No, I’m not suggesting that you step up your contribution to saving the environment by eating your bags once you have unpacked them after going shopping. While I know that many people are committed recyclers, some people aren’t and even people who dispose of plastic bags properly (over one trillion bags a year are thrown away) can’t necessarily control whether one flies out when the trucks come by to collect them. The point is that, through intentional disregard or accident, we end up with a lot of plastic bags polluting not just our land, but our oceans and other waterways. Nearly nine tons of plastic end up in our oceans every year. Marine life as well as sea birds are at risk whenever these bags foul their habitats. They get caught in them or ingest them and they get stuck in their stomachs, restricting the animals’ ability to digest food. Luckily, there is a new product being made to battle this epidemic: cassava bags. Made of 100% natural cassava root, they are not harmful if eaten, dissolve in water and are totally biodegradable. Many cities and even the state of California are working on legislation to ban plastic bags in their locales–along with environmentally friendly re-usable cloth bags, cassava bags might be one part of the solution to the plastic problem.
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