Prada Handbags

Plastic bag for bangus, plastic bag for ampalaya, plastic bag for tomatoes, plastic bag for this and that and so on and so forth. Every item, big or small, cheap or costly, wet or dry, goes into a plastic bag. Buy just a single item; say, one camote, one apple, or one sayote, and right away, the seller opens a plastic bag and shoots the lone item into this ubiquitous but problem-giving container.

In fact, a wet or watery item like fish or chicken settles not only into one plastic bag but into two or three. One kilo of galunggong is placed inside a first plastic bag that is small, thin and transparent; this is then thrust into the second plastic bag that is bigger, thicker and translucent, with a handle; finally, the already-twice-covered galunggong is placed inside a third plastic bag that is the biggest and the thickest, and with a sturdier handle. To accommodate a mixture of purchased items, this third one, the “major-major” plastic bag, needs to be the strongest among the three plastic bags.

So, now, do your math. Count the number of people buying things from the market plus the number of items they take home daily. Start from vegetables: eggplants, ampalaya, tomatoes, onions, etc.; next, meat: pork, beef, lobsters, etc.; then, fruits: atis, mangoes, oranges, etc; and, groceries: sardines, milk, coffee, soaps, oil, etc. Unless these are bought at a big supermarket, not a single one of these enumerated items is exempt from sloping down into three different plastic bags. Thus, every day, each market buyer accumulates more than a dozen plastic bags in his or her house. Multiply the number of market buyers with the approximate number of plastic bags taken home by the buyers, and what do you get? Thousands and thousands of used plastic bags in a city in one day!

One thing more: Not all these used plastic bags are disposed of properly. Light as kites that are easily blown by the wind, several of these plastic bags travel from place to place or dangle from one structure to another. Further, the use of these plastic bags by some barangays as town-fiesta decorations contribute to the easy and speedy travel of these plastic bags.

In some places, you see plastic bags bulging with garbage that people purposely hang from the trunk of a tree. Try roaming some streets in the city or in several not-so-posh subdivisions in Metro Manila, and witness a tree trunk in front of two or more houses used as a hanging garbage can. With many colored plastic bags hanging from every side or from the lowest branches, the pitiful tree appears like a Christmas tree.