can be recycled when their useful life has come to an end.
Guidelines on how to use, maintain, reuse, recover and recycle plastic bags are necessary, and recycling technologies for
thin plastic bags are now widely available.
The guidelines should extend to the application of appropriate technologies for disposal when the materials have reached
their ultimate limit for reuse and recycling.
Many materials need to be managed if they are not to harm the environment. Indeed, if not properly managed, paper can
be a worse polluter than plastic bags; it occupies nine times as much space in landfills, and does not break down substantially
faster than plastic.
scidev.net
C. Closing Remarks
Plastic bags are harmful to the environment yet they are very useful in many ways. Banning them won’t change
anything. It is not the plastic bag who is the problem but the user. If we switch to another material it will cost more material to
make like paper bags, we need to be wise on using this material especially that plastic bags can cause pollution. We need to
remember that plastic bags should be managed not ban, many things could happened if plastic bags disappeared. Let’s stand up
and hold up our hands and make our place a. BE CLEAN AND BE SAFE.