California, New York, and Hawaii are the only states that have preeminently banned plastic bags.  Although these states aren’t plastic bag free, they are doing a plethora more than Nevada to currently reduce plastic waste.  Plastic alone is a dangerous, rapidly growing waste that exhausts the environment.  Not only is it affecting the environment, but plastic pollution is also affecting wildlife and human health.  The growth of plastic bags is damaging the earth at an alarming rate and killing animals.  This is why the state of Nevada should ban plastic bags.      

The environmental harm of plastic bag usage has become a global issue that the state of Nevada should recognize.  In the novel Pollution, James Haley states that “the plastic industry is second only to the chemicals industry in generating toxic releases that damage the ozone layer, remitting more than 12 million pounds of the ozone depleting chemicals in 1994,” (Haley 176). The ozone layer helps regulates the temperature of Earth's atmosphere.  Without a stable ozone layer global warming will increase at a higher rate.  By reducing plastic bags in Nevada preemptively, it will help save the environment from further damage.  Moreover, the ozone can potentially heal by reducing chemical waste.  Banning plastic bags could solve this environmental issue one plastic bag at a time.  This is why the state of Nevada should review and consider banning plastic bags to help the environment.

The environment isn’t the only thing affected by plastic bags; wildlife is in serious danger due to grocery bags that on average only get used for five minutes.  According to an article on why plastic bags are bad for the environment, “approximately 100,000 sea turtles and other marine animals die every year because they mistake the bags for food or get strangled in them,”(Why Plastic Bags are Bad for the Environment paragraph 2).  To make matters worse, Plastic bags have seeming unlimited chances to murder wildlife due to the fact that it takes 1000 years for plastic bags to fully break down.  Plastic isn’t biodegradable at all.  Plastic bags break down when exposed to UV rays and take 500 to 1000 years to break down depending on the amount of rays it receives.  Therefore, even when plastic bags are buried in a landfill they do not decompose.  As a result, the bag could become exposed by winds or erosion, and an animal could digest a plastic bag, resulting in its death.  Another animal could then eat the dead animal and digest the same bag, leading to the same result.  Animal carcasses decompose faster than plastic bags, so plastic bags are again released into the environment after an animal’s death to repeat the trend.  Therefore, plastic bags need to be banned in Nevada in order to save organisms and create a healthy ecosystem. 

Why doesn’t Nevada ban plastic bags?  The reason behind this could be the money.  The cost of plastic bags is dramatically cheaper than the cost of paper bag alternatives.  According to a website call The Wraps Blog, an order of plastic bags only costs $28 while paper bags cost $258.  While the numbers make sense as to why plastic is still in stores, it brings up the question if plastic bags are really worth the cost to the environment.  According to theworldcounts, the ozone layer has approximately 50 years left in recovery; however, this can only occur if toxins are kept in check.  

In conclusion, Plastic bags are harmful for the environment and wildlife.  At the end of the day, you can only heal so much.  A website called What’s the Problem with Plastic Bags has a running number on how many bags are being produced every second of every minute.  According to their counter 1,000,000 bags are created every six seconds.  The pollution created by plastic is easy to see in everyday life.  As a whole, Nevada can help by being hopefully one of many states that hops on throwing plastic bags out.  Nevada needs to put an end to plastic bags before they put an end to the earth.

Work cited

Haley, James. Pollution. Greenhaven Press, 2003.

Lights, Zion. “What's So Bad About Plastic Bags?” One Green Planet, One Green Planet, 17 Apr. 2019.

“Why Is Plastic Harmful?” Plastic Pollution Coalition.

Wise, Renee, et al. “Paper Bags versus Plastic Bags – Real Numbers.” Nashville Wraps Blog, 31 Jan. 2019.