Carbon Footprint Of Plastic Grocery Bags During The Life Cycle
MIDTERM
In order to comment on the carbon footprint of plastic grocery bags during its life cycle, I should first explain what does the carbon footprint term stand for, I would take the definition given in the textbook of this course, "The carbon footprint is the total emissions of CO2, more specifically greenhouse gases as CO2, equivalent (CO2e), that is generated by individual, organization, event, product or process over its life-cycle". Knowing what the carbon footprint means now, I know that for discussing the carbon footprint of plastic grocery bag, I should look into the emissions of CO2e during all the life cycle of the product, (obtaining the raw materials, making plastic bag, using the bag and recycling the bag).
There …show more content…
For doing this what we do is cut the sheets of polyethylene and align the sheets in an appropriate way so that with a binding machine we can seal strips together making our bag. Sometimes store logos may be added after or packed in a specific way. Although that we have the bag already made, the bag after several uses it has to be disposed. I would say that most of the people are aware that plastic bags when disposed will take a huge time until they are fully decomposed, I could read from the reference that actually the plastic bags never fully decompose, they just keep turning into smaller pieces, it does this because polyethylene is unable to do biodegradation it just keeps breaking down due to photo degradation that takes place due to the interaction with ultraviolet radiation from the sun. If we throw them there will be them forever but what else can we do when we are done using them, if we do nothing the plastic bags will keep piling up polluting our environment. Over the last decades they have been burned, this is a huge mistake given that plastic bags come from natural gas which contain hydrogen and carbon, when this bags are burned they produce dioxin and many other substances that when inhalated can cause cancer plus carbon dioxide emissions. Recycling day after day is seeming a more viable way out, new technologies make that polyethylene can be recycled, but …show more content…
The remaining 10% of the cost accounts for labor, capital etc... Usually this industry works in very low margins and they try to make money with size, (as I could read in the reference, in this second in U.S they are being 60,000 plastic bags being used on average, that can make us realize how huge is the market that they are attending, 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed
In order to comment on the carbon footprint of plastic grocery bags during its life cycle, I should first explain what does the carbon footprint term stand for, I would take the definition given in the textbook of this course, "The carbon footprint is the total emissions of CO2, more specifically greenhouse gases as CO2, equivalent (CO2e), that is generated by individual, organization, event, product or process over its life-cycle". Knowing what the carbon footprint means now, I know that for discussing the carbon footprint of plastic grocery bag, I should look into the emissions of CO2e during all the life cycle of the product, (obtaining the raw materials, making plastic bag, using the bag and recycling the bag).
There …show more content…
For doing this what we do is cut the sheets of polyethylene and align the sheets in an appropriate way so that with a binding machine we can seal strips together making our bag. Sometimes store logos may be added after or packed in a specific way. Although that we have the bag already made, the bag after several uses it has to be disposed. I would say that most of the people are aware that plastic bags when disposed will take a huge time until they are fully decomposed, I could read from the reference that actually the plastic bags never fully decompose, they just keep turning into smaller pieces, it does this because polyethylene is unable to do biodegradation it just keeps breaking down due to photo degradation that takes place due to the interaction with ultraviolet radiation from the sun. If we throw them there will be them forever but what else can we do when we are done using them, if we do nothing the plastic bags will keep piling up polluting our environment. Over the last decades they have been burned, this is a huge mistake given that plastic bags come from natural gas which contain hydrogen and carbon, when this bags are burned they produce dioxin and many other substances that when inhalated can cause cancer plus carbon dioxide emissions. Recycling day after day is seeming a more viable way out, new technologies make that polyethylene can be recycled, but …show more content…
The remaining 10% of the cost accounts for labor, capital etc... Usually this industry works in very low margins and they try to make money with size, (as I could read in the reference, in this second in U.S they are being 60,000 plastic bags being used on average, that can make us realize how huge is the market that they are attending, 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed