1. “Green” Bags for a “Green” Earth

2. University of North Florida SIFE team
Presented by:
University of North Florida SIFE team
-Students In Free Enterprise-

3. Our Mission
The Green Bags project aims to teach children the dangers of using plastic bags, and the advantages of switching to reusable cloth bags.

4. Our Vision
We believe that the earlier you can teach a child good recycling habits, the longer they have a chance to change the world for the better. If we can impact just one family, we can eliminate the waste of approximately 1,460 bags in one year.

5. Why Switch to Cloth Bags?
Waste
Space
Money
Pollution
Animal Life

6. Waste
An average American family of four uses 1,460 plastic bags per year
An average 380 billion plastic bags are consumed in America Each year
Over 500 billion plastic bags used worldwide each year
Worldwide, an estimated one million plastic bags are consumed each minute

7. Space Plastic bags in a land fill can last up to 1,000 years
30 – 90 million plastic bags litter the streets each year
The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store.
Approximately 500 nautical miles off the California coast sits a growing "plastic island," a gargantuan patch of floating plastic trash held together by currents stretching across the northern Pacific almost as far as Japan. This "plastic island" is made up of about 7 billion pounds of plastic garbage, and measures about twice the size of Texas.
Click on plastic island link to see an article and pictures of it

8. Money Plastic bags cost American retailers approximately $4 billion
These costs get passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices
Plastic bags costs approximately 2 cents each to manufacture
Plastic bags are made of petroleum, which is made out of oil, with rising costs of oil around the world, the costs of plastic bags are on the rise

9. Pollution
Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade - breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.
The use of plastic bags increases the amount of garbage per American each year, which increases the pick up frequency for garbage men, increasing air pollution by trucks
An estimated 8 billion pounds of plastic bags, wraps and sacks enter the waste stream every year in the US alone, putting an unnecessary burden on our diminishing landfill space and causing air pollution if incinerated.
In 1988 and 1998, two massive floods hit the city of Bangladesh, which were directly caused by the blockage of their drainage systems by plastic bags. America can not afford to make the same mistake.

10. Animal Life
Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistake them for food
Plastic bags wrap around living corals, quickly "suffocating" and killing them.
Plastic pieces outweigh surface zooplankton in the Central North Pacific by a factor of 6-1.

11. These Animals Need Our Help
Animals, like this sea turtle, are counting on us to improve their living environments.
Don’t let our sea life become casualties of our ignorance

12. Terri the Turtle Our friend Terri is a sea turtle
Terri’s favorite food are jelly fish
In the ocean, plastic bags can look just like a jelly fish, and turtles like Terri eat them by mistake
This causes serious illness and even death for many of these turtles
We’re going to have a puppet named Terri that will help us present to the children

13. Can you see the resemblance?
Question for class: Which one is a jelly fish and which one is a bag?

14. Our futures are in your hands
Change Starts With You!
Plastic bags will continue to destroy our planet unless we take action now
It is up to every one of us to change our routines, change our way of thinking, and change the world
The world, the animals, and the environment are depending on us
Our futures are in your hands