Our Mission: We are igniting a movement that inspires parents to protect young children from harmful chemicals. Donate ยป
Charity Navigator 4 Star CharityBlog
The World Says No to Plastic Bags!
Dina Goda
Friday, January 11, 2008
.jpg)
The battle between convenience and environmental anxiety began in 1977 when grocery stores began using plastic bags and in 1982 when two of the country’s largest supermarket chains, Kroger and Safeway replaced craft sacks with polyethylene bags. While their lightweight, water proof and availability increase their use, the world took notice of how harmful plastic bags are to marine and wild life and started placing regulations to drastically decrease the existence of plastic bags.
On Wednesday, January 9th, New York City Council passed a bill requiring large stores to provide a recycling bin for plastic bags. Shoppers will be able to drop off their plastic bags from any stores in any of the stores providing these bins and the stores will be required to print a message on the bags suggesting that their customers bring them back for recycling.
The bill proposed in October of 2007 and approved with an overwhelming majority of 44 to 2 also has a great amount of support from plastic bag manufacturers and retailers. The bags and other stretchy plastics will not be recycled through the Department of Sanitation but rather through individual contracts between the stores and companies which will recycle them into new plastic bags or will manufacture other products using them.
Various data estimates that US uses over 84 billion plastic bags a year with one billion of them in New York City. Plastic bags worldwide impact the environment because of the 12 million barrels used in their production and because they persist for over a 1000 years in landfills or end up tangled in trees, plugging drains or harming marine life that mistake them for food.
Other major American cities have taken notice of the burden plastic bags imposes on the environment. In March of 2007, San Francisco passed a law that bans plastic bags at large supermarkets. These stores now offer biodegradable alternatives made from potato-starch or cornstarch. The biodegradable bags offered has lead to an increase in the price of food and other products because they cost 4 to 8 cents while plastic bags cost retailers a penny per bag, but overall, it’s worth it.
Countries like Bangladesh, Kenya and Taiwan are also planning to fight against plastic bags following the lead of China who announced on Tuesday of this week that stores are no longer allowed to offer the ultra-thin plastic bags. Chinese stores will continue to offer thicker plastic bags as long as they charge a fee for them.
Such efforts hope to decrease the use of plastic bags once charged for them as demonstrated by the decrease of consumption by 95% of customers in Ireland where stores charge 25 cents for plastic bags starting 2002.
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has been studying examples such as San Francisco and California. While the fee approach is favored, a 2006 bill, AB2449, makes it illegal to charge for plastic shopping bags. This bill was supposed to oblige stores to initiate in-store bag recycling programs. Many stores offer reusable canvas and cloth bags, but the local government cannot impose a fee to effectively lower the use of plastic bags users.
The Board of Supervisors are expected to vote on Jan 22nd on a motion to call on the Legislature to revoke the AB2449 and also to place a statewide fee on plastic shopping bags. Until then, shoppers should consider reusing their plastic bags or switching to the more durable canvas and tote bags which they can bring with them to the store.
Posted by Celebrity Foods on 02/29 at 09:43 PM
A very informative and well-written piece. Thank you for bringing plastic bags and the damage they do to the forefront. I look forward to reading the rest of your blogs.