Using Ireland’s successful plastic bag tax as a model, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is proposing a 20-cent “green fee” on all disposable bags. The proposed fee is the first of its kind in the nation made by a mayor striving for a legacy of environmental stewardship. If the City Council approves, the fee would go into effect January 1. In an effort to ease the transition, the city will mail one reusable shopping bag to each household.
Plastic bag bans, however, are meeting concentrated and well-financed resistance from petroleum producers and plastic bag manufacturers. Some municipalities considering plastic bag bans have been hit with legal demands for environmental impact statements to justify a ban. Most do not have that kind of money, so they back down from proposing a ban or even a plastic bag surcharge. In their efforts to prevent bans, the plastic bag industry has launched a huge campaign for plastic bag recycling. As you have seen from earlier blogs, the economies are just not there.
EPA data shows that between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Of those, less than 1% are recycled. However, increasing that percentage isn’t a solution. Jared Blumenfelt, Director of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment tells it like it is:
There are harsh economics behind bag recycling. It costs $4,000 to process and recycle one ton of plastic bags, which can be sold on the commodities market for $32. Do the math.
Again, we’re faced with special interests corrupting the environment. The bag industry is right that paper bags are not the answer. But their claims that plastic bag bans will create a huge demand for paper bags and cause widespread catastrophic deforestation are unfounded. The solution is and has always been; reusable bags. When someone asks you whether you want plastic or paper, say: “Neither. I brought my own.”
Friday, September 12, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
More Considerations on Plastic Bags
Recycling
In this green, recycling aura many of us live in, we can convince ourselves that it’s okay to use those convenient plastic bags and not have to worry about bringing our own bags, because we recycle! There are some grim statistics on that approach:
EPA data shows that between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Of those, less than 1% are recycled. However, increasing that percentage isn’t a solution. Jared Blumenfelt, Director of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment tells it like it is:
There are harsh economics behind bag recycling. It costs $4,000 to process and recycle one ton of plastic bags, which can be sold on the commodities market for $32. Do the math.
Sources of Plastic Bag Litter
A study in 1975 showed that oceangoing vessels dumped 8 million pounds of plastic into our seas annually. Since then, ocean dumping is more closely regulated, although much of it still probably occurs. But those plastic bags and other non-degradable plastic litter also gets into the waterways through streams and storm sewers. Plastic bags have been found floating north of the Arctic Circle and as far south as the Falkland Islands.
According to the National Marine Debris Monitoring program, plastic bags account for more than 10% of the debris washed up on U.S. coastlines.
Plastic bags photodegrade over time into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers, according to CNN.com.
The effects on wildlife are catastrophic. Birds become terminally entangled. Nearly 200 different species of sea life, including whales, dolphins, seals, and turtles die due to ingesting plastic bags they mistake for food.
What We Can Do
We can use cloth reusable bags. I cloth bag, taken to every retail establishment visited, can replace:
· 6 bags/week
· 24 bags/month
· 288 bags/year
· 22,176 bags in an average lifetime
If only 1 out of 5 people in our country did this, we would save:
1,330,560,000,000 bags over our lifetime!
What Other Countries and Other Cities are doing
· Countries who have banned or are banning plastic bags: Bangladesh, China, Rwanda, Israel, Canada, Western India, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africe, Taiwan, Singapore
· Ireland led Europe by taxing plastic bags in 2002 and has reduced consumption by 90%
· In March 2007, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic bags. Oakland and Boston are considering a ban.
Another Huge Benefit of Banning Plastic Bags
Plastic bags are made from polyethylene, a thermoplastic made from oil. Decreasing plastic bags reduces foreign oil dependence. China will save 37 million barrels of oil each year due to their ban on free plastic bags.
Cut the Plastic!
In this green, recycling aura many of us live in, we can convince ourselves that it’s okay to use those convenient plastic bags and not have to worry about bringing our own bags, because we recycle! There are some grim statistics on that approach:
EPA data shows that between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Of those, less than 1% are recycled. However, increasing that percentage isn’t a solution. Jared Blumenfelt, Director of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment tells it like it is:
There are harsh economics behind bag recycling. It costs $4,000 to process and recycle one ton of plastic bags, which can be sold on the commodities market for $32. Do the math.
Sources of Plastic Bag Litter
A study in 1975 showed that oceangoing vessels dumped 8 million pounds of plastic into our seas annually. Since then, ocean dumping is more closely regulated, although much of it still probably occurs. But those plastic bags and other non-degradable plastic litter also gets into the waterways through streams and storm sewers. Plastic bags have been found floating north of the Arctic Circle and as far south as the Falkland Islands.
According to the National Marine Debris Monitoring program, plastic bags account for more than 10% of the debris washed up on U.S. coastlines.
Plastic bags photodegrade over time into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers, according to CNN.com.
The effects on wildlife are catastrophic. Birds become terminally entangled. Nearly 200 different species of sea life, including whales, dolphins, seals, and turtles die due to ingesting plastic bags they mistake for food.
What We Can Do
We can use cloth reusable bags. I cloth bag, taken to every retail establishment visited, can replace:
· 6 bags/week
· 24 bags/month
· 288 bags/year
· 22,176 bags in an average lifetime
If only 1 out of 5 people in our country did this, we would save:
1,330,560,000,000 bags over our lifetime!
What Other Countries and Other Cities are doing
· Countries who have banned or are banning plastic bags: Bangladesh, China, Rwanda, Israel, Canada, Western India, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africe, Taiwan, Singapore
· Ireland led Europe by taxing plastic bags in 2002 and has reduced consumption by 90%
· In March 2007, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic bags. Oakland and Boston are considering a ban.
Another Huge Benefit of Banning Plastic Bags
Plastic bags are made from polyethylene, a thermoplastic made from oil. Decreasing plastic bags reduces foreign oil dependence. China will save 37 million barrels of oil each year due to their ban on free plastic bags.
Cut the Plastic!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Ocean Trash
Some people have no qualms about discarding a piece of dental floss, a plastic bag, or whatever non-biodegradable trash they want to get rid of. While it is an eyesore along our highways and byways, when it gets into storm sewers and carried out to sea, it assumes a life of its own. An article in the New York Times highlights how serious this problem is. Below is a section from that article and the link to the article itself.
In 2002, Nature magazine reported that during the 1990s, debris in the waters near Britain doubled; in the Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica the increase was a hundredfold. And depending on where they sample, oceanographers have found that between 60 and 95 percent of today’s marine debris is made of plastic.
Plastic gets into the ocean when people throw it from ships or leave it in the path of an incoming tide, but also when rivers carry it there, or when sewage systems and storm drains overflow. Despite the Ocean Dumping Reform Act, the U.S. still releases more than 850 billion gallons of untreated sewage and storm runoff every year, according to a 2004 E.P.A. report. Comb the Manhattan waterfront and you will find, along with the usual windrows of cups, bottles and plastic bags, what the E.P.A. calls “floatables,” those “visible buoyant or semibuoyant solids” that people flush into the waste stream like cotton swabs, condoms, tampon applicators and dental floss.
The Encyclopedia of Coastal Processes, about as somniferously clinical a scientific source on the subject as one can find, predicts that plastic pollution “will incrementally increase through the 21st century,” because “the problems created are chronic and potentially global, rather than acute and local or regional as many would contemplate.” The problems are chronic because, unlike the marine debris of centuries past, commercial plastics do not biodegrade in seawater. Instead, they persist, accumulating over time, much as certain emissions accumulate in the atmosphere. The problems are global because the sources of plastic pollution are far-flung but also because, like emissions riding the winds, pollutants at sea can travel.
For the whole article, go to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/magazine/22Plastics-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
In 2002, Nature magazine reported that during the 1990s, debris in the waters near Britain doubled; in the Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica the increase was a hundredfold. And depending on where they sample, oceanographers have found that between 60 and 95 percent of today’s marine debris is made of plastic.
Plastic gets into the ocean when people throw it from ships or leave it in the path of an incoming tide, but also when rivers carry it there, or when sewage systems and storm drains overflow. Despite the Ocean Dumping Reform Act, the U.S. still releases more than 850 billion gallons of untreated sewage and storm runoff every year, according to a 2004 E.P.A. report. Comb the Manhattan waterfront and you will find, along with the usual windrows of cups, bottles and plastic bags, what the E.P.A. calls “floatables,” those “visible buoyant or semibuoyant solids” that people flush into the waste stream like cotton swabs, condoms, tampon applicators and dental floss.
The Encyclopedia of Coastal Processes, about as somniferously clinical a scientific source on the subject as one can find, predicts that plastic pollution “will incrementally increase through the 21st century,” because “the problems created are chronic and potentially global, rather than acute and local or regional as many would contemplate.” The problems are chronic because, unlike the marine debris of centuries past, commercial plastics do not biodegrade in seawater. Instead, they persist, accumulating over time, much as certain emissions accumulate in the atmosphere. The problems are global because the sources of plastic pollution are far-flung but also because, like emissions riding the winds, pollutants at sea can travel.
For the whole article, go to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/magazine/22Plastics-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Thursday, June 12, 2008
When a Walk is More Than a Walk
Okay, we’re all busy, but we can still do something worthwhile—make that two things worthwhile. My multi-tasking of choice has always been to combine a good aerobic walk with something else, whether meaningful conversations with my son or spouse or a good friend, practicing a speech, brainstorming a new article, or, in some cases, picking up trash.
We spend five months a year in the pristine high plains of the Colorado Rockies. Semi-pristine would be more accurate, because where there are people, there is trash. Even here where people live for the majestic mountains and fields of wildflowers, there are idiots who think their little bits of trash won’t hurt anything, or probably don’t think at all.
I have a friend who is like-minded and happens to raise llamas. So our multi-tasking consists of going on long walks with pack llamas outfitted with saddlebags. They get training in packing and we have someone to carry the trash we pick up because there is always too much to carry. Two days in a row, we returned with four saddlebags stuffed with ten bags of trash, which we then sorted into recyclables and trash-trash. Climbing in and out of gullies, along with all the reaching, gave us a great workout, and our “neighborhood” looks a lot better.
In the interest of making this translatable into something you might like to do, we’ll subtract the llamas. When you go out for a walk, which you should do often, take used bags with you and pick up the trash. Everywhere has it. Nobody likes to look at it. Since I’m the plastic bag lady, I snag plastic bag litter and then use it to hold other trash I find. Trash is trash. But don’t count on finding bags. Take some with you. Then remember to recycle as much as possible so we can minimize the impact on landfills. We’re out walking anyway. Let’s include the planet in our outings.
We spend five months a year in the pristine high plains of the Colorado Rockies. Semi-pristine would be more accurate, because where there are people, there is trash. Even here where people live for the majestic mountains and fields of wildflowers, there are idiots who think their little bits of trash won’t hurt anything, or probably don’t think at all.
I have a friend who is like-minded and happens to raise llamas. So our multi-tasking consists of going on long walks with pack llamas outfitted with saddlebags. They get training in packing and we have someone to carry the trash we pick up because there is always too much to carry. Two days in a row, we returned with four saddlebags stuffed with ten bags of trash, which we then sorted into recyclables and trash-trash. Climbing in and out of gullies, along with all the reaching, gave us a great workout, and our “neighborhood” looks a lot better.
In the interest of making this translatable into something you might like to do, we’ll subtract the llamas. When you go out for a walk, which you should do often, take used bags with you and pick up the trash. Everywhere has it. Nobody likes to look at it. Since I’m the plastic bag lady, I snag plastic bag litter and then use it to hold other trash I find. Trash is trash. But don’t count on finding bags. Take some with you. Then remember to recycle as much as possible so we can minimize the impact on landfills. We’re out walking anyway. Let’s include the planet in our outings.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Finding Substitutions for Your Old Plastic Bags
While trying to wean ourselves from plastic shopping bags, we come up on some conundrums: What can we do to replace the plastic bags that we recycle for use at home? If we have no plastic bags, what do we use in their place for other purposes? That’s a snag that my kids and I have grappled with.
1. For instance, my son has two large dogs. When they take them for a walk, they take the used plastic bags along to pick up the doggie poop. Without those, they have to buy poop bags, also plastic. What’s the alternative?
EcoChoices makes a biodegradable poop bag that can be thrown out with yard waste and decomposes completely, eliminating them going to landfills. You can order these bags on their website: http://www.ecoanimal.com/poopbags.html at $7.49 for 50 bags and discounts for larger orders.
2. I line bathroom and kitchen wastebaskets into which we may put wet things, with plastic bags to keep the wastebaskets clean. What should I use instead?
For the tall kitchen wastebasket, EcoChoices also makes a totally biodegradable and compostible kitchen garbage bag. You can order them here: http://www.ecokitchen.com/shop/biodegradablekitchenbags.html 24 bags for $13.99. As far as the bedroom and bathroom wastebaskets, choose a washable surface and just wash them out when you empty them. Even plastic bag liners trap odors, so unless you use a different plastic bag all the time (and where will you get those??) they will not be pleasant.
3. What about toting refrigerated and frozen foods from place to place so they don’t leave wet spots everywhere we put them down?
That’s what your waterproof lining totes are for. After carrying food in them, just sponge them out with warm water and turn wrong-side out to dry.
When is a Walk not Just a Walk?
When it’s a walking trash pick-up. Lots of communities clean up for Earth Day, but what about the other 364 days of the year? Make it a habit once a week to pick up trash and recyclables as your walk. The bending the stretching can be part of your fitness routine and your environment will look a lot better. If someone has discarded a plastic bag, use that to collect the trash and then sort recyclables, including the plastic bag.
1. For instance, my son has two large dogs. When they take them for a walk, they take the used plastic bags along to pick up the doggie poop. Without those, they have to buy poop bags, also plastic. What’s the alternative?
EcoChoices makes a biodegradable poop bag that can be thrown out with yard waste and decomposes completely, eliminating them going to landfills. You can order these bags on their website: http://www.ecoanimal.com/poopbags.html at $7.49 for 50 bags and discounts for larger orders.
2. I line bathroom and kitchen wastebaskets into which we may put wet things, with plastic bags to keep the wastebaskets clean. What should I use instead?
For the tall kitchen wastebasket, EcoChoices also makes a totally biodegradable and compostible kitchen garbage bag. You can order them here: http://www.ecokitchen.com/shop/biodegradablekitchenbags.html 24 bags for $13.99. As far as the bedroom and bathroom wastebaskets, choose a washable surface and just wash them out when you empty them. Even plastic bag liners trap odors, so unless you use a different plastic bag all the time (and where will you get those??) they will not be pleasant.
3. What about toting refrigerated and frozen foods from place to place so they don’t leave wet spots everywhere we put them down?
That’s what your waterproof lining totes are for. After carrying food in them, just sponge them out with warm water and turn wrong-side out to dry.
When is a Walk not Just a Walk?
When it’s a walking trash pick-up. Lots of communities clean up for Earth Day, but what about the other 364 days of the year? Make it a habit once a week to pick up trash and recyclables as your walk. The bending the stretching can be part of your fitness routine and your environment will look a lot better. If someone has discarded a plastic bag, use that to collect the trash and then sort recyclables, including the plastic bag.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
The Power of One--for Good or Bad
Delta Sky Magazine did an excellent piece in their March issue on the power of one: doing something once that can have a profound effect on the environment. Here is an example:
If every newspaper reader in the U.S. recycled just one Sunday paper and all its inclusions, it would generate 212 million pounds of cellulose insulation, enough to insulate 118,767 Habitat for Humanity homes, twice as many homes as Habitat has built in the U.S. so far.
To read more of these thought-provoking statistics, go to:
http://www.delta-sky.com/2008_03/greennumbers/
The idea is to live our lives consciously and think about each thing we do that can have an impact on our world.
If every newspaper reader in the U.S. recycled just one Sunday paper and all its inclusions, it would generate 212 million pounds of cellulose insulation, enough to insulate 118,767 Habitat for Humanity homes, twice as many homes as Habitat has built in the U.S. so far.
To read more of these thought-provoking statistics, go to:
http://www.delta-sky.com/2008_03/greennumbers/
The idea is to live our lives consciously and think about each thing we do that can have an impact on our world.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Walking More and Enjoying It More
I’m walking to a client meeting, my backpack on my back. On the way, I’m stopping to drop off and pick up library books, pick up a few things at the drugstore, and-oh! A movie. No plastic bags involved. Over the winter and spring, I have become very attached to my backpack. It’s a sturdy daypack, really, but lightweight. It allows me to wear a sun or rain-shielding hat, a light jacket, and carry a small umbrella, all with my hands free. When I get to my meeting, I stow the hat and jacket, pull out my portfolio, and I’m all business. Did I mention I got a five-mile walk in the process?
Part of weaning ourselves from plastic bags involves developing new habits. Where in the past, or present for some of us, a meeting, drugstore, video store, etc would have meant three separate car trips, resulting in lots of emissions, wear and tear on our autos as they burn solid-gold fuel, and more of a paunch around our middles. All it takes is some good equipment, and a new routine, one that is planned out in advance to make more efficient use of our time, and to serve double and triple-duty. What errands can you combine? How can you incorporate more biking or walking and less driving? How can you keep backpacks and tote bags convenient so you are never without a reusable bag when you need one? Think about it.
Part of weaning ourselves from plastic bags involves developing new habits. Where in the past, or present for some of us, a meeting, drugstore, video store, etc would have meant three separate car trips, resulting in lots of emissions, wear and tear on our autos as they burn solid-gold fuel, and more of a paunch around our middles. All it takes is some good equipment, and a new routine, one that is planned out in advance to make more efficient use of our time, and to serve double and triple-duty. What errands can you combine? How can you incorporate more biking or walking and less driving? How can you keep backpacks and tote bags convenient so you are never without a reusable bag when you need one? Think about it.
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