Bag Statistics Just a few According to Worldwatch Institute, factories around the world manufactured 4 to 5 TRILLION plastic bags per year. Although many of these bags are recyclable, each year American's return only 0.6 percent of the 100 billion plastic bags they use and toss the rest. According to the American Forest and Paper Association, in 1999 the U.S. alone used 10 billion paper grocery bags, requiring 14 million trees to be cut down. Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food. Plastic bags don=t biodegrade, they photo-degrade, breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food chain A plastic bag takes over 1,000 years to biodegrade. A paper bag takes centuries to biodegrade. Plastic bags and packaging account for a major part of our waste in landfills. plastic bags are one of the top items of litter on our community beaches, roads, and sidewalks. Plastic bags are light and hard to contain. Because of their light weight, plastic bags fly easily in wind, float along readily in the currents of rivers and oceans, get tangled up in trees, fences, poles, and so forth, and block the drainage. Source for above: Click here In Bangladesh, plastic bags have been banned completely since early 2002. They were found to have been the main culprit during the 1988 and 1998 floods that submerged two-thirds of the country. The problem was that discarded bags were choking the drainage system. Purchase via PayPal The "Buy Now" button below will take you to PayPal's secure website. You need not be a member of PayPal to use this service. All that is required is a debit or credit card. Source: http://www.mindfully.org/Berkeley/Berkeley-Plastics-Task-Force.htm-Report of the Berkeley Plastics Task Force