The Majestic Plastic Bag

"...co-existing with billions of other petroleum species before breaking into ever-tinier plastic pieces."

Ugh.

Another one bans the bags (almost)

NPR reports, CALIFORNIA: "Plastic bags may have become victims of their own success. Their very ubiquity — an estimated 90 billion plastic bags are used in the United States each year — has led to a small but growing number of jurisdictions discouraging their use through fees or outright bans. Last week, the California Assembly voted to approve the first statewide ban on both plastic and paper 'single-use' bags. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he'll sign the bill if it makes it to his desk. The state Senate is expected to act on it by August."

taxing plastic bags

As you may have read in The Post last week, council in the District are considering following in the footsteps of Mayor Bloomberg and inserting a 5 cent fee for plastic bags in hopes to dissuade their use and, in D.C., split the revenue between businesses and the city, "which would use its share to help clean the Anacostia River and offer free reusable bags to elderly and low-income residents."

Not only do I support this initiative, I'd like to see plastic bags banned all together. In fact, consider myself to be one of the "bag-bashers." Call me crazy and suggest that I move to San Francisco if you want, but those things are far more menacing than they are useful. Try counting how many you see stuck in trees or blowing around the road in a single day. It's disturbing. The Economist green.view touched on the topic this week:

The ugliness of discarded bags is the least of the problems they spawn. In places like India and Bangladesh, they have a nasty habit of clogging drains; during monsoon season the resulting floods can cause huge damage and even the occasional death.

Plastic bags are also a menace to animals. Many become snagged in them, or eat them—potentially fatal mistakes. Bags that wind up at sea can absorb toxic chemicals, making them even more harmful to the wildlife around them. And they never really biodegrade: they simply break into ever smaller pieces.

I'd really like to see this happen. Maybe businesses will even start training cashiers how to better handle customers who has bring their own bags!

Bye bye single-use bags!

Great news. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has called for a 6 cent charge per plastic bag needed at the register. What is being called the plastic bag tax could generate $16 million a year. Or even better, if the proposal is passed, perhaps the outcome will mimic the bag tax in Ireland. From the NY Times:

Just a few weeks after Ireland adopted a similar, though much heftier tax in 2002 — charging shoppers 33 cents a bag — plastic bag use dropped 94 percent, and within a year, nearly everyone in that country had purchased reusable cloth bags.

Several City Council members said they were intrigued, but needed to see more details. Several did note, however, that it was only a few months ago that the Council passed — with the help of environmentalists and plastic bag manufacturers — a law requiring all stores that provide plastic bags to accept plastic bags for recycling, with some exceptions. And during the lengthy public debate over that bill, council members heard speakers testify that fees of at least 25 cents a bag needed to be imposed to get consumers to change their behavior.

Read reactions from New Yorkers here.

reduce, re-use, recycle

Just found this on Reuters:

WAL-MART AIMS TO CURB PLASTIC BAG USE

"Wal-Mart Stores Inc will give out fewer plastic shopping bags, and encourage shoppers to reuse and recycle them, as the retailer aims to slash its plastic bag waste by a third worldwide by 2013. The plan is expected to cut the equivalent of 9 billion plastic bags from stores each year, and eliminate more than 135 million pounds of plastic waste globally in the next five years. The world's largest retailer said on Thursday it aims to reduce plastic bag waste by 25 percent in its U.S. stores and 50 percent in other countries. "If we can encourage consumers to change their behavior, just one bag at a time, we believe real progress can be made toward our goal of creating zero waste," said Matt Kistler, senior vice president for sustainability at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart's U.S. stores will begin selling a new 50-cent reusable bag in October, and its baggers will be trained to pack bags more efficiently. Earlier this month, its Mexico stores introduced reusable bags that cost one-third less than the previous ones." Read full article here.

A few weeks back I posted about some retail giants installing solar panels - so I am happy to hear about this news as well, although some critics are saying that this is a rather small effort. I absolutely believe that any action is better than inaction.