To birds and fish and tiny creatures like plankton, these microplastics often look like food, so they eat them. Microplastics find their way into our soils, rivers and oceans. This makes them fall apart into smaller pieces called microplastics. If left exposed to the elements, UV rays from the sun will cause plastics to become brittle. And that’s where they’ll remain without breaking down for longer than we can imagine. The majority of plastic bags in New Zealand end up in a landfill where they’re squashed together with tonnes of other waste. Micro-organisms do not recognise it as food, so they won’t consume it. It’s a man-made synthetic product, so it can’t be returned back into the natural life cycle. The scary thing is that plastic never breaks down completely, it just gets smaller. Yep, it takes ages to break down – thousands of years according to scientists. Put it this way, that plastic bag you were given at the dairy the other day will be on the planet longer than your childrens’, childrens’, childrens’, childrens’, childrens’ children. How long does a plastic bag take to break down? Not bad!īut if we aim a little higher and we each use just one single-use plastic bag per week we would reduce the number by 1.35 billion. If every New Zealander used one less plastic bag a week, we’d reduce the number of bags we use every year by 250 million. That works out to be over 350 bags per person – enough to carpet the entire country in two layers of plastic bags! We think that’s nuts. In NZ we use around 1.6 billion single-use plastic bags every year. What can I really achieve by refusing a plastic bag?
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