Saving the Environment: Plastic Bags

Chung dem funny, he open his mouth dis morning and joked that he'll teach a staff nurse how to sing "gong xi gong xi ni", now he's at the hospital auditorium being forced to teach the whole hospital staff, kekek...

Saw an article in Cleo (Jan 2008) today about plastic bags and Cleo is sellin their own green bag. Some interestin (and depressin) facts about the (so-called) good ol' plastic bags:

With the number of malls mushrooming up in Msia, the number of plastic bags are also goin up. If every visitor to 1 Utama carried 2 plastic bags out, can u imagine the total amount of plastic bags carried out in 1 day, and there are like, a million people walkin in and out of 1U a day...

• 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are thrown away in a day = more than 1 million plastic bags in 1 minute.
• Plastic bags are only used on the average of a measly 12 minutes before thrown away.
• Worldwide, only 1% of total plastic bags are reused.
• The average family collects up to 60 plastic bags in just 4 trips to the grocery store (imagine the average family visiting the local Tesco).
• Plastic bags do not biodegrade, but photo-degrade, apparently this means that a plastic bag will break down into smaller and more toxic bits, which enter the soil and waters, poisoning crops and fresh water supplies.
• When burnt in incinerators, plastic bags release dioxins (dem poisonous fumes), toxins and carcinogens into the air, which we breathe in.
• Major cause of severe floodings in Bangladesh in 1988 and 1998 = plastic bags floating in sewer and drain systems.
• Plastic bags are made from ethylene, which is extracted from petroleum. So the less plastic bags we use, the less petroleum is used, translating to lower oil prices (its now US$100 per barrel of oil).

I still remember the time I gave the 1 hour talk on saving the environment to Fei Yang members (my band in SGM). I outlined 10 simple steps that the ground-level, everyday person can do for his or her part in being environmentally-friendly:

1. Save water (flush less water, use a spray-head for the garden hose, recycle rain water for watering indoor plants etc.)
2. Use less plastic bags, or renounce em completely and get a "green bag" (Giant now produces the brown-colored ones, better than the ugly green ones), especially if u visit a hypermarket every week for ur weekly supplies.
3. Cut down petrol use (take the LRT, use the train, dont speed more than 4000 rpm, i heard after this rate, petrol use goes up exponentially, walk to school or work).
4. Use less electricity (turn off when not using, dont leave on standby, air-cond at 24 celcius for our climate is the optimum temperature, wash clothes on full load, not just half load, buy those curly energy-saving bulbs that are expensive but save lots on the electric bill and are a lot brighter).
5. Eat less meat (meat industry releases alot of greenhouse gasses, mostly from the farts of animals, the gases are more potent than the usual carbon dioxide).
6. Cut down styrofoam use, thats the tah pau packages we use to pack our chap fanz. Why not use the famed stacked tin-containers, also known to us as the beloved char kehh? If u tah pau every day for, let's say, dinner, u could save on 7 styrofoams a week (dats a lot of styrofoam saved).
7. Plant a tree (as we know, trees suck in the bad carbon dioxide which makes up our greenhouse gases, can be a banana tree, or papaya tree where u just throw the seeds into one spot, u get free fruits, or go steal a sugarcane trunk and plant it outside, presto, u get a sweet snack, or just call the local MBPJ and get ur free tree planted outside ur house for shade to park ur car).
8. Use less paper (go paperless with all ur textbooks as ebooks and ur notes on ur laptop, reuse rough paper, write small etc.)
9. Get creative on the ways u can be environmental-friendly (like the treatment for hypertension being individualised, everybody has a unique way they can contribute to saving the environment, sit down one quiet day and think of the ways that u can make a difference).
10. Can't remember rite now...

Really, if we dun want to be fried one day in the near future, or have everything under water after the ice caps have all melted, we'd better do our part in stopping global warming. Anyways, it leaves a warm fuzzy feeling that we're doin sumthin good :o)