On My Mind 02 Feb 2008 12:01 pm
An Environmental Break–Why Can’t We Do This?
From today’s New York Times:
In 2002, Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags; customers who want them must now pay 33 cents per bag at the register. There was an advertising awareness campaign. And then something happened that was bigger than the sum of these parts. Within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Within a year, nearly everyone had bought reusable cloth bags, keeping them in offices and in the backs of cars. Plastic bags were not outlawed, but carrying them became socially unacceptable — on a par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after one’s dog.
And this:
In January almost 42 billion plastic bags were used worldwide, according to reusablebags.com; the figure increases by more than half a million bags every minute.
Wonder what that translates into in terms of barrels of oil.
I get funny looks every time I take out my “holds a hundred pounds of groceries” big blue Ikea bag at the local supermarket. What IS up with that?
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Check out this clip of a guest segement from the Colber Report. This artist/photographer by the name of Chris Jordan makes art, to send a as a message about just how much our “waste streams” generate and accumulate. Scary.
http://tinyurl.com/27dn9l
This is a great idea. I know grocery chains like Whole Foods gives you money off of your order if you use reusable grocery bags. This plan sounds as though it is much more effective though.
In this country Aldi supermarkets charge per bag, at the end of transaction the cashier asks you if you want to purchase bags. I don’t remember what they charge but it was significant enough where it was common to see people using used bags.
The Boston Globe ran the article January 8 “Aiming to cut waste, conserve, China bans flimsy plastic bags”. The ban is due to take effect on June 1. The Daily Green in their article on China’s ban <a href=”http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/china-plastic-bags-47010907reporting on China’s move to ban plastic bag, estimated that 37 million barrels of crude oil were used every year in plastic bag production.
The National Co-op Grocers Association (NCGA) reported that 14 million trees and 12 barrels of oil are consumed each year to help American’s answer the question “paper or plastic?”. If the downside to helping to save trees and reduce our dependency on oil is the funny (sometimes irritated) looks I get when I plop down my many canvas bags at the end of the checkout line, I can deal with that. The only downside I have found to using canvas totes is that I’m running out of plastic bags to clean up after my dog. Anyone know where I can buy biodegradeable doggie bags?
Bio-degradable compost bags that I use. Should work well for doggie bags as well.
http://www.gardeners.com/Biobag+compost+pail+liners/20707,34-028,default,cp.html
[...] In response to Will Richardson’s post “An Enviormental Break-Why Can’t We Do This?” [...]
Will,
Have you seen this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Aae5dmxnA
Just wondering….
I would never be able to lift a 100lb bag of groceries - i put a couple of Martin’s bags. You’re not the only one who packs groceries in cloth.
I bought reusable bags from my grocery store, which is a local chain and not what I would call environmentally aware. I am so glad I did. I love taking those bags back to the store again and again. I get 6 whole cents off my bill when I do. Wonder what would happen if they gave more off?
There was a good documentary on the CBC show ‘Doc Zone’ the other night called Battle of the Bags. It discusses the environmental hazards of plastic bags and what different jurisdictions are doing to reduce their use.
I have used cloth bags for the last 20 years. I always get stares and some baggers who shove my groceries in as if it must be a major inconvenience. Taxing needs to happen here. Scary the lack of respect there is for the world and our future.
Although I agree that we need to stop using plastic bags for groceries this is not something that I want the goverment telling me to do. Putting such a large tax on something like this makes it almost mandatory to make the change.
JMO
I don’t have much confidence that a national tax on plastic bags would ever pass in the US. Too many people in this country have the attitude that Americans have the “right” to do anything, including the stupid personal use of common resources.
However, educators could make a big difference if all of us just used the canvas bags distributed at registration for practically every conference when we go to the store. Retailers could also follow Ikea’s lead by charging for disposable bags at checkout while also selling something similar to that big blue bag at cost.
Tim, the last conference I went to I somehow ended up with my colleague’s canvas conference bags. I use them all the time! Now if we could only get the conference people to make the bags a better size for groceries…
There tends to be a strong sense of righteousness in the USA (as Tim said above), and a desire to ’stick to our guns’. Like most people in the world, we are also naturally hesitant to change due to fear of what the unknown holds (”change will be worse” is the genetic default human assumption so we can remain safe from harm).
And yes, it is weird that this even applies to using cloth bags in stores (I do) vs. continually damaging the environment more than necessary. We don’t see it, so we don’t get it.
I know our kids will enjoy this.
Just in case anyone doubts the veracity or accuracy of the Irish example cited above, I can verify that the contrast in Ireland before the tax and afterwards was stark. No longer do you see plastic bags hanging off all the hedgerows and people are now much more aware that they have a tangible effect on the environment and a responsibility towards it.
Even if plastic bags were free, I don’t think anyone here would go back and use them. The tax of plastics bags has complete public support and to use them is now socially unacceptable.
It’s interesting that Ireland taxed the use of plastic bags, where, in the US, *some* stores reward people for using cloth bags. When I began working at Weis Market part-time, we actually had to sit through a training video on why we use plastic bags instead of paper. Then the manager said off-the-cuff, “Oh, btw, we do sell cloth bags and offer a slight discount for customers using them…but you’ll most likely never see it happen.” *sighs*
At least I do!
Funny that I should read this today, only minutes after I was just completely floored by something I read in Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind:
“When we can’t store our many things, we just throw them away. As business writer Polly LaBarre notes, ‘The United States spends more on trash bags than ninety other countries spend on everything. In other words, the receptacles of our WASTE cost more than all of the goods consumed by nearly half of the world’s nations.’”
Unbelievable!
I shopped yesterday morning at three grocery stores in my usual hunting and gathering for the week. My bag of bags is becoming commonplace, and two of the large national chains here in Chicago now encourage reusable bags. Just like on Club Penguin, when all the penguins jump on the edge of the iceberg, you never know which penguin will tip the berg! So I keep bringing my bags and don’t care about the grumpy looks.
Our local Seattle chain (Fred Meyer) sells fabric bags for 99 cents and gives you a nickel every time you use them. They have square bottoms and a stiff little insert so they sit flat while being loaded. The clerks love them, almost always comment on how much easier they are to load and how much more they can hold. They just started doing it last year, but they have become very popular very quickly, and now are available in a variety of colors and styles. And if you buy six bottles of wine, they’ll give you a special fabric wine sack for free!
I know Whole Foods just announced the end of plastic bags in their grocery stores starting on Earth Day 2008…I was hoping they would eliminate disposable bags of all types, but they will still be offering paper. But this is still incredibly exciting news. I know our government won’t take leadership on these issues, so it is nice that at least one grocery story is doing it. We’re talking about doing a re-useable bag drive at my school to raise awareness and help people eliminate their use of plastic/disposable bags.
I have been using cloth bags for 15 years. It takes discipline on two levels for me to be successful. 1. I have to remember to put them back in my car when I am finished or I get to the store and bring home plastic instead. 2. I have to educate the baggers on how to load them properly or else they end up half empty with an addendum of several plastic bags in my cart. My next goal is to eliminate all the other plastic bags from purchases of items at stores other than the grocery. I feel good about not only about doing my small part to eliminate the use of plastic bags but also reducing the clutter at home. As a society we should demand that the companies we do business with be more responsible regarding their packaging including bags.
All,
I must say that I simply do not understand why everyone including the grocery chains would not embrace the idea of charging for both plastic and paper bags. We use cloth bags and I can’t say that we really get the strange looks some of you refer too perhaps we are always getting strange looks and we are just use to it! Anyway, if you have a bunch of plastic bags at home you can “upcycle” them and make them into more interesting and useful products. To see what I’m talking about check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB1mE8e35UY
Kroger sells two types of blue rectangle bags, but for $2-3, I think (how are Fred Meyer’s so much less expensive?). They give you $.05 off for each cloth bag you use. Half Price Books sometimes gives a few cents off your total if you tell them you don’t need a bag, but not always, so I’m not sure how that works.
It’s exciting to see a little more public acceptance of the idea - having store employees smile when you bring cloth bags really does make a difference.
If anyone’s looking for more little steps to take: I just switched from daily Styrofoam cups (free at work) for coffee to a re-usable mug (about $10-15, I bought one I liked so I would continue using it). It’s one of those “if everyone did this we would save xx million tons of trash and pollution each day” things. Of course, save and re-use any plastic bags you get.
Ireland is leading the way in other common sense ways as well. We spent last Christmas there and two things struck me…
1 - NO SMOKING in bars, pubs, restaurants. It was lovely!!
and
2 - No DUI’s. The tolerance for BAC is (I believe) ZERO!! So everyone takes taxis or has designated drivers. Coming out of pubs at night there are waves of taxis.
The Celtic Tiger is certainly an example to follow!
In Bangkok, our own students started this campaign and got major grocery stores in the area to adopt their plan of cloth bags.
Completely a kid-driven initiative. It was awesome. Here’s a link to the story on it. The newspaper links don’t work anymore as classic Bangkok Post style, they moved the article and didn’t leave a permalink.
I use cloth bags that I get at conferences for grocer bags. On occasion when I forget those bags and do have to use plastic bags I use the plastics for garbage bags. While most of my trash is recycled or put in my cricket compost, there is still some stuff that has to go in the trash… I would like to see an environmentally friendly Non plastic bag solution for the trash that does have to go out on the curb.
About my composting system which is not really composting at all… I have a terrarium where I bread crickets who eat the “compost” items and a terrarium with a lizard who eats the excess crickets… it sounds like summer all year round in my kitchen! FYI crickets will eat anything you give them!