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Guest Column: What has Cambridge achieved by banning plastic bags?

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Guest Column: What has Cambridge achieved by banning plastic bags?

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Barbara Mende

So what has Cambridge achieved by not only banning plastic grocery bags, as it did starting April 1, but also levying a 10-cent fine on paper bags?

It’s introduced me to the fine supermarkets in Somerville, Brighton and Arlington.

Personally, I hate reusable bags, of which I have many that take up a lot of room in my car. Most of mine are made of plastic of some sort. When you fill them with groceries and get them home, they have puddles of water or worse in the bottom from something that leaked. You have to wash them, and are never sure you can get them clean without washing them in the machine, with the obvious toll on the environment. The bag police recommend cotton bags, which are potentially even yuckier. Funny, we’re not seeing many mesh bags, which would make more sense but are expensive.

Punitive fees haven’t historically been effective in shaping behavior. Our 30-year-old bottle bill may have helped the homeless people who used to pick up discarded bottles on the road, but look around now to see who uses recycling centers and who foregoes the deposit money in favor of recycling at home. (Oh, yes, did I mention that when I recycle my newspapers and bottles, I carry them to the recycling room in paper bags?) An overwhelming vote against expanding the bottle bill has led to a recent effort to repeal it. People learned to recycle largely because of publicity and the plethora of convenient blue containers that are available to us.

So if my city or my state wants me to forswear paper bags and embrace unsanitary, inconvenient reusable bags with not inconsiderable carbon footprints, it will have to convince me that we’re one step away from cutting up newspapers for toilet paper. That means persuasion, including the availability of environmentally friendly products and positive incentives for using them, not legislation. Meanwhile, the bag fee is less than what I’d have to pay to wash reusable bags and fill the gas tank for extra shopping trips.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/news/20160802/guest-column-what-has-cambridge-achieved-by-banning-plastic-bags

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The first nationwide ban was enacted a decade ago in Bangladesh, after plastic bags clogged storm drains and caused massive floods. China issued a top-down order banning plastic bags in June 2008 - just two months before it hosted the Olympics - in an effort to reduce the amount of "white pollution." Even though the ban is openly flouted by street vendors, it has still made a tremendous impact: In the first year alone, China decreased its use of plastic bags by two-thirds, eliminating some 40 billion bags - a move that saved the energy equivalent of 11.7 million barrels of oil.

The Indian city of Delhi boasts some of the world's most aggressive legislation on plastic bags, not only fining individual users and businesses that hand out the bags but also threatening jail time for offenders and plastic-bag manufacturers. This year, Italy became the first European country to issue a nationwide ban on plastic bags, while Ireland places a 15-cent fee on every bag - a move that reduced usage by 90 percent in the first three months. All told, 25 percent of the world's population now lives in areas with bans or fees on plastic bags.

Doucette, K. (2011, Aug 04). The plastic bag wars. Rolling Stone, , 37-39. Retrieved from https://baypath.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.baypath.idm.oclc.org/docview/882843555?accountid=6226

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Plastic bag recycling rates are currently far lower than paper bag recycling rates, with varying estimates showing a consumer recycling rate of only one to five percent.54 Additionally, the physical logistics of plastic bag recycling can be difficult. Most curbside recycling programs for bottles and containers do not accept plastic bags because the bags clog sorting machines.55 It takes human sorters too long to manually collect lightweight plastic bags, making this alternative less desirable when weighing the time and money spent against the final product.56

Compostable bags, an alternative type of plastic bag that is biodegradable, present an additional problem because they are not recyclable and the biodegradable materials in the compostable bags render entire batches of recycled polyethylene film useless (Bridget Warner)

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Worldwide, an estimated 4 billion plastic bags end up as litter each year. "Tied end to end, the bags could circle the Earth 63 times.

Plastic is a by-product of oil refining. Plastic bags are made from polyethylene, which comes from oil refineries as small resin pellets.

These pellets are heated to 340 degrees and formed into a long, thin tube of plastic. Next, a hot bar is dropped on the tube at intervals, melting a line. Each melted line becomes the bottom of one bag and the top of another. The sections are cut-out and a hole for the bag's handles is stamped in each piece.

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Americans consumer 10 billion paper bags each year. Around 14 million trees are cut down annually for paper bag production.

Logs are stripped of bark and chipped into one-inch squares. These chips are then "cooked" at a high heat, under tremendous pressure. Next, the pulp is washed, requiring thousands of gallons of fresh water and bleach, then pressed into finished paper. Cutting, packaging and shipping paper bags requires additional time, labor and energy.

It takes more than 4 X as much energy to manufacture a paper bag than it does a plastic bag.

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Another reason for banning plastic bags is their fossil fuel burden. Plastic is not only made from petroleum—producing it typically requires a lot of fossil-fuel-derived energy. The fact that Americans throw away some 100 billion plastic grocery bags each year means we are drilling for and importing millions of barrels worth of oil and natural gas for a convenient way to carry home a few groceries.

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Environmental groups continue to push for more plastic bag bans. “As U.S. natural gas production has surged and prices have fallen, the plastics industry is looking to ramp up domestic production,” reports the Earth Policy Institute. “Yet using this fossil fuel endowment to make something so short-lived, which can blow away at the slightest breeze and pollutes indefinitely, is illogical—particularly when there is a ready alternative: the reusable bag.”

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Littered plastic is also a huge problem for the health of wildlife, as many animals ingest it thinking it is food and can have problems thereafter breathing and digesting. The non-profit Worldwatch Institute reports that at least 267 species of marine wildlife are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of marine debris, most of which is composed of plastic; tens of thousands of whales, birds, seals and turtles die every year from contact with ocean-borne plastic bags. A recent European Commission study on the impact of litter on North Sea wildlife found that some 90 percent of the birds examined had plastic in their stomachs.

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Sacking the Culture of Convenience - Bridget Warner 2010

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Sacking the Culture of Convenience - Bridget Warner 2010

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HARMFUL ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF THE PLASTIC CARRYOUT BAG

Single-use plastic shopping bags harm the environment in several ways, from the point of creation to eventual disposal. First, these plastic bags are comprised of high-density polyethylene ("HDPE");17 therefore, the production of plastic carryout bags requires both petroleum and natural gas, which are non-renewable resources. Additionally, transporting plastic bags to retailers, and later to landfills or recycling centers, releases carbon dioxide emissions into the air.20 Carbon dioxide emissions increase toxicity in air particles, contributing to air pollution and arguably to global warming.21

Second, plastic carryout bags are not biodegradable.22 Rather, polyethylene bags break down into smaller plastic pieces through a slow photodegrading process.23 Ultraviolet rays weaken the bags, eventually breaking them into smaller and smaller particles until finally they are invisible to the naked human eye but still exist as a toxic substance.24 As litter, a plastic bag's life expectancy is more than 1 000 years, ensuring its presence on the planet for generations.25 This is a daunting statistic considering consumers worldwide use an estimated 500 billion to one trillion plastic bags annually - almost one million per minute.26 If a plastic bag is submerged in a lake or ocean, scientists believe the photodegrading process slows considerably due to cooler temperatures and indirect sunlight, resulting in the likely passing of thousands of years before the plastic bag changes from its original form into smaller pieces.27 Similar to a plastic bag being submersed in water, plastic bags disposed in landfills will also exist for generations because landfills lack the air and sunlight necessary for photodegradation.28 However, even though the photodegrading process in a landfill is considerably slower, landfills are a preferred final resting place for plastic bags; the problem is successfully getting the bags to the landfill, which leads to the third environmental concern - the plastic bag's lightweight nature.

The plastic bag's lightweight nature makes it especially susceptible to being inadvertently transported by the wind. Currents of air easily lift bags from garbage trucks, the tops of landfills, and trash receptacles, resulting in the littering of city streets, landscapes, and waterways.29 Before government regulation, South Africa dubbed plastic bags the "national flower" because they were so prevalent in the natural landscape.30 Likewise, China refers to the problem as "white pollution."31 All over the world, people regularly see plastic bags hanging in trees or bushes, tumbling across fields, or clogging storm drains.32

Not only are plastic bags an eyesore on land but wind and water currents also carry plastic bags to the ocean,33 where marine animals, particularly sea birds and turtles, mistake them for food or become entangled in them.34 The 2007 International Coastal Cleanup data showed a recorded 587,827 plastic bags pulled from participating countries' shorelines, where plastic bags are amongst the top ten ocean debris items.35 Harm to the ocean is also evident in the presence of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, where natural ocean currents have created a swirling mass of nonbiodegradable plastic and industrial debris that is estimated to be twice the size of Texas.36 Known to oceanographers as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," this large area of ocean collects floating debris from half of the Pacific Rim, approximately ninety percent of which appears to be three million tons of plastic.37 A recent study of marine life in this area also showed tiny pieces of plastic in the stomachs of fish.38 A concern for scientists is that the lowest species in the food chain, plankton, consume tiny particles of plastic, mistaking them for food, which leads to predators also ingesting them.39 Scientists worry that if plastic particles make their way up the food chain, humans will regularly consume fish contaminated with plastic toxins.40

While convenient for both retailers and consumers, the proliferation of the plastic carryout bag is resulting in excess, unnecessary plastic in our environment and landfills. Even though plastic shopping bags are more compact than paper bags, a preference for plastic over paper bags means that plastic bags fill greater volumes of space in landfills than paper ones do.41 Also, because consumers recycle paper bags at a much higher rate than plastic bags, a greater number of plastic bags are sent to landfills.42 Some consumers reuse plastic bags for trash bin liners and picking up pet waste. While these are applauded ways to reuse plastic carryout bags, too many plastic bags are not reused and find their way into the environment as litter. More often than not, consumers use plastic bags for their single-use purpose - to carry items from the retailer to the home, sometimes using one bag to carry only a few items.43 In short, the detrimental environmental effect of a plastic bag's entire life cycle greatly outweighs the short-lived purpose that it serves.

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Sacking the Culture of Convenience - Bridget Warner 2010

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Sacking the Culture of Convenience - Bridget Warner 2010

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History of the Plastic Bag
"Over the past thirty years, the plastic bag has become a pervasive symbol of convenience and consumerism worldwide. The plastic polymer, polyethylene, which was created in the 1930s, first appeared in grocery bag form in 1977.7 Soon after, in 1982, major supermarkets such as Kroger and Safeway were regularly using mass-produced plastic bags in their checkout lanes.8

The lightweight bag served a single-use purpose: for consumers to carry purchased items from the retailer to the home.9 Retailers readily preferred the strong, compact plastic carryout bag to the more expensive, bulkier paper bag.10 Likewise, consumers liked the plastic bag's strength, carrying handles, and ability to accommodate moist grocery items without breaking."

By 1996, plastic bags comprised four out of every five grocery bags used by consumers in the United States, which still holds true today.12 Currently, American retailers collectively pay an estimated $4 billion per year in order to continually provide free plastic carry out bags to consumers.13

In comparison to the single-use paper bag, the plastic carryout bag is more durable, remarkably compact,14 considerably lighter,15 and releases fewer emissions into the air during production and shipping.16 These positive attributes are minimized, however, in the face of mass production, over-consumption, and improper disposal."

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Sacking the Culture of Convenience - Bridget Warner 2010

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Sacking the Culture of Convenience - Bridget Warner 2010

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"It takes an estimated 12 million barrels of oil to produce 100 billion plastic bags, the estimated number of plastic bags used in the United States each year" (648)

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Sacking the Culture of Convenience - Bridget Warner 2010

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Sacking the Culture of Convenience - Bridget Warner 2010

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“Although exact numbers are indeterminable, Americans use an estimated 100 billion plastic bags every year, each typically discarded after a single use in which only a few items are carried in the bag” (Warner, 646).

Single-use plastic bags are intended to be disposable items, yet are created from non-renewable resources, such as natural gas and petroleum, which do not bio-degrade (Warner, 646).

Animals, on the land and sea, are in-danger of ingesting, choking on, or being strangled by free-floating plastics in the natural environment. It is also important to note that plastic bag “production, shipping, and recycling have overarching negative environmental ramifications due to greenhouse gas emissions” (Warner, 646).

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Out of the 351 towns and cities across Massachusetts, there are currently over 80 that have implemented policies eliminating single-use plastic bags. Boston, the largest city on the east coast to ban plastic bags, has a ban in place that will begin to take effect in December 2018 (Reilly, 2017). Jack Clarke, the director of public policy at the Mass Audubon Society made a related statement to the Boston Globe when the provision was initially proposed: “We’re either going to eventually have 351 municipal restrictions on bags, or we’ll have the Commonwealth do one standard that all the businesses and industries can match” (Brown, 2016).

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“Plastic bags choke, strangle, and entangle turtles, whales, sea lions, seals, birds, and fish among other species. Many of these animals are already threatened due to issues such as over fishing or habitat loss. The list of local animals threatened by plastic bags includes green turtles that nest on Nantucket and the right whales that feed off the Massachusetts coast line.”

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Plastic bags are intended to be single-use items. These bags are made from non-renewable fossil fuels; they do not bio-degrade. It makes little sense to use a non-renewable resource to create a disposable item. The best way to reduce mindless consumption of these bags, and thus the amount that is carelessly discarded into the environment, is to implement a ban.

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Over 80 cities and towns have voted to ban these bags in their own communities, representing over a third of Massachusetts residents,” Emily Norton, Massachusetts chapter director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement.