Plastic ain't fantastic. According to the US EPA, Americans use more than 380 billion plastic bags and wraps each year. Worldwide, as many as one trillion plastic bags are used each year! If you joined them end on end they would circumnavigate the globe 4,200 times.

100,000 marine creatures a year die from plastic entanglement and these are the only the ones that are found. Approximately 1 million sea birds also die from plastic. These bags are petroleum-based and do not biodegrade. A plastic bag can kill numerous animals because they take so long to disintegrate. An animal that dies from the bag will decompose and the bag will be released, and another animal could harmlessly fall victim and once again eat the same bag. It can take anything between 20-1000 years for a plastic bag to break up. Break up as in they break up into smaller pieces. They don’t break down and those that do, break down into polymers and toxic chemicals.

Most trash reaches the seas via rivers, and 80% originates from landfills and other urban sources. This waste, which is also consumed by fish and can entangle sharks and damage coral reefs, tends to accumulate in gyres (areas of slow spiraling water and low winds) and along coastlines. Unfortunately, scientists have now identified 200 areas declared as ‘dead zones’ where no life organisms can grow.

Virginia has yet to implement a ban on plastic bags, much less, a tax on plastic bags, so please help support this cause by signing the petition!