Plastic bags are choking the earth every day and have become another major issue that mankind needs to deal with and that too enduringly.

he term white pollution has been coined to describe the local and global effects of discarded plastic bags upon the environment.

The World Wide Fund for Nature has estimated that over 100,000 whales, seals, and turtles die every year as a result of eating or being trapped by plastic bags.

Scientists have found evidence that the micro plastics are being eaten by animals, who store them in their tissues and cells for months with probably negative consequences for their health and that of the humans who eat marine creatures.

According to studies by the Plastic Development Council under the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals in GOI, India will emerge as the third biggest consumer of plastics in the world by this year end.

Every year, around 500 billion (500,000,000,000) plastic bags are used worldwide. So many that over one million bags are being used every minute!

Hundreds of cows die in New Delhi alone every year when they choke on plastic bags while trying to eat vegetable waste stuffed in the garbage.

Plastic bags are not biodegradable. They actually go through a process called photo degradation—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic particles that contaminate both soil and water, and end up entering the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them.

Discarded plastic bags have become so common in Africa they have spawned a cottage industry. People there collect bags and use them to weave hats, bags and other goods. According to the BBC, one such group routinely collects 30,000 bags every month.

Plastic bags as litter have become commonplace even in Antarctica and other remote areas. According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone from being rare in the late 1980s and early 1990s to being almost everywhere in Antarctica.

A car can drive about 11 metres on the amount of petroleum used to make a single plastic bag.
Mumbai's storm water drainage choking with accumulated plastics waste, making the floods unmanageable, is an old story.

Plastics are highly toxic. When burned they release cancer-causing gases. The cheap bags contain chemicals such as cadmium or lead- based chemicals that are harmful to health. They leach into vegetables, meat and food. “In particular, children are known to be more sensitive to the cancer risks posed by inhaling vinyl chloride, one of the known carcinogens emitted by this source category”, says the EPA Fact Sheet.

There is no exaggeration in the statement ‘Plastic Bags are a Bigger Threat to India's Future than Nuclear Weapons’!