Plastic or Reusable?
Nancy Yang, Rochester Minnesota
You make it to the end of the checkout station, and the friendly teenage cashier asks you, “Paper or plastic?”
If
you’re a resident of Los Angeles, CA, you won’t need to make this
decision. As of May 2012, LA became the largest US city to ban
“single-use” plastic shopping bags at grocery checkouts; it joined New
York City, Seattle, Austin, the entire state of Hawaii and various
cities scattered across the country, in the bag ban movement. Many major
world cities have passed similar bans or imposed taxes on bags, and
paper bags have dropped out of the race since research established their
adverse environmental effects. With the ardent advocacy of environmental groups, the reusable shopping
bag has steadily gained consumer favor.
And
why not? Reusable bags are cheap, if you haven’t already snatched some
freely given away at events. They seem durable, more so than your
typical flimsy bags, and they’re multipurpose. For most environmentally
minded shoppers, the switch from single-use to reusable was a simple
choice, and hardly a hassle for consumers.
But is it so simple?
I
stumbled on the topic when I saw 12-year-old Abby Goldberg’s petition
on Change.org. She wanted her hometown, Grayslake, IL, to stop using
plastic shopping bags, but the American Progressive Bag Alliance
retaliated by lobbying for their own bill, SB 3442, the Plastic Bag
& Film Recycling Act, which required state “plastic carryout bag
manufacturers” to register with the state EPA, and establish collection
and recycling programs. It’s been touted by the APBA as a progressive
bill to encourage consumers, manufacturers, and retailers to work
together for the environment.
So
far, the bill has pacified both the state Senate and House, and now
sits before the governor awaiting his signature. It might have pacified
me as well but for some nuanced details. For one, manufacturers pay a
$500 per year registration fee, and violators will be charged no more
than $1,000, plus $100 per day of the violation. Not much of a hit
against large, wealthy corporations. More importantly, the bill prevents
any cities or towns of less than 2 million people from regulating or
banning plastic bags: “the regulation of the collection and recycling of
plastic carryout bags and film is and exclusive power and function of
the state.” Which means that no Illinois city besides Chicago will be
able to set a plastic bag ban.
This
seemed like the finger of special interest pointing at Abby Goldberg’s
campaign. Abby’s petition will be sent to Governor Pat Quinn, and the
fate of SB 3442 will rest with him.
I
researched the dispute more closely, expecting it to be a clear
environment vs. business showdown. Exactly which is the more
environmental choice—plastic or reusable?
Plastic
bag industries advocate several reasons for perpetuating our disposable
bag habit. These arguments from the American Plastic Manufacturing
websites are listed below, with my own supporting or disproving
research:
1) “Plastic bags are 100% recyclable, into composite lumber and other plastic products, such as new bags.”
Grocery
store bags are typically made of #1 or 2 plastics, (high- or
low-density polyethylene), which are the purest plastics with the least
additives. Recycling would be efficient—but only when the bags are clean
and separated, so most facilities must collect bags separately from
other recyclables. Their high volume-to-weight ratio also drives up
collection and transportation; according to Jared Blumenfeld, San
Francisco’s Director of Environment, it costs $4,000 to process one ton
of plastic bags for a return of $32.3 And finally, according to American
Chemistry Council themselves, in 2007, more than 50% of collected
plastic bags was shipped to China for processing. In 2010, the EPA
reported only 12% of produced bags, sacks and wraps were reclaimed.
2) “American plastic bags are made from natural gas, NOT [foreign crude] oil.”
While
difficult to coax an unbiased answer out of any source, this fact holds
up. According to Green Review Blog, plastic bags—at least the American
made ones—are made from byproducts of mostly natural gas and oil, so
they don’t put any additional demand on fossil fuel refineries. But the
fact still stands that the bags are made from an unsustainable source.
3)
“Ninety-seven percent of people […] never wash their [reusable] bags,”
and “more than half… contained some form of coliform bacteria.”
These
figures come from a single University of Arizona study (sponsored by
the American Chemistry Council) on 84 reusable bag samples. While the
small sample size and the biased sponsor makes the study scientifically
questionable, it’s purely logical that bacteria would accumulate on
reusable bags when they carry raw meats and unwashed produce; the
bacteria is easily eliminated by normal washing, a small addition to
your daily laundry load. There are no studies to prove that re-using
these single-use bags would be any more sanitary than reusables, since
they carry the same groceries, so who’s to say that reusables are more
unsanitary than reusing single-use?
4) “Eighty to ninety percent of the population reuses plastic grocery bags at least once.”
Various
sources show varying degrees of plastic bag reuse. A 2006 survey in the
UK showed 40.3% of plastic bags used as garbage bin liners. You
probably used them to clean up after your pets, bag your lunch, keep
your things dry. Plastic producers argue that banning free grocery bags
would induce consumers to by more heavy-duty garbage bags that have far
worse environmental impact. This for me is the toughest argument to
deflect because consumer activity is so difficult to measure. My family
always uses store bags for trash and never buys garbage bags; in terms
of sanitary disposal, grocery bags seem the most economical and
environmentally sound answer. Not only that, but it would take between
10 to 100 uses of woven plastic or cotton/canvas reusable bags to equate
the environmental impact (water, fuel and pollution) from single-use
bags reused just once or twice.
After
this extensive research, my stand against plastic grocery bags is
slightly shaken. The problem is that there are so few unbiased
statistics on bags, and neither side seems willing to compromise. Still,
I am not without hope. In 2011, Japanese inventor Akinori Ito and
American inventor Kevin DeWhitt separately developed processes to turn
used bags into crude oil. The technology hasn’t quite become mainstream,
but with good publicity it might become the norm in a few years. Until
then, the best choice seems to be to reuse all your bags - no matter the
type - as much as possible. Illinois Governor Quinn has stated that he
will “stand up for the environment” in his final decision, but I can now
guarantee that his decision—even with politics aside—won’t be an easy
one.
http://www.apmbags.com/bagmyths
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-happens-to-recycled-plastic-bags.htm
http://www.reuseit.com/learn-more/myth-busting/recycling-can-not-fix-this
http://static.reuseit.com/PDFs/American_Chemistry.pdf
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/06/25/128105740/plastics-industry-funded-study-finds-bacteria-in-reusable-grocery-bags
http://uanews.org/pdfs/GerbaWilliamsSinclair_BagContamination.pdf
http://publications.environment-agency.gov.uk/PDF/SCHO0711BUAN-E-E.pdf
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57466133/foes-say-ill-plastic-bag-recycling-law-wont-work/
http://greenreview.blogspot.com/2008/08/plastic-bags-are-bad-but-they-are-not.html
http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw_2010_data_tables.pdf
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/02/14/award-winning-inventor-makes-fuel-from-plastic-bags/
http://www.agilyx.com/our-technology/
http://www.change.org/petitions/governor-quinn-don-t-let-big-plastic-bully-me