Myth: Recycling Plastic Bags is Just as Good
As I’ve explained in earlier blogs, Less than 3 percent of plastic bags are ever recycled, and when they are, it costs $4,000 per ton, while manufacturing them costs $32 per ton. No one can get excited about doing it. Even when we put them in a recycling bin, most of them won’t get recycled. Many are shipped to countries like India and China, where they are incinerated and cause pollution. The best solution is not to use them; bring your own reusables.
Myth: Cheap Reusables Are a Good Alternative
Most of them don’t last very long and create their own disposal problem; some of them contain lead. Get high quality bags you can launder and that will last for years. No hassle, no waste.
Myth: Paper is Better Than Plastic
You are just trading problems with either. It takes 4 times as much energy to make a paper bag than a plastic bag. Paper comes from tree pulp, which means cutting down trees. According to Reusit.com, in 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year alone. Global warming gets two boosts: once from the deforestation and again from the manufacturing process.
Myth: Banning Bags is the Best
Bans force people to change their behavior, and may actually drive them in the wrong direction: to paper or cheap reusables. Charging a fee, like 5 cents a bag, requires people to make a conscious decision. Bans also inconvenience customers. Sometimes we just need plastic bags for drippy meats, pet messes or kid messes! It’s nice to have disposable bags as an option.
Source: reusit.com
Friday, February 25, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Some Plastic Litter Good News Items from Resusit.com
As of January 1, 2011, single-use, non-biodegradable bags are banned in Italy, which uses 1/5th of the 100 billion bags annually used across Europe. While retailers argue that biodegradable bags are too expensive and not as durable (it’s the durable part that bothers us), similar bans in other countries have worked. In the two years since China banned the bag, it has kept 100 billion bags out of landfills.
Another good idea for reducing plastic bags is bag fees. They are proving successful in cities like Washington DC and countries like Ireland that put their PlasTax in effect in 2002. Washington DC’s little fee resulted in an 80% reduction in use-and-toss bags.
Fees work for a number of reasons, say environmental experts:
1. They are market-based solutions that get people to change their habits – and with a nudge not a shove. Even small, 5-cent fees make a huge impact.
2. The money collected from fees can be earmarked for clean-up, especially when funds are hard to come by.
3. It gives us choices. If we don’t want to pay for clean-up, we can bring our own bags and keep our money.
On the Styrofoam front:
Eben Bayer’s company turns agricultural waste into biodegradable packing material grown from a fungus. Polystyrene (Styrofoam) is commonly used to pack everything from delicate hardware and breakables for shipping, to our take-home meal from over-generous restaurant servings. None of that is recyclable, and when it degrades in nature, it releases carcinogens. Bayer's packing material, if adopted for widespread use, could reduce the production and disposal of polystyrene immensely.
From MSNBC:
Stockholm-based appliance company Electrolux AB recently produced a custom set of five vacuum cleaners made from water-borne plastic trash. The refuse was collected from different oceans and seas across the globe, with each locale’s most prevalent trash dictating its vacuum’s unique look.
Though the vacuums are not for sale, they do work. Electrolux hopes these fashionable, functional pieces of art will begin a discussion about the growing problem of water-bound plastic pollution and perhaps even move people away from the use-and-toss culture that led to the current situation.
Another good idea for reducing plastic bags is bag fees. They are proving successful in cities like Washington DC and countries like Ireland that put their PlasTax in effect in 2002. Washington DC’s little fee resulted in an 80% reduction in use-and-toss bags.
Fees work for a number of reasons, say environmental experts:
1. They are market-based solutions that get people to change their habits – and with a nudge not a shove. Even small, 5-cent fees make a huge impact.
2. The money collected from fees can be earmarked for clean-up, especially when funds are hard to come by.
3. It gives us choices. If we don’t want to pay for clean-up, we can bring our own bags and keep our money.
On the Styrofoam front:
Eben Bayer’s company turns agricultural waste into biodegradable packing material grown from a fungus. Polystyrene (Styrofoam) is commonly used to pack everything from delicate hardware and breakables for shipping, to our take-home meal from over-generous restaurant servings. None of that is recyclable, and when it degrades in nature, it releases carcinogens. Bayer's packing material, if adopted for widespread use, could reduce the production and disposal of polystyrene immensely.
From MSNBC:
Stockholm-based appliance company Electrolux AB recently produced a custom set of five vacuum cleaners made from water-borne plastic trash. The refuse was collected from different oceans and seas across the globe, with each locale’s most prevalent trash dictating its vacuum’s unique look.
Though the vacuums are not for sale, they do work. Electrolux hopes these fashionable, functional pieces of art will begin a discussion about the growing problem of water-bound plastic pollution and perhaps even move people away from the use-and-toss culture that led to the current situation.
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