California was poised to pass the first statewide ban of single-use plastic bags in America when the legislation was defeated by a 21-14 vote on the floor of the California Senate yesterday. The vote disappointed many including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a supporter of the legislation that had gained widespread support from a diverse coalition including the California Grocers Association, labor, business and environmental groups. Despite yesterday's loss on the Senate floor, California will continue to lead the nation with local bans throughout the state that will eventually achieve a significant reduction in plastic pollution from single-use plastic bags.
America as a nation is behind the curve on the issue of controlling plastic pollution as more than 40 jurisdictions worldwide have already banned single-use plastic bags, including China and Mexico City. The jurisdictions that have banned single-use plastic bags are home to 25% of the world population.
Why did the Single-Use Bag Reduction Act, AB 1998, fail when similar legislation has passed all around the globe? Many articles will be written about the corruption of our state legislators who took money from the main opposition to the legislation, the American Chemistry Council. While I believe that finance reform is key to resurrecting a functioning Democracy both in California and in the nation, I wish to examine why the average American has not yet come to associate single-use plastic bags with the terrible environmental and economic toll these bags exact. When the majority of Americans understand that plastic bags are not free but actually very costly to them, the balance will tip toward statewide bans.
Americans pay for clean-up of plastic bag pollution through our taxes. In California we spend billions to clean up beaches, to unclog storm drains, and to de-litter parks and roadways. In addition, there is the enormous cost we all pay to landfill these bags because they are almost impossible to recycle. We tried a recycling requirement for plastic bags in California and still haven't achieved more than a 5% recycling rate. Plastic bags blow away from trash containers, recycling facilities and even landfills. Recyclers hate the bags. They jam the machines; they produce little material for the effort; and virgin material is more cost-effective for bag manufacturers. So in America, taxpayers pay an enormous price to deal with everlasting waste from plastic bags after they are used just once by shoppers.
In other nations, where waste management is not covered by taxpayers, the bags are literally taking over the countryside and people can see the results of the single-use mentality all around them, all the time. This awareness results in citizen-led protest and demand for government response. While we have visible plastic bag pollution here in America, most of our plastic waste is landfilled and filling our waterways and oceans where it is out of sight for most people. We need to communicate the real costs of plastic bag pollution to Americans so that they will demand legislative action. Once plastic bag bans free our tax dollars from the impossible mission of controlling plastic bag pollution, we can use this money on other priorities. As many states like California grapple with bad economic times, cost savings on needless expenditures should be taken very seriously.
In the wake of California's failure to lead as a state, we can take heart that change is easy to make on a personal level. We can each bring our reusable bags to the market. When asked "paper or plastic?" say "neither" and present a washable, long-lasting canvas bag. In addition, we can work to create a patchwork of local bans that will drive the call for statewide and even national legislation.
The ultra thin disposable plastics are a huge environmental savings over the old paper bags and I think few would contest that. Reusable totes cost a great deal in resource to produce. The idea is that over time there will be a net savings. So how many disposable plastics equal one tote?
I shop once a week and I doubt that I would use a tote longer than a year. For one thing there is a sanitary issue here. If you want me to sanitize the reusable better add in the real impact of that as well. If it costs more environmental impact for around 50 disposables per one tote I am already better off with the disposable.
Plus I reuse about half of them for stuff like cleaning up the dog poop and other disposal stuff so that needs to be factored in. My city requires plastic for trash except for yard stuff which has to be in paper. There are cost factors for all of that too. If it makes disposal more energy efficient then we need to factor that in as well.
I can see the problem with places like Mexico city but where I live there is a very efficient and effective waste disposal system so I can't accept their experience as a guide.
I am not convinced.
I can't speak for all average Americans, but for me it's just a kind of overload or burnout. It's not that I don't care, it's just that there are so many things to think about, so many environmental repercussions to consider, that it's hard to be enthusiastic about all of them.
I think about my gasoline usage, my electricity usage, my pesticide usage. I don't dump stuff on the ground or in the trash that I wouldn't want to see in my water, like prescription drugs. I've been learning how to generate my own electricity. I watch what kind of meat I eat because I don't want to support animal cruelty. I try to convince my conservative compadres that anthropogenic climate change is a real risk. I've even planted my own bamboo, because I can build some things I need out of it rather than buying a plastic alternative at Wal Mart.
I've even bought some reusable grocery bags, but I almost never remember to take them with me to the store.
It's not that I don't care about the problems with plastic bags. It's just that there are so many other things to worry about, and the space in my head is limited.
Man invents machine to convert plastic into oil!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGGabrorRS8
CA International Coastal Clean Up Day!
http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=press_icc
Thanks,
Instead of worrying about whether corn is grown as a renewable resource in the USA, if the major concern is third world starvation, shouldn't more energy be spent bringing sustainable agriculture and efficiency to the third world, not to mention combatting localized corruption problems? I don't believe it is as simple as an either-or proposition.
The morning after AB1998 was defeated I counted more than 40 plastic bags along a rural stretch of California's beautiful coast.
We know single use plastic is a scourge, and that its days are numbered. But the plastics industry will fight hard and spend $$ to maintain the exponential growth they'd become accustomed to. We'll never have the $$ to match, so we need to be smart, decentralized and networky, like a starfish.
the Plastic Pollution Coalition is part of that approach: plasticpollutioncoalition.org
Here are some news links just to give you an idea of how this idea has been met in other countries in the past:
http://archive.maltatoday.com.mt/2008/12/21/t5.html
"Tax on plastic bags a ‘wrong step’ " (Malta)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2205419.stm
"Irish bag tax hailed success" (Ireland)
http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastics/doc.asp?CID=1106&DID=8390
"The Truths Behind Ireland's Plastic Bag Tax" (Ireland: CRITICISM)
..and so on and so on.
So I'm not entirely sure that there is anything in the American political system per se that is at the "root" of this problem. Or at least, nothing in the American political system that isn't share by every other political system out there. ;-)
I really don't undertsand why you NEED a law to tell you not to do this? Or that retailers would prefer to keep buying them, paying for them and giving them away for free. ?
So maybe you're right, it's not so much a problem with the Govt. as it is with THE PEOPLE.