Gerard response, science discussion help

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When discussing plastic bags, its a little different for me. I know plastics bags, while convenient, are a huge contributor to waste products not only in the United States, but the world. While something so simple as a plastic bag seems small, it’s the perfect size, weight, and non composition material to travel the while while staying around for ages. One of the major problems of plastic bags is that they are not biodegradable. This leads to the waste sticking around to long periods of time. In addition, as they compose the chemical start to erode into the earth causing various environmental issues. As Turk & Bensel (2014) state, “The liners may eventually leak and contaminate groundwater with toxic leachate.” But there are ways to combat this.

I currently live in Japan where you have to pay for plastic bags. If you go into a supermarket, and you do not have a reusable grocery bag, you pay a five yen (roughly five American cents) per bag. This has been very helpful to not only reduce the waste, but to fund the reduction of current waste with the funds from the bags. “According to the 2012 survey on plastic bags by MOE, all 47 prefectures, as well as nearly 90 percent (%) of 19 government-designated cities, 41 major urban cities and 23 wards of Tokyo are taking some form of measures to reduce plastic bags as of February 1, 2013.” (“Current Status of Plastic Bag Reduction Efforts in Japan|JFS Japan for Sustainability”, 2015)