So long, free trashcan liners -- hello, healthier planet
Posted
May 16 2008, 12:43 PM
by
Donna Freedman
It's fashionable to bemoan the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag. They're flimsy, they create litter, they end up landfills by the millions, they're a waste of the oil needed to produce them. Some places have proposed or enacted a "grocery bag fee" in an attempt to curb usage, and some have banned them outright.
It's likely they'll eventually be gone from our lives. To some extent, I'll miss them when they're gone.
Wait -- don't send the green squad over to tie a plastic bag over my head. In theory, I'm as appalled as anyone else by the things. As an apartment house manager, I hate fishing sodden sacks out of the shrubbery or pulling them down from tree branches. That scene from the film "American Beauty" of the plastic bag dancing in the wind was nice, but what the moviemakers didn't address is that it had to come down sometime.
I'll miss all those free trash bags, though. Since I don't generate much garbage, I have no need for a tall kitchen garbage can. The small one I picked up at the dollar store is just the right size to be filled by a grocery bag.
I bet some of you will also miss the versatility of the lowly shopping sack. It carries your good shoes in the winter. It cushions fragile materials when you mail packages. And pretty soon all you dog owners are going to have to buy poop bags.
What price convenience?
It won't kill me to buy kitchen can liners, although I must point out that they'll be plastic too. Certainly it's troubling that both petroleum and natural gas are used in the manufacture of shopping sacks, according to Reusable Bags. With all the kvetching about the price of oil -- and the fact that it eventually will run out -- it couldn't hurt to be less consumptive of plastic.
The environmental price we pay is a steep one, the Reusable Bags site notes:
• According to the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. residents use more than 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps every year.
• According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually.
• An industry publication called Modern Plastics reports that Taiwan uses 20 billion bags a year, or 900 per person.
• Each year hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other animals eat plastic bags and die.
• Plastic bags break down into smaller and smaller toxic bits, contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them.
• A marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey notes that plastic bags are dispersed throughout Antarctic waters.
Mud, umbrellas and valances
Personally, I have three reusable shopping bags, all obtained for free. One was given to me at a street fair, one was left behind by a tenant, and one I got when a local supermarket chain traded fabric bags for plastic sacks.
Most days, I remember to take at least one with me when I leave the house. Yet I always have a plastic one folded up in my backpack, just in case. It comes in handy if, say, I find an unadvertised special that more than fills my reusable bag.
A Smart Spending message board reader posting as "Decision Maker" keeps several plastic bags in her car. If she's surprised by a rainstorm while wearing good shoes, she ties a bag over each foot to get from the vehicle to the house. Held over the head, the way folks in old movies used to do with sheets of newspaper, the bags are instant umbrellas -- just add water.
If Decision Maker has a real umbrella, she puts it in a plastic bag after use to keep from shedding water in the car. Finally, if she or a passenger steps in mud (or worse), "the shoes can easily be removed so the car does not get dirty."
Myscha Theriault of partner blog Wise Bread posted "7 strategies for reusing plastic grocery bags." Among them: stuff accent pillows or curtain valances, use as a faux painting tool or turn them into kites (which takes the "American Beauty" thing a step further).
Theriault also suggests keeping a tally, right on the bag, of how many times it gets used before it finally bites the dust. At that point, I guess you could always use it as packing material. If your city doesn't have a recycling program, check local stores for recycling bins. The bags may also be welcome at food banks or thrift shops run by charities, so ask around.
Just don't take them outside and expect them to dance. Real life isn't a movie.
