NEED FEEDBACK !!! is the current plastic bag ban in Australia effective?

[unicornworld]

Hey Im in yr 11 wrote this persuasive piece on the prompt 'is the current plastic bag ban in Australia effective?' I would like some improvements and any feedbacks to make this a higher piece thank you  word limit 800 words
Over the recent years, debates have been raging whether plastic bags should be banned. Australia has finally joined the long list of countries that have banned single-use, lightweight plastic bags from stores. The approach towards a safer and cleaner environment has enraged customers. Top retailers in Australia have backed down against the ban and now charge customers for plastic bags. The convivence of these plastic bags come at a very high cost to the environment as they create visual pollution, as well as destroy our sea creatures while their heavy reliance depletes our oil supply. Therefore, people who are against the plastic bag ban are encouraged to worry for the future and adopt new ways of carrying products instead of using single-use plastic bags.

Plastic bags impact our environment in a very harmful way. One of the ways in which plastic bags effect the environment is that they are made up of substances that take more than 1000 years to break down. Most plastic bags do not biodegrade to a significant degree regardless of environmental conditions, although some do so very slowly if exposed to air, water and light which will take approximately 1000 years. Do you think you will live for 1000 years to witness these bags decompose? According to the waste management only one percent of plastic bags are returned for recycling, this means that an average family only recycles 15 bags ever year. once we use these plastic bags and dispose of them, 7,150 plastic bags tend to end up in landfills every minute. Every year more and more plastic bags are destroying the environment, eventually when these bags become litter they end up in parks, sidewalks and beaches. If we decide to burn these millions of plastic bags, we would eventually kill our homeland. The current plastic bag ban urges us lazy people to help save our planet from further damage by limiting free access to plastic bags. Although some companies now charge their customer for plastic bags it is the first step to protecting our environment. Charging customers for plastic bags will prevent unnecessary use of these bags, instead customers will still be able to access plastic bags in emergency situations but are still encouraged to use their own green bags.


Furthermore, plastic bags are killing our marine animals, Sadly, us careless humans are the cause of these animals being harmed. Plastic bags have significant impact on the lives of our sea creatures. Plastic bags that we use are thrown and eventually end up in the ocean. These bags lie around in the landscape of these vulnerable marine animals, which causes them to mistake them for food. Animals choke and suffocate from these plastic bags which float around the ocean like jellyfish. The ingested bag continues to remain intact till they die and decompose which can lead to the same bag killing another victim. The lives of our marine animals lie in our hands, it is our responsibility to try and stop our marine life from additional harm. Simply carrying our own green bags to the supermarket can help save the lives of 100,000 sea creatures that die each year from plastic bag entanglement. Therefore, the current plastic bag ban provides a safer environment for these sea creatures



Petroleum is vital for our current way of life, it is required for our heating and lighting and for transportation. Yet, despite the importance of petroleum it is still mainly used in the production of plastic bags. Without any alternative sources of energy discovered yet, decreasing amounts of petroleum will lead to a significant change in the way which we now live. If we continue using crucial petroleum for plastic bags, we will end up losing everything. The Petroleum supply is slowly diminishing which will practically affect the entire world. It takes approximately about 60-100 million litres to make plastic bags. Since petroleum is such a valuable resource it should not be used to produce plastic bags instead we should save and it in a more effective way. If we reduce the amount of oil is used for plastic bags, we could save much more oil for the future. Thus, the current plastic bag ban limits the unnecessary use of petroleum which is better for the future.

The current plastic bag ban that has been implemented in Australia will reduce the significant number of plastic bags that end up in landfills, saves the life of marine life and helps cut down petroleum used to produce plastic bags. Plastic bags are destroying our planet, our natural resources, they won’t last forever and its inhabitants depend on these resources for life.

[Bri MT]

Hey,

I'm planning on being a marine biologist in the future so this is definitely something I care about! Great that you're using your speech to bring more awareness to this, and here is some feedback. Hopefully you can understand my laptop-handwriting

[OZLexico]

There are lots of ideas in your introduction but they are not forming an indication of your main arguments. I'd suggest you develop a stronger opening sentence e.g. "The role of plastic in environmental pollution has forced a change of approach to single use plastic bags." As your topic is "the effectiveness of the plastic bag ban in Australia", you're writing about "why is the ban necessary", instead of  "is it effective". So you need three main arguments to support your contention that this ban is effective. Making consistent links with consumer behaviour could give your writing a stronger connection to "is the plastic bag ban effective".You could "flip" the content of your first body paragraph to focus on the positive effect that a change in consumer behaviour can have, then follow this up with the alarming statistics about how long degrading of plastic actually takes. In your second body paragraph you could also make a stronger distinction between plastic in landfill and plastic waste in the waterways and oceans - this is the invisible consequence of the "lazy consumer behaviour" you've mentioned. This is where you might mention the supermarket back down sending contradictory messages to their customers - the support of these big retailers is an important part of the change in consumer behaviour. Your third main argument (about waste of petroleum resources) generalises too much and could instead focus on renewable and reusable resources to replace petroleum based plastics and that these products that replace single use plastic bags are readily available.  Australians can follow the models developed by other countries with similar bans.     

[vox nihili]

You might be wise to consider some of the potential ill effects of the plastic bag ban. Shunting customers onto reusable bags might sound like a good idea, but the reusable bags are actually far worse for the environment than the original plastic bags, meaning that they have to be reused x number of times before it becomes beneficial.