Posted on 01/26/2008 11:53:56 AM PST by JACKRUSSELL
Eradicating those unsightly plastic bags that hang in trees and clog landfills may not be in the bag just yet but the idea is reaching a fever pitch in Canada and around the world.
On Tuesday, Whole Foods Market, the world's largest natural-food retailer, announced it would stop giving out disposable plastic bags at the checkout counters. All of the retailer's 270 U.S., Canadian and U.K. stores aim to be free of bags by Earth Day on April 22 of this year. And earlier this month China launched a countrywide ban barring shop owners to hand out single-use bags.
Slowly ideas are changing about the need for plastic bags. But could they go the way of the VCR or at the very least become taboo like cigarettes?
"There is a shift in perception," says Tracey Saxby, a 30-year-old environmentalist who lives half of the year in Rossland, B.C., and the other half in Whistler, B.C. "We just don't need them."
Saxby, an Australian native, was one of the first people in North America to champion a ban in her adopted home of Rossland.
About 10 years ago, the budding environmentalist worked in a retail store in Australia, where incidentally the federal environment minister is currently seeking to ban all ultra-thin plastic bags by the end of the year.
She said she would question why she had to give customers a bag even for the tiniest item. It was then on a trip to Coles Bay in Tasmania that she became really passionate about doing something about the problem.
"It was really cool what was happening there because it's such a tourist attraction and all of these thousands of tourists who came to see the national park were also witnessing a town without plastic bags and really seeing it work, she said by phone from her family home in Brisbane.
The village of Coles Bay, which attracts about 25,000 tourists a year, became the first community in Australia to ban the bags in 2003. The move was copied by dozens more communities in Australia and across the globe.
So Saxby brought the idea home. She took the idea to city council last year in Rossland.
"I said Rossland, let's do this and the whole town got excited," she said. "There was an overwhelming fervour."
The town vied to be the first town in North America to go bag free, but that honour landed in the lap of the small community of Leaf Rapids, Man., on April 2, 2007. With just over 500 residents, city officials handed out more than 5,000 free cloth bags. Leaf Rapids is about 980 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.
San Francisco became the first U.S. city to adopt a ban in March after efforts to impose a tax failed, while New Jersey is seeking to be the first state to phase out bags after government implemented a bill in November.
Large global cities are also jumping on board. London's 33 municipal authorities are pushing for an outright ban on plastic bags, and city council in New York trying to pass laws to bar the so-called white pollution.
"It's happening everywhere now," says Saxby, "Vancouver, Toronto, Whistler - all these places are looking at options and are committed to reducing or eliminating them. Reusable bags are everywhere."
The idea is gaining worldwide momentum. There are now restrictions or bans in Ireland, Taiwan, Kenya, Uganda, Zanzibar and South Africa, among others.
The chief administrator in Leaf Rapids, Martin Van Osch, says the whole community is willing to use the cloth bags to do their shopping. Local businesses could be fined $1,000 for ignoring the ban, but no fines have been levied.
"It's a good thing because people are learning that plastic bags are not free. There's a price," says Saxby.
It's estimated that plastic bags take about 1,000 years to break-down in the environment.
The tricky part of the equation for many Canadians is the perennial question: plastic or paper? But environmentalists say using paper isn't the answer either. Opponents say they use too many trees, create more greenhouse gas emissions in manufacturing and take up more space in landfills.
Environmentalists argue that consumers must look at other options.
"We wouldn't oppose a ban, but we currently propose a tax," said the leader of Canada's national Green Party Elizabeth May, noting a federal ban is highly unlikely in Canada.
"We need to convince consumers that, on so many levels, these are not essential products," she says. "It's a created false need."
Saxby agrees. "It was only in the '70s that we even started to use these plastic bags."
Tips to reduce plastic bag use:
Buy cloth shopping bags available at most grocery stores.
If you are only buying a couple of items, consider carrying them.
Consolidate purchases into one bag.
Place fruit and veggies directly into your basket.
Purchase lightweight mesh or cotton fruit and veggie bags to use for little things like peas or beans.
Avoid double bagging.
If an item already has a handle don't put it in another bag.
Ask the store for produce boxes that you can re-use and then recycle.
On a bike? Take a back-pack with you.
What can I use as a garbage bag?
Compost organic material. Recycle as much as possible. Rinse your bin and reuse.
Re-use newspaper to line your garbage bin: Save a few sheets of newspaper each week to wrap your rubbish or line your garbage bin. This helps minimize mess and is a good alternative to plastic garbage bin liners.
Purchase biodegradable bags. While biodegradable bags are not the solution (we need to reduce our waste first!) they are a compromise if you feel you do need to line your bin.
What can I use to pick up dog poop?
Re-use plastic bags that you get as packaging. For example, bread bags, or paper mushroom bags.
Buy a dog-composting unit that you can install in a corner of your yard.
Ask your local pet store to order a dog composting unit for you.
Here, reduce this.
I’ve used them for those purposes too, although now I use a carryall for lunches and perforated cat liners so I don’t have to do the scoop thing every day! And to line the smaller waste baskets in the bathroom. But I still end up recycling what seems like a ton of them - if I shop at the grocery store doing the usual twice-monthly shopping and don’t take my reusable bags, I might end up with 30 plastic bags. That’s twice a month and that’s only for groceries, that doesn’t count clothes or books or anything else we buy. I can’t use 60+ bags a month no matter how hard I try. So they all end up going to the recycling igloo.
The plastic woven bags - are they made out of packing straps? Like the yellow and other colored straps that come around pallets of goods? I’ve seen those advertised and I thought they’d probably be some heavy duty bags. Those straps are impossible to break!
My grandparents lived through the Depression too. They literally lived off the land, from the garden Grammie tended to the baking she did, to the game Grampie shot. Storebought bread was a real treat, lol. I so admire the way my grandparents lived that although my life is nowhere near what theirs was, I’ve tried to emulate them in a lot of ways. If we all lived the way they did, we’d all be millionaires. No throwaway society then. We still have wool patchwork quilts made out of their winter coats after they got too worn to wear. Canning and home cooking, sewing everything, raising their food-theirs was a great generation, eh?
I hate the way they have it set up-it’s hard to reach the groceries when they come off the conveyor belt after being rung up-the shelf and card machine are in the way. I’m still unloading groceries and they’re being bagged up before I’m done. I can’t be at both ends at the same time, unloading groceries and loading them up simultaneously! I’ve learned to give them the bags beforehand and even though I’ve gotten some looks, they do it now. A lot of people have asked where I’ve gotten the bags as they think it’s a good idea.
Living in a rural area doesn’t give a lot of choices for grocery shopping. I used to go to a place that charged for bags and if you didn’t want them, you could use cut-down boxes to load ‘em in. But that place closed down.
I guess my point really is, don’t go along with actual bans on items. The feds have already effectively banned certain types of cars and light bulbs with their latest energy bill, and Kalifornia is looking at regulating thermostats via FM transmission during “energy emergencies.” State after state has banned smoking in bars and restaurants, with a negative financial impact on some of them.
The problem with going along with or supporting such bans is that eventually the banners will come after something you hold dear. And like the C.S. Lewis quote says, they won’t stop, because they ban with the approval of their consciences.
i luv plastic bags!
si.
In the old days people walked around dog poop. It just sat there. After enough time, a green circle of grass would mark the spot.
Ha, I live in a suburb of NYC, and I see people walking their dogs around our condo townhouses with plastic bags. I wonder which end of the leash has the more intellegent species!
“What are we going to pick the dog’s poop with then?”
Maybe you could borrow an environmentalist’s backpack.
It’s a tossup.
Sort of. I’m trying to find a way to describe them, but the best thing I am coming up with is plastic burlap. They plastic seems to have some fibers in it to make it strong. It is very strong and durable, perfect for lining a bag.
It really was an incredible, great generation of people. My grandparents and parents were very aware of waste. I am trying to be more like them and less wasteful and less thoughtless with our resources.
I can can and sew, but don’t do near as much as they did. I’m working on it, though.
You notice that too? Why on earth do the people who claim to care so much about the environment end up congregating in concrete jungles? I'm thinkin', they don't really care about the environment, they care about the idea of caring about the environment.
Of course, if the bagger puts too many items into a plastic bag, chances are that it will tear and the groceries will fall out. But you’re right, it’s a pain to carry groceries into the house when they are packed in plastic bags.
i always hated those plastic bags. The groceries would spill out of them in the trunk. And at least one of them would rip halfway from the car to the house.
They don’t ask “paper or plastic” anymore so i just say “paper bags please”.
Just occurred to me that my Gram probably would have found a hundred uses for plastic bags, all of them more creative than cat box liners or lunch bags! I can see it now - cut into strips and woven, an easy-clean braided rug at each entrance. Woven finer, a good mosquito screen replacement. Melted and hardened, a knife to skin Grampie’s deer, or scale the fish or repair a leak in the boat or in his rubber soled hunting boots. Insulation.
That creativity and thriftiness is what enabled them to buy, after going through WWII and a depression, a lot on the lake up there and to build their own log cabin for summer retreats. She chinked the logs with wet burlap strips that are still in place. 60 years later, it’s still in the family and the only place all of us head to Maine from all over the US in summer. My kids are 4th generationers there and it will never be sold. I bless my grandparents every day for that gift.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.