Good & Should

The issue I’ll be writing about is the use of reusable bags being more environmentally friendly, convenient, and smarter than the use of plastic bags. My claim is really answering two of the big questions, “what is good,” and “what should we do.”

            My claim addresses the question of what is good by reasoning that plastic bags are worse than cloth or reusable bags. They harm the environment so badly! On a website talking about the facts of using plastic bags, it states that a single plastic bag can take up to 1,000 years to degrade, and about 1 million plastic bags are used every minute! Where are so many of these plastic bags going? The majority of plastic bags are not being recycled. Instead, they are being thrown into the ocean. Every square mile of ocean has about 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in it, and plastic bags are the second-most common types of ocean refuse! The facts are adding up, and the odds aren’t looking very good in a plastic bags favor.

            Another reason that getting my claim addresses the what is good question is that by using cloth bags instead of wasting all the plastic ones, we will save more money and we’ll be happier overall with the cloth bags. It only takes eleven times of use to pay off for buying that one cloth bag, and it can still be used many more times. Also, cloth bags are much more sturdy than plastic, and those long walks back from the grocery store won’t be burdened with handles breaking and bags ripping.

            The other big question my claim addresses is what should we do. By Brigham Young University banning plastic bags, we’ll set an example to all the other colleges and universities in our country. Other countries are already setting this example, and some never even used plastic bags to begin with. Using reusable bags will set BYU apart as an environmentally aware and safe place, and will bring us a lot of good attention and media.

            The issue addresses both of these big questions I’ve stated, both by saying why cloth bags are good and plastic bags aren’t, and what we should do to implement cloth bags in our grocery stores, restaurants, and retail shops. Hopefully those points will be made obvious to my audience so that this paper won’t just be an assignment, but a mission.