Ban the Plastic Bag!
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
I’ve written a few times about the ecological horror that is Great Pacific Garbage Patch and how stupid it is that we are constantly – and often involuntarily – inundated with environmentally harmful packaging, especially plastic bags. I mean, I hate them and they’re still all over my home.
When I was kid visiting Europe in the mid 80s with my family, I remember going to the shops, paying for our groceries and then having to somehow transport what we’d bought back to the car or where we were staying. The shops simply didn’t give you bags and people made do. As Americans who were already used to disposable bags (most of them were at least paper back then) it was a minor inconvenience at first, but guess what? We quickly got used to it because that’s what people do: they adapt. Since then, instead of this more responsible, sustainable method of shopping spreading to the States, the opposite happened and things have gotten worse in Europe and the rest of the world. A lot worse.
Like endlessly multiplying, permanent toxic tumbleweeds, plastic bags are everywhere in a world which is increasingly starting to resemble an environmental wasteland where people say they care but no one does anything, or at least not nearly enough. Now there are swirls of plastic bags and soups of microscopic plastic particles the size of Texas in our oceans.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
Below is an anti plastic bag video featuring Edward Norton from National Geographic. The video lists these countries and cities as having “banned” disposable plastic bags: China, Zanzibar, Boston, Bhutan, Mumbai, San Francisco, South Africa, Australia, Rwanda, Somalia and Taiwan. It seems, however, that some of these places have simply regulated or taxed the use of the bags, as is the case with Ireland and Sweden. This Reuters article has a more detailed list of the countries with regulations and bans, showing Rwanda, Eritrea, Bhutan and Bangladesh to be leading the way in outright bans.
An NPR report cites some controversial consequences of San Francisco’s ban on disposable plastic bags, including a boost in thicker reusable plastic bags and a criticism that paper bag use will increase, which will simply create more waste. In my opinion that is a shortsighted criticism. The problem is clearly overwhelming and if paper bags are indeed just as bad (or worse) then they should be banned too. Recycling something that is plainly unnecessary to begin with is also a feeble attempt to lessen the problem. People just don’t recycle that much, anyway. In short: there is just no reason why we shouldn’t all have reusable bags. It’s the tiniest of inconveniences and it will cut down something that is already a huge burden on the environment. Make them out of burlap, canvas, jute; whatever… even nylon is vastly preferable to disposable plastic. Go shopping with your suitcases if you like. It will be like taking a trip every time you hit the supermarket. Isn’t that exciting? Well, isn’t it?
By Graham Land
Additional resources:
NY Times blog on the ban of plastic bags
BYO Bags – Australian site about the regulation and banning of bags
UK’s Daily Mail campaign to ban plastic bags
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Tags: ban, pacific garbage patch, plastic, plastic bags
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