San Francisco to destroy environment

[Rogue 9]

USA Today editorial

Our view on the environment: Plastic-bag ban full of holes
San Francisco’s scheme sounds good, until you hear the costs.

The ubiquitous filmy plastic bags we use to carry our groceries are convenient, free and — no surprise — popular. But unless they're properly recycled, they'll exist on earth for 1,000 years before decomposing. And they will not go quietly.

The bags' petroleum-based plastic eventually breaks into tiny particles that contaminate soil and waterways and enter the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them. Thousands of marine animals already die each year from eating bags mistaken for food. Municipalities spend millions of dollars cleaning bags from streets, recycling systems and trees. In South Africa, wind-blown bags are jokingly called the national flower because they sprout everywhere. In the USA, we use 100 billion bags a year.

Now, the city of San Francisco has come up with an answer. The city's Board of Supervisors voted last week to outlaw plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets and chain pharmacies. The stores are encouraged to use bags made of recyclable paper, which can biodegrade in about a month, or compostable bags made of corn or potato starch, which have not yet been widely studied. It is a unique response well suited to a city that prizes its special nature — one that already has curbside pickup for recycling foodstuffs in compostable bags. But as other cities weigh San Francisco's choice, they might want to consider some of the consequences.

Plastic bags cost about a penny each, paper costs about a nickel and compostable bags can run as high as 10 cents each. The California Grocers Association, which lobbied against the ban, doubts this new industry can produce enough of the compostable bags quickly. The bags also must be segregated from regular plastic, making recycling efforts more difficult.

Paper bags, meanwhile, generate 70% more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This is because four times as much energy is required to produce paper bags and 85 times as much energy is needed to recycle them. Paper takes up nine times as much space in landfills and doesn't break down there at a substantially faster rate than plastic does.

So what's the answer? The real culprit is the slob who litters or refuses to recycle either one — or communities that don't provide the means for him to do so. Our throwaway society is to blame as well.

The best answer to the paper or plastic question is neither. Each individual can do more to help the environment by reusing whatever bags groceries distribute or buying a canvas sack to carry goods.

Public education campaigns about littering and recycling can help more than ineffective bans on products that are used every day by billions of people worldwide. It needn't take 1,000 years to alter anti-social behavior.

Emphasis added.

[Mayabird]

Yes, I noticed the very not subtle emphasis, Rogue.

I have these big cloth bags I take with me when I go shopping. I don't often need to get any extra bags, plastic or paper, anyway.

At home we'd get paper bags and use them for mulching the garden. They're big and thick and keep the weeds down.

[Rogue 9]

Sorry, forgot a smiley after the emphasis note.