Have you ever wondered how much plastic has accumulated in Clearwater’s landfill sites since its inception in 1967? Every piece of plastic deposited in these sites are still there, virtually unchanged. Plastics take about 450 years to start breaking down. Plastic bags don’t bio-degrade, they photo-degrade, meaning that they break up into tiny pieces that get smaller until they eventually become plastic dust. But plastic is still plastic. And it doesn’t go away.
A major contributor of landfill plastics is single use plastic bags. Plastic bags are manufactured from the petroleum industry. They also use up natural resources, consume energy to manufacture, create litter, and choke marine life. Also, plastics are made from many chemicals and have additives which are proven to be harmful to people and animals.
We want to promote the use of reusable bags by going Costco-style: using no bags (or at least reusable cloth bags). The main reason people use plastic bags is because it’s easy! People might have reusable bags in their car but they are too lazy to remember to bring them in. Maple Leaf Rapids, Manitoba and Dryden, Ontario are two small communities that have eliminated the use of single use plastic bags. In the process of doing this, they had a lot of community support. We would also like to come up with a way to reduce the use of plastic bags and were hoping that we could have the community’s input on our ideas, and their support. We think that, by doing this, Clearwater can be recognized as a “green town”.
We have two landfill sites that have significant numbers of bags. We are soon going to be using a new site. Wouldn’t it be great if it were to have no bags? We would appreciate any ideas or support. You can email us at operationzerobags@gmail.com.
Note: Reid Rebinsky and Katie Bieber are doing a science fair project on trying to reduce (and hopefully eliminate) the use of single-use plastic bags in Clearwater. They would like people to be aware about how bad plastic is for the environment and promote the idea of Clearwater becoming a "green town."
The girls' goal is to go to the Science Fair in Kamloops and possibly the National Science Fair in Ottawa.