through the plastic bag: a look at new york streets prior to the plastic bag ban

by Tonieann Harvey

The Government has implemented a bill that will take effect March 2020 that will ban plastic bags.With many people thinking ahead to what chaos that will cause,the search for local businesses to find a new way to help their customers with their shopping begins.However this ban on plastic will do the city good as it will eliminate a big problem which is plastic bags littering the streets and blocking drains.

This yellow non recyclable plastic bag was left at the corner of the street next to a local bodega. When local businesses don't have trash bins close by the customers seem to make the floor the solution for their waste disposal. Which by NYC laws the owners could be fined $100-$300. This plastic bag will either be picked up by sanitation department or it will be left there until it is either blown away by the  wind or washed down the drains. Single-use plastic bags are not recyclable bags so they end up in landfills, where they take thousands of years to decompose.  

While the streets of New York have a trash bin at every corner, people seem to favor using the ground as there trash bin. The government has implemented solutions to the littering problem by putting trash bins on every turn of the streets yet plastic bags lie on the ground less than a feet away from these bins. Also with a drain close by, that becomes a gateway for those plastic bags to block the drains.These blockages will cost the government thousands of dollars .

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The New York MTA subway is used by over 1 million people a day. With new improvements being made in the subways plastic bags seems to be one thing that may not be so easy to get rid of. As subway riders make their way through the constant sight of plastic bags are everywhere as they are blown on to the tracks or hung on the rails of the steps.These bags will stay on the subway tracks for a long time as they are hard to decompose.

On rainy days where plastic bags get washed up to the side of the streets they block the way for water to flow towards the drains causing the water to overflow onto the sideways. This would of eventually become a bigger crisis if attention was not brought to it. However, a solution has been made and now their should be improvement.

The New York government has implemented many recycle bins around the city to promote recycling and lessen pollution around the city. But with many plastic bags being non recyclable it seems that the ban may save the city more money on sanitation.