Each year tens of thousands of plastic bags are dumped as landfill, or litter. From there they fly and float out into drains, streams and rivers, costing money to clean up, blocking drains and ending up in the environment, where they can remain for hundreds of years.

Millions of plastic bags are handed out free each week . They are cheap to make, lightweight, waterproof and convenient. But the flipside of this convenience is that plastic bags are practically indestructible. And the number that end up in the environment each year is growing!


We are aiming to create the largest reference source on the damage caused by plastic bags to our environment.

Plastic bags cause many problems for our environment.

In the sea, a floating plastic bag looks a lot like a jellyfish to a hungry marine animal. Hundreds of thousands of marine animals die each year from swallowing plastic bags.

The World Wide Fund for Nature estimates that the plastic bags thrown out in Australia alone kill at least 100,000 birds, whales, seals and turtles every year. Animals die slowly of starvation or suffocation. Once their bodies decompose the plastic bags are liberated to kill again.

The good news is that we can all do something about reducing the plastic bag problem - just by using a few less plastic bags, or even none at all! It's that simple.

There are degradeable plastic bags, but the time taken for them to decompose is disproportionate to the damage they can inflict upon the environment and wildlife in the meantime. We must put aside the arguments made by industry bodies that other methods of transporting shopping or wrapping goods are eually damaging or worse, this is merely diversionary, plastic sheet and plastic bags have to be replaced by an environmentally efficient alternative - NOW>