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To produce a plastic bag of 20 g, 40 g of oil are needed.
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Besides being an enormous pollutant of our environment, plastic bags pose a threat to animals, as they might eat or become entangled in them. In addition, especially for children, there’s a risk of suffocation due to plastic bags.
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While plastic bags are far from being non-polluting, the alternatives aren’t much better: paper and cotton bags do quite a lot of damage, too. Relatively speaking, a paper bag has to be used 3 times, and a cotton bag 131 times, to be as environmentally-friendly as a recycled plastic bag.
Next time you’re in a store and about to put your purchases in a plastic bag, keep these things in mind. Even better, just remember to bring a reusable bag from home!
Fabrics Lea Do you check the materials in your clothes, cushions or other textiles when you buy and use them? And if you do, do you know what they mean for the environment? The techniques of growing and making different textiles have, depending on the type of fabric, different environmental impacts on water use, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, as well effects as on health through the chemicals released when dyeing or bleaching occur later in the process. Unfortunately, there is not one single sustainable fabric as a solution for the whole industry. This chapter should give you a rough overview of the different fibres and their implication for the planet and people, as an initial orientation.
Natural fibres Natural fibres are those materials extracted from plants or animals in a natural way. But they also account for a high environmental impact in terms of water and resource scarcity and global warming.
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