What are the hazards of disposable plastic bags?

Vegetable basket campaigns have been launched in many regions before, but they disappeared after a period of time. The main purpose of this activity is to encourage people to pick up a basket and go shopping instead of using plastic bags, especially disposable ones. If plastic bags are thrown everywhere, it will cause white pollution, which is quite serious. So what are the hazards of disposable plastic bags?

1. Destroy immunity. Some plastic bags and paper lunch boxes contain whitening agents and fluorescent powders, which are not only potentially carcinogenic, but also can damage the body's immunity.

2. Cause blood system diseases. The polyvinyl chloride contained in non-food plastic bags, after being heated at high temperatures, can easily produce harmful substances such as dioxins, which can cause liver, kidney, central nervous system, and blood system diseases.

3. Carcinogenic. Plastic bags for food are mostly made of polyethylene, which is not easily decomposed as long as the temperature is below 110 degrees Celsius, so there is generally no problem when using them to store water-containing food with a temperature not exceeding 100 degrees Celsius. However, the temperature of fried foods such as dough sticks that have just come out of the pan far exceeds the tolerable temperature of the food bags, which may lead to the production of harmful substances. In mild cases, the symptoms may cause dizziness and nausea, while in severe cases, it may cause cancer.

4. Cause gallstones and kidney stones. Unqualified plastic bags often contain industrial calcium carbonate and paraffin. Calcium carbonate can cause constipation or gallstones or kidney stones; paraffin can cause diarrhea.

5. Affects intelligence. If the heavy metal content in plastic bags exceeds the standard, it will affect the blood system and intellectual development.

The annual global plastic production is 100 million tons. If calculated based on the annual 15% plastic waste, the annual global plastic waste is 15 million tons. China's annual plastic waste is over 1 million tons, and waste plastic accounts for 40% of the garbage. Such a large amount of waste plastic buried underground as garbage will undoubtedly bring greater pressure to the already scarce arable land.

At present, many countries adopt incineration (thermal energy regeneration) or reprocessing (product regeneration) methods to deal with waste plastics. These two methods enable waste plastics to be recycled and reused, achieving the goal of saving resources. However, since waste plastics will produce gases harmful to the human body and pollute the environment when incinerated or recycled, it can be said that the disposal of waste plastics is still a major headache in environmental protection work.