Plastic bags have been a part of society for decades.

From light weight plastic bags found in supermarkets to heavier duty bags found in department stores. In general most plastic bags are made from ethylene which is a gas produced as a by-product from other industrial processes. The light weight supermarket bags are made of high density olyethene (HDPE) while the heavier bags are made from low density polyethene (LDPE).

While plastic seems to be a product that could be reused, the reality is that it is not. Statistics collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that only 1% of all plastic bags are reused. That means 99% go out in the trash or are dumped after only one use.

While these bags may seem completely harmless, they have a devastating effect on the environment. If you talk the time to walk around your local neighborhood you will see plastic bags dumped in park lands, in waterways, and most other places.

This pollution results in not only a polluted looking environment but a major hazard for people and wildlife which either get caught up in plastic or consume them. People in Bangladesh will attest to their potential danger with clogging of drains by plastic cited as a key cause of major urban flooding in 1988 and 1998.

Unfortunately it is not just one or two bags that are dumped, but millions. On cleanup day in Australian in 2002, over 500,000 plastic bags were collected!

If this isn't bad enough, the reality is that plastic does not readily breakdown in the environment. Depending on the type of plastic used, a bag may take up to 500 years to photodegrade. Hence each bag dumped will survive for generations.

While the average plastic bag costs only 4-6 cents to make, the cost of clean-up, pollution, and wildlife destruction is mind blowing. For the turtle in the picture below, the impact of plastic consumption was fatal, for humans we have a choice.

This choice is to select eco-friendly alternatives to plastic bags. Cities such as London and San Francisco have already moved to ban plastic shopping bags while other cities are levying fines on retailers for their use. Such moves by cities not only reflect the environmental push to find alternatives that can be recycled or reused over and over.

Reusable shopping bags from TuckerBags are that choice..