A rare novelty in the 1970s, the plastic shopping bag is now a ubiquitous global product, with an annual production of one trillion units. They are found in all corners of the world, including the darkest depths of the oceans, the summit of Mount Everest and even the polar ice caps. Plastic bags pose a serious challenge to the environment.
How are single-use plastic bags made? And how were they banned?
1933 - A chemical plant in Northwich, England, accidentally manufactures the most commonly used plastic, polyethylene. Although polyethylene had previously been produced on a small scale, this was the first time an industrially useful compound material had been synthesized and was later used secretly by the British military during World War II.
1959 - Sten Gustaf Thulin, an engineer at Celloplast in Sweden, invents the plastic bag. In 1965, Celloplast patented the one-piece polyethylene shopping bag. This plastic bag designed by Sten soon replaced cloth and paper bags in Europe, alleviating the problem of tree felling to some extent. But along with it, Sten didn't realize that people would throw away the plastic bags immediately after using them, causing new environmental problems.
1979 - Plastic bags, which had successfully captured 80% of the bag market, were further internationalized and widely introduced into the United States. Companies that produce plastic bags began to market their products aggressively, touting the benefits of plastic over paper and reusable bags.
1982 - Two U.S. supermarket chains, the giants of the United States, Hewlett-Packard (Safeway) and Kroger (Kroger), switched to the use of plastic bags. More and more stores followed suit, and in just 10 years, plastic bags almost completely replaced paper bags, dominating the world.
1997 - Navigator and researcher Charles Moore discovers the Pacific Garbage Patch. Ocean circulation causes large amounts of plastic trash to collect, and this garbage patch is the largest of the world's five oceanic plastic aggregation zones, posing a serious threat to the survival of marine life. Plastic bags are infamous for killing large numbers of sea turtles, they are mistakenly ingested by turtles as jellyfish, thus suffocating them.
2002 - Bangladesh is the first country in the world to implement a ban on plastic bags, as they are the primary cause of clogged drainage systems during catastrophic floods. Other countries have since joined the "plastic ban".
2007 - China enacted the "Plastic Restriction Order", which stipulates that from June 1, 2008, the production, sale and use of plastic shopping bags with a thickness of less than 0.025 mm will be banned nationwide.
2011 - The world consumes 1 million plastic bags per minute.
2017 - Kenya implemented the strictest "plastic ban", so that the world has accumulated more than 20 countries through the implementation of "plastic restrictions" or "plastic ban" to regulate the use of plastic bags.
2018 - "Plastic is Fast" has been chosen as the theme for World Environment Day, and businesses and governments around the world have shown their support, one after another, by expressing their commitment to tackling single-use plastic pollution.
