Don't Sack The Plastic Bag Just Yet

Don't sack the plastic bag just yet
By Kelvin Wade June 10, 2010

The Assembly passed AB1998 that would ban stores in California from freely using plastic grocery bags. Customers would have to use reusable bags or purchase paper grocery bags made with 40 percent recycled paper for no less than a nickel each. The Senate is likely to pass the bill, and Gov. Schwarzenegger supports it.

You don't have to be Rand Paul to be uneasy about this. Though it's not 'environmentally correct,' maybe we should put the brakes on this idea.

I'll concede that plastic is not a positive for the environment. Yes, plastic bags are made from natural gas and petroleum, non-renewable energy sources. Plus most experts believe it takes plastic 1,000 years to break down in a landfill. (Save that spork you used to eat your lunch because your great-great-great-grandchild can use it to eat his.)

And too much plastic ends up in the ocean. There is a mass greater than the size of Texas polluting the water column with mostly plastic material called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This plastic is hazardous to marine life. It can potentially leach toxins into the food chain.

But there are other factors that should be considered. Why is your option a reusable bag or paper bag? Plastic bags are cheaper to produce than paper bags. Paper bags require cutting down 14 million trees a year, and it takes four times the energy to produce paper bags than plastic. The manufacturing of paper bags causes much more air and water pollution than plastic bags. Paper bags require more energy to transport and take up more space in landfills than plastic bags.

There are practical advantages to plastic bags. You can carry many more of them at a time than paper bags, and they don't get weaker when wet. About a dozen years ago, car manufacturers began installing grocery bag hooks in cars to hold the bags in place while driving. Try that with paper bags!

Why do they call them single-use bags? Do you know how many funky diapers end up in plastic bags? You see folks walking their dogs wearing plastic bags on their hand like a glove to scoop poop with. People use them to take their lunch to work in. And they're the perfect liner for tiny wastebaskets. We get multiple uses out of plastic bags.

This bill will require the purchase of multiple reusable bags that customers must remember to bring with them at all times or be hit with a nickel-a-bag charge for paper bags.

Of course, I don't want Flipper choking on my Safeway bag. But couldn't we do a better job of litter cleanup by having more inmates cleaning California's roads and coasts?

Why not encourage the reuse of plastic bags? Why not promote recycling of plastic bags so they don't end up in landfills? It takes 98 percent less energy to recycle plastic than it does to recycle paper. The problem is recycling plastic is expensive. Why not incentivize companies to find ways to more cheaply recycle?

Can we hit pause and think about this some more? Sometimes the conventional wisdom is too conventional. Peace.
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ADDITIONAL NOTES: Oh boy...I know I've stepped in it this week. I know I've ticked off the greenies. Blasphemy. Heresy. They're thinking, "I thought you were one of us!" Well, I am but I'm a realist as well. The truth is I've looked into this issue and it's not as cut and dried as a lot of environmentalists think. We've got to get away from the either-or proposition. Many decisions we make in life aren't either-or. Sometimes we have to make the best of a given situation.

I do what I can for the environment. I use Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs in my home (even though they have Mercury and if you break one, you're screwed). I recycle aluminum and newspaper. I turn off lights when I leave a room. I consolidate trips to use less fuel. I don't water my lawn nearly enough. And this isn't about climate change per se. It's about taking care of the environment to not squander resources and to leave a decent planet to future generations.

There's no question we need to reduce our petroleum use. Companies are researching new ways of manufacturing plastic without petroleum. A lot of their work looks promising.

Now, of course plastic in the ocean is not a good thing. It's harmful to marine life. It can screw up the ecology and contaminate the food chain. Someone might look at that and think, "That means we have to get rid of plastic." I look at that and think, "We've got to keep plastic out of the ocean." Can't we attack the problem from that angle? Knives in playpens would be harmful to toddlers but instead of banning knives, we keep sharp objects out of playpens. Can't we work to keep plastic out of our rivers, lakes and oceans?

I don't like laws that are passed for show. Anyone who reads my column should know that I have a problem with things like bans on cell phone handset use while driving because studies keep showing that there's no difference in the level of distraction between handsets and Bluetooth headsets. But we keep passing these bans because it makes us feel better. And in the case of AB1998, it will undoubtedly increase paper bag use because not everyone is going to have their reusable bags with them. Sometimes people stop into stores on the spur of the moment. So paper bag use will go up and as I mentioned in my column, there are a lot of environmental problems associated with the manufacturing of paper bags. If you decrease plastic bag use and increase paper bag use, what are you gaining?

Also, another thing that bothers me about AB1998 is that we will have to purchase reusable bags. And if we don't have them we'll have to purchase paper bags at a nickel a piece. We never had to purchase bags before. Of course, this will hurt the poorest the most.

If you have to pay for paper bags, people will pay more attention to how that bag is loaded. No one will want them packed light because that means more bags. But to pack them with too many groceries risks them ripping.

And though I didn't have the space to provide it in the column itself, the information I related on the manufacture of paper bags and plastic bags was sourced through the American Chemistry Council, American Forest and Paper Association, the Environmental Protection Agency and other sources.

But in the meantime, I like plastic bags. They're very useful. They're strong. And as I pointed out in the column, they have multiple uses. I don't throw them away empty. By using them as trash receptacles, dirty diaper holders, and dog pooper scoopers, when they are thrown away they have enough weight where they won't become airborne and sully the environment. Right now, we're only recycling about 5% of plastic bags. We could be doing much better than that. The problem with plastic recycling is it has to be sorted. You can't just recycle all different kinds of plastic together. But we can do better about recycling.

If people want to use reusable bags, more power to them. But California getting rid of plastic bags and increasing paper bag usage sounds like doing something just to say we did something.