April 22, 2012
“Paper or plastic?” – The End of an Era
Long gone are the days of the infamous question we could always expect at the supermarket: “would you like paper or plastic bags?” In recent years, environmentalists have urged cities and states, both domestically and abroad, to place a ban on the use of plastic bags due to their negative impact on the environment. They contribute significantly to increasing landfills and litter, and can result in harm to wildlife through ingestion or suffocation. Plastic bag bans are relatively easy for consumers to transition to in their daily lives—reusable canvas or sturdy, recycled plastic bags are becoming increasingly popular and extremely affordable, providing an easy solution to no plastic bag policies. San Francisco was the first city in the nation to enact a ban on plastic bags, and many California cities soon followed suit. However, passing such legislation is not as easy as it seems. With plastic companies lobbying against bans and their employees arguing its unfair for them to lose jobs, especially during economic times like this, policy makers must forge through lots of red tape to make the changes happen.
This “red tape,” has contributed to the challenges that Los Angeles has encountered regarding its own plastic bag ban legislation, including numerous lawsuits and opposition briefs. In 2008, Los Angeles County announced that it would begin working on a plastic bag ban, which came to fruition in 2010. According to the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles City Council announced on April 5, 2012 that it would continue to pursue both a plastic and paper bag ban in approximately 7,500 stores county-wide. A 6-month phase out period will commence, resulting in a 10-cent fee for every non-reusable bag purchased at the checkout line. If the Los Angeles ban is successful, it will join San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Carpinteria, Santa Monica, and many other California cities in the banning of plastic grocery bags. Even with the success, however, the end goal for environmentalists is to push on towards a statewide ban altogether.
While the success of the ban on plastic bag seems to be having a bit of a snowball effect, it is not without its challenges. On March 20, 2012, Save the Plastic Bag Coalition (SPBC) filed suit against the city of Carpinteria for including restaurants and other food providing facilities in its plastic bag ban, on the grounds that it violates the California Retail Food Code. Members of the SPBC include Command Packaging, among other companies, responsible for selling, distributing, and recycling of plastic bags. Their vested, personal interest in the future use of plastic bags slows down the process of enacting the bans on a larger scale. SPBC and other concerned parties have filed lawsuits against many other cities and counties, including but not limited to LA County, Marin County, Santa Cruz County, and the City of San Francisco. These parties are hoping to defend their own welfare, and this is the red tape legislators must face and move through to help the state bid farewell to plastic bags. The road to a plastic bag-free world might be long, and opposition will likely continue to be an obstacle, but there’s finally long-awaited progress in the right direction.
Other Sources:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/07/local/la-me-grocery-bags-20110907
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/plastic-bag-ban-san-francisco_n_1317685.html
Sydney MacEwen and Dawnielle Tellez Alanna are undergraduates in the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
The American Chemistry Council and other plastic manufacturers continue to lobby against what is the best for the environment: a plastic bag ban or tax. The fact that these corporate interests, through disguises like “Save the Plastic Bag Coalition”, use the excuse of providing jobs to Americans is such a typical move for greedy corporations looking out for their own profits rather than the common good. The wasteful use and disposal of plastic bags simply does not benefit the local economy, especially in Los Angeles. The majority of plastic bags used are made in China or other cheap, lowly-regulated countries, not here. There are very few factories in Los Angeles County that produce these single use grocery bags. There are no true benefits from plastic bags to the community when these products carry the huge cost of environmental degradation. These environmental effects do not simply lie far away in the Pacific gyre, but effect humans as well. Destroying ecosystems limits the access to seafood and health of fish stocks, lessening the quality and quantity of a main source of protein for humans. When the ratio of a primary food source to marine life, plankton, is 1:16 to plastic debris in some areas, this is bound to effect the marine health, and through emerging contaminants, human health. The toxicity of plastics ingested by seafood that humans then eat will most likely be assessed in the future and found to be harmful. On a selfish note, we should at least support the plastic bag legislation for our own good, if not for the environment.
Living in a Calabasas, which imposes a plastic bag ban, I have become a staunch supporter of policies such as this. Imposing a 10 cent cost on plastic bags allows retailers and consumers to slowly transition away from the use of plastic bags. Also, because retailers frequently sell reusable bags at the register for a low cost, there is little reason to oppose legislation such as this.
Interestingly, I also vacation frequently to Carpinteria, California which was mentioned in this blog post. Not only do plastic bags pose a threat to marine life, but they can also pollute beaches, sensitive ecosystems, etc. In fact, Carpinteria is home to an extremely sensitive ecosystem—the Carpinteria Salt Marsh. This ecosystem is critical to many species of wildlife and is “home to many rare and endangered plants and birds.” The salt marsh actually serves as a sanctuary for nearly 200 bird species, which all pose a risk due to the presence of plastic bags in their habitat. Thus, the use of plastic bags extends beyond our oceans, because plastic bags can also harm birds and other wildlife. Not to mention, plastic bags aren’t very aesthetically pleasing to have blowing around your neighborhood.
The source I used is the following:
http://www.carpinteriacoast.com/salt_marsh.html
According to the U.S. EPA, only %9 of plastic bags were recycled in 2009- a very low amount considering that most grocers have plastic bag recycle bins on site. Plastic bags have been an environmental problem for a long time for the reason that they will never biodegrade and will end up killing marine and wild life. Different cities across the U.S. have started plastic bag bans beginning 2011. There are different opinions about plastic use ban in different cities. There are cities stating that the ban transformed their city from littered and dirty to a much cleaner city, and cities that even the recycling of the plastic bags have been a failure. There are also cities that are giving in-store credits to customers who use reusable bags, but apparently it has not been encouraging enough.
As I sat at the table reading this blog, my roommate actually walked into the apartment with her arms full of plastic bags from her grocery trip! I can’t reprimand her though because I knew she was going didn’t think of reminding her to bring them. After reading the article in the L.A. Times that this blog refers to, I feel like it should be clarified that no ordinance has yet been ratified. The council has only voted on “advancing the proposal” to begin drafting this ordinance. This is why I would like to encourage everyone to sign the petition below (first link). Last year I also worked with CalPIRG on their Great Pacific Cleanup campaign and although we gathered hundreds of pledges from USC students, progress seems so slow. I agree that negative reinforcement through making people buy reusable bags, or pay for paper ones would certainly be a successful way to help people remember, however I also think a sort of bag rental service would be another interesting consideration. For people like me who often want to stop by the store on our way home, and don’t have our bags with us, I think it would be a nice idea to be able to rent very durable large shopping bags perhaps made from PE that would cost maybe dollar each to rent, but could be 100% refunded when returned. The system could even be standardized by making the bags returnable to any supermarket by depositing them into a machine that recognizes these bags just as the bottle recycling collection machines do.
TAKE ACTION HERE!
http://www.webaction.org/site/R?i=vRRMAUgC8ftLksRp19mC3g