16/05/2024
Non-woven bags: Plastic pollution reduction alternative or hidden pollution killer?
As China strengthens its efforts to combat plastic pollution, non-degradable single-use plastic bags are gradually being phased out of the market, leading to the emergence of many alternative products, among which non-woven bags are the most common. From daily grocery shopping bags sold in supermarkets to packaging bags for milk tea and meals used by takeaway platforms, as well as many portable disposable daily necessities, many of them are made of non-woven fabric. However, many businesses falsely claim their products as environmentally friendly and produce substandard eco-friendly bags that flood the market. Even many consumers believe that non-woven bags are environmentally friendly alternatives to plastic bags and will not cause plastic pollution. But is this really the case?
Non-woven bags are essentially plastic products, mainly composed of two materials: PP (polypropylene, accounting for 62% of the total) and PE (polyethylene, accounting for 24% of the total). They not only cannot degrade but also, once extensively used, will lead to significant consumption of non-renewable resources such as petroleum. People generally mistake non-woven bags for traditional cloth bags and have a vague understanding of their pollution issues. Some businesses, in order to reduce losses caused by plastic bans, widely use lightweight and easily damaged non-woven bags as replacements. This practice violates the original intention of plastic bans to a certain extent and leads to new pollution issues, which should be highly valued.
A study published by the UK Environment Agency in 2011 showed that non-woven bags need to be reused at least 11 times to offset the pollution they cause. The China Plastics Degradation Plastics Professional Committee has also mentioned that if a non-woven bag is used only once, the energy consumption is 17.8 times that of a single-use plastic bag, and the carbon emissions are 16.7 times that of a single-use plastic bag. In short, disposable non-woven bags are even less environmentally friendly than single-use plastic bags.
As environmental awareness continues to deepen, more people prefer to use environmentally friendly and pollution-free daily necessities. We should make more efforts in improving industry standards, strengthening supervision, and enhancing publicity and guidance to reduce the unnecessary use of non-woven bags from the source.
