The Plastic Dodo?
Is it time for the plastic bag to go the way of the dodo? San Francisco and Leaf Rapids both seem to think so. You probably know S.F. at least enough to know it's in California. It boasts an approximate population of 780,000, making it a giant beside Leaf Rapids, which is a bustling metropolis located 980 km northeast of Winnipeg that proudly counts a total of 550 citizens in its census. Size aside, they both see the wisdom in helping the plastic bags on their way to extinction. In March, S.F. became the first city in North America to ban the use of "traditional" plastic bags. In April, Leaf Rapids followed suit.
I love the use of the word "traditional" in the newspaper articles that announce these bans. These sins against nature have only been around since the 1970's. It seems sort of a short time in which to earn the label that implies something good. Family is traditional. It's been around since Hector was a pup. Mother love is traditional. It predates family. They both deserve the honorific. Plastic bags do not.
I also love the announcement that plastic will take approximately 1,000 to totally break down in landfill sites. No one knows that. No one can say that with certainty. We have not had the material at our disposal for long enough to gather stats in proof of that claim. It could be around for even longer.
There are things we do know about it, however. They're given away "free" at so mnay stores. It's damn near an accomplishment in itself to get out of a store without a plastic bag. The problem is that although they are free to the consumer, they are not free in any other sense. The Canadian figure is an approximate 17 cents per bag to process them as trash. Multiply that by the 10 billion or so single-use plastic bags used in Canada every year. The manufacture of that 10 billion requires 150 million litres of oil and results in the release of 420 million kg of carbon dioxide into our beleagered atmosphere.
Although the oil and CO2 litany is something most of us have probably heard before, you may not know that they also cost thousands of marine lives each year. When these killers enter their world, marine mammals sometimes mistake the bags for jellyfish and try to eat them. They choke to death on them. It would seem to me there is more than enough reason for all of us to start arming ouselves with a stash of reusable bags.
Sometimes a little officail encouragement has been used to get people on board for this one. South Africe, for instance, mandated that plastic bats had to be more durable and more expensive. Shoppers there are charged 35 cents for each bag they take from a store. In Italy, the "bag tax" is five times the cost of a bag. Ireland imposed a "plastax" of .15 euros per bag and surprise, surprise! the use of plastic bags fell by 90%.
Don't get the wrong idea. People don't always need to have their arms twisted before they climb on board this band wagon. A voluntary program was put in place in Australia. Retailers were urged to make reusable bags available to their customers and people were urged to buy them. The program saw a 45% reduction over four years in the use of plastic bags, and not a cent was charged in taxes.
Returning to Leaf Rapids for a little public feedback on the ban gives an interesting result. John Roach, assistant manager of the town's Co-op grocery store says that customer feedback to the ban is "overwhelmingly positive". He says the store had been going through more than 2,000 plastic bags a week and that abandoned bags had been creating eyesore litter. Now there are very few of the rogue carryalls to be seen anywhere. Voila. Instant town improvement.
Now we need Toronto to get off its ass and do something about this problem. Hell, we need every city and town, everywhere, to get involved. It's not the hardest thing they'll ever have to do.
It doesn't take an inordinate expenditure of effort to keep a reusable bag or two in your car, in your office, and your home. Get yourself into the new habit of always carrying some of them with you when you enter a mall or grocery store. I've been doing it for more than twenty years now, so I can speak to the issue from first-hand experience. You'll forget sometimes, for sure, but you'll also be amazed at just how easy it actually is to do. I have collected a gloriously mismatched set of cloth bags and washed them as needed through the years. They're all still going strong. I keep one collection for the grocery store and another for the mall. The ones that go with me to the mall are the pretty ones, the ones with flowers or cute little animals printed on them - the clean ones. They don't do the really heavy duty the others do so they have retained their presentable-in-public looks. The others are the real workhorses of my collestion, and they show it in different ways, like the one that was on duty when an oil bottle leaked. Poor thing. Into the laundry it went and out it came, stained for life, but clean and reaady to return to the front lines, or at least the check-out lines, where it does its duty with pride.
I've written before about alternatives to plastic bags, like the biodegradable poop&scoop bags now available. If you're interested, click here to see what the US Environmental Protection Agency has to say about using paper, plastic or cloth bags. For a little more food for thought, follow this link to to the World Watch Institute. They'll give you a few facts and figures and a couple of links that could keep you reading for a while. One will take you to the Grassroots Recycling Network while another will take you to the Film and Bag Federation's site. Nothing like listening to both sides before you make up your mind, right?
Give it some thought. Give it a chance. Please.
I love the use of the word "traditional" in the newspaper articles that announce these bans. These sins against nature have only been around since the 1970's. It seems sort of a short time in which to earn the label that implies something good. Family is traditional. It's been around since Hector was a pup. Mother love is traditional. It predates family. They both deserve the honorific. Plastic bags do not.
I also love the announcement that plastic will take approximately 1,000 to totally break down in landfill sites. No one knows that. No one can say that with certainty. We have not had the material at our disposal for long enough to gather stats in proof of that claim. It could be around for even longer.
There are things we do know about it, however. They're given away "free" at so mnay stores. It's damn near an accomplishment in itself to get out of a store without a plastic bag. The problem is that although they are free to the consumer, they are not free in any other sense. The Canadian figure is an approximate 17 cents per bag to process them as trash. Multiply that by the 10 billion or so single-use plastic bags used in Canada every year. The manufacture of that 10 billion requires 150 million litres of oil and results in the release of 420 million kg of carbon dioxide into our beleagered atmosphere.
Although the oil and CO2 litany is something most of us have probably heard before, you may not know that they also cost thousands of marine lives each year. When these killers enter their world, marine mammals sometimes mistake the bags for jellyfish and try to eat them. They choke to death on them. It would seem to me there is more than enough reason for all of us to start arming ouselves with a stash of reusable bags.
Sometimes a little officail encouragement has been used to get people on board for this one. South Africe, for instance, mandated that plastic bats had to be more durable and more expensive. Shoppers there are charged 35 cents for each bag they take from a store. In Italy, the "bag tax" is five times the cost of a bag. Ireland imposed a "plastax" of .15 euros per bag and surprise, surprise! the use of plastic bags fell by 90%.
Don't get the wrong idea. People don't always need to have their arms twisted before they climb on board this band wagon. A voluntary program was put in place in Australia. Retailers were urged to make reusable bags available to their customers and people were urged to buy them. The program saw a 45% reduction over four years in the use of plastic bags, and not a cent was charged in taxes.
Returning to Leaf Rapids for a little public feedback on the ban gives an interesting result. John Roach, assistant manager of the town's Co-op grocery store says that customer feedback to the ban is "overwhelmingly positive". He says the store had been going through more than 2,000 plastic bags a week and that abandoned bags had been creating eyesore litter. Now there are very few of the rogue carryalls to be seen anywhere. Voila. Instant town improvement.
Now we need Toronto to get off its ass and do something about this problem. Hell, we need every city and town, everywhere, to get involved. It's not the hardest thing they'll ever have to do.
It doesn't take an inordinate expenditure of effort to keep a reusable bag or two in your car, in your office, and your home. Get yourself into the new habit of always carrying some of them with you when you enter a mall or grocery store. I've been doing it for more than twenty years now, so I can speak to the issue from first-hand experience. You'll forget sometimes, for sure, but you'll also be amazed at just how easy it actually is to do. I have collected a gloriously mismatched set of cloth bags and washed them as needed through the years. They're all still going strong. I keep one collection for the grocery store and another for the mall. The ones that go with me to the mall are the pretty ones, the ones with flowers or cute little animals printed on them - the clean ones. They don't do the really heavy duty the others do so they have retained their presentable-in-public looks. The others are the real workhorses of my collestion, and they show it in different ways, like the one that was on duty when an oil bottle leaked. Poor thing. Into the laundry it went and out it came, stained for life, but clean and reaady to return to the front lines, or at least the check-out lines, where it does its duty with pride.
I've written before about alternatives to plastic bags, like the biodegradable poop&scoop bags now available. If you're interested, click here to see what the US Environmental Protection Agency has to say about using paper, plastic or cloth bags. For a little more food for thought, follow this link to to the World Watch Institute. They'll give you a few facts and figures and a couple of links that could keep you reading for a while. One will take you to the Grassroots Recycling Network while another will take you to the Film and Bag Federation's site. Nothing like listening to both sides before you make up your mind, right?
Give it some thought. Give it a chance. Please.
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