We’ve pointed out that grocery bags aren’t nearly as important as what goes inside the bag. That’s true from an energy perspective, but it doesn’t account for the ecological harm of plastics. Consider this slightly terrifying article in the Globe and Mail:
…Captain Charles Moore stood at the bow of his 50-foot catamaran and looked toward the horizon. But instead of gliding along calm, sapphire-coloured waters glistening in the afternoon sun, his aluminum-hulled Alguita carved through a sea of shiny, modern-day refuse.
And:
What he discovered at the heart of the deep swirls were miles upon miles of water bottles, plastic tarpaulins, dolls and furniture that have been collecting there for as long as 60 years.
This plastic soup, with billions of tiny shards of the synthetic material floating just below the surface of the water, is estimated to span an area 11/2 times the size of the continental United States.
And:
The United Nations Environment Program says plastic accounts for the deaths of more than a million seabirds and more than 100,000 marine mammals such as whales, dolphins and seals every year. Countless fish, it says, die either from mistakenly eating the plastic or from becoming entangled in it and drowning.
It’s useful context, I think, for debates like the one that Seattle is having about whether to levy a 20 cent charge on plastic grocery sacks, and to ban styrofoam food packaging.
Now obviously, it’s not as if the city’s conservation, by itself, will restore the Pacific to ecological health. But needless consumption is, well, needless. And limitless free plastic sacks are truly unnecessary, as pretty much anyone outside of North America can attest. So I get a little weary of the squeals of protestation at even the mildest efforts to make our economy a little lighter on the land.
The more often I see the same vacuous cant about “social engineering” and “nanny states” applied to recycling and conservation, the more I want to get self-righteous. There are consequences to our consumption, and there’s a moral dimension to waste.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user wiegerrrr under a Creative Commons license.
Maggie
Amen.
Abram
The deposit on plastic bags works wonders to curb littering. When I lived in Cork City, Ireland in the lat 1990’s there were plastic bags everywhere on the streets. Visiting in 2004 after Ireland began charging a 20 cent bag deposit for plastic “carrier bags,” it was amazing how much cleaner the streets and river were. Good on Seattle. Portland has discussed the bag tax, but hasn’t moved forward with it. (Styrofoam has been banned for quite some time here).
Michael
Unfortunately, the use of deposits to regulate consumer behavior which has been shown time-and-again to not work. Here in Oregon, one can regularly see cans and bottles along streets and roads nad in garbage cans even though they are worth five cents if returned. If it weren’t for homeless people and community activists picking them up, I would hazard that the problem would be much worse than it currently appears. Let’s face it, Americans are slobs who have little concern for the long-term affects of their behavior. If things are to change, it will have to be through legislative actions banning these products. Portland’s ban on styrofoam was not a voluntary or incentive-based ban, it was legislative. The same is true for Washington County’s ban on phosphate in detergents. Plastics of all types are ubiquitous in the American environment, on the streets, in the fields, in the water. Until action is taken to mandate the use of biodegradable packaging for products, we will continue to see these plastic materials accumulating in our precious environment. Frankly, it seems that most Americans just don’t care.
JIm
Yes plastics are ubiquitous but when managed responsibly they can be a more significant part of the solution rather than a major problem . Littering is a social problem – Don’t we have anti litter laws ? .Only if and when bio degradable plastics actually “disappear” into Co2 and water ( mineralise )will that appear to solve this social problem of littering .Specific criteria must be met for this dis-appearance to occur with todays bioplastics Still some CO2 emitted even when renewable alternates return to nature Yes paper and cloth may offer alternates but, unless from organicially grown sources , how does their environmental foot print or cost performance currently compare with conventional plastics, responsibly managed ? .Yes looks like our profligate societies around the world are somewhat addicted to synthetics be they from renewable or considered nonrenewable sources – We better learn how to better utilise our planets limited resources with our ever growing world population Jim Cairns , Enthustically Support Allthings Sustainably
Sharon in Olympia
Here in Olympia, I see several ways to re-use or re-cycle plastic bags but MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ABOUT THEM.Fred Meyer has a container where you can put the bags, and they’ll do something with them (I’m not sure what-Food Bank or recycle?).Most city parks have a vertical plastic tube about 5″ in diameter, by 24″ long, mounted somewhere visible. The tube has two holes, one near the top, and one near the bottom. You stuff your plastic bags into the top, people pull them out the bottom for “poop pick-up” duty. The local park near where I dog-sit has NO bags in it. The household I dogsit for has a location where “poop bags” are stored near the door. They have had to BUY “poop bags”, as they’ve used up their newspaper rain-protection bags and others. There have got to be way more households in the area of the park who have groceries and newspapers, but no dogs, so there should be plenty of bags in the holder. In all of my reading of newspaper articles about “Where to take my…”, I’ve never seen the poop bag tubes mentioned. Or the local library basket for bags to take your books home in. Seems as if these PVC bag holding tubes should be on every block in every residential area. No excuse then for missed poop.