Chile’s President Sebastian Piñera deserves applause for his bill to impose a nationwide ban on single-use plastic bags. He wants to help save the world’s increasingly polluted oceans, and it’s a move that all countries should follow.
Piñera made the announcement this week, citing United Nations and independent studies showing that 8 million tons of plastic waste worldwide end up in the oceans every year, and that these plastic bags and bottles take about 400 years to fully disintegrate.
That’s killing marine life and poisoning our food, because fish are increasingly eating plastic particles. In addition, large numbers of seals, turtles and fish die because they become entangled in huge clusters of debris.
