Plastic Bags Becoming Big Problem (Paper, or Plastic?)

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Growing Call among Californians to Sack Plastic

Grocery Bags

 

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July 29, 2005 — By Deb Kollars, The Sacramento Bee

In Los Angeles, in San Francisco and in Sacramento,

one of the most commonplace innovations to come along

for consumers -- the plastic grocery bag -- is under

attack.

 

What would our world be like without these wisps of

handiness? How would we get our groceries home? Or our

homegrown tomatoes into the office? Or dog droppings

off a stranger's lawn?

 

Across California, a growing collection of political

leaders, environmentalists and trash experts wish they

could find out.

 

Plastic grocery bags are filling landfills, clogging

storm drains and waterways, jamming recycling

machines, harming marine animals and littering

roadsides.

 

Close to 90 billion are used in the United States

(population 300 million) every year, while just 5

percent or so ever get recycled into another useful

plastic product.

 

" They're a big, big problem, " said Doug Kobold, a

solid waste planner with the county of Sacramento who

is among those working to reduce the bags' presence on

the planet.

 

The efforts are heating up like a well-tended compost

pile, setting California apart as the nation's hot

spot for anti-bag fever.

 

Within a few weeks, San Francisco is expected to

resume discussions -- which began last winter, then

were put on hold -- on a proposal to place a 17-cent

fee on plastic grocery bags to discourage their use.

 

Los Angeles, meanwhile, is under orders from the

Environmental Protection Agency to clean up its

rivers. The city views plastic bags as a key offender

and is exploring aggressive steps to encourage

recycling and to get manufacturers to put more

recycled content into bags.

 

If those efforts fail, a Los Angeles city councilman

leading the push, Ed Reyes, plans to start talking bag

fees.

 

Locally, Sacramento County's Waste Management and

Recycling Division is planning a different step.

 

The county, like the city of Sacramento, sends to the

landfill plastic grocery bags, dry cleaning bags and

other types of flexible wrap, known as plastic film.

Come spring, the county plans to add bundled plastic

bags and film to its curbside recycling program, along

with shredded paper and plastic toys, Kobold said.

 

Several California cities, such as San Juan Capistrano

and San Jose, are doing the same. Twenty years ago,

few could have imagined the need for such crusades.

 

But once plastic bags were introduced in the early

1980s, the lighter, cheaper alternative to paper

caught on fast. Today, the making of plastic bags in

the U.S. is a $1-billion-a-year industry, said Larry

Johnson, president and managing partner of Vanguard

Plastics, a large bag maker based in Dallas.

 

With the growth, a classic consumer conundrum was

born: Paper or plastic?

 

Plastic bags are hard to beat in price and

convenience. They cost about a penny apiece to make,

compared with 5 1/2 cents for a paper bag. They take

less space at the checkout counter and adapt to odd

shapes. Ninety percent of grocers and big discounters

use them, Johnson said.

 

During manufacturing, both types use energy and create

pollution, so environmentalists prefer that neither be

made and people instead use reusable bags of canvas or

other materials.

 

In general, though, plastic bags are considered more

wasteful than paper. They come from petroleum, a

nonrenewable natural resource, and are hard to recycle

because food and other materials cling so readily to

their surfaces. Paper bags are more likely to contain

recycled paper and to get recycled themselves.

 

Plastic bags also are notorious for traveling on the

wind, polluting land and water alike. " It's like our

graffiti in the river, " said Los Angeles Councilman

Reyes. Because they do not decompose, the litter can

linger for years.

 

The lack of biodegradability is not, however, an issue

when it comes to modern landfills, which are kept

" dry " to discourage decomposition and serve largely as

giant storage bins.

 

" The life of a grocery bag is measured in minutes in

terms of its useful life, " said Mark Murray, executive

director of Californians Against Waste. " It goes from

the store to the car to the house, and then it becomes

garbage. "

 

According to the California Integrated Waste

Management Board, the amount of film plastic disposed

of statewide grew 20 percent in the past five years.

Last year, 1.7 million tons of plastic film were

disposed of, including 147,038 tons of grocery and

merchandise bags (8.1 pounds per person).

 

The pileup of plastic has become so vast that the

Waste Management Board -- whose reason for existence

is to reduce the waste stream -- has begun leaning

hard on the plastics industry to take more

responsibility for recycling and reducing usage.

 

The board recently agreed to send to the Legislature a

plan calling on manufacturers, supermarkets, recyclers

and local governments to work voluntarily to reduce

plastic film in the waste stream, said Christine

Flowers-Ewing, a coordinator with the board's

recycling technology branch.

 

The plan comes with a tough caveat: If the voluntary

approach fails, a fee of 0.4 cents to 1 cent per pound

at the wholesale level would be considered.

 

The plastics industry, under siege from so many

corners of California, has begun a campaign of its

own: to improve the tarnished image of plastic bags,

to encourage recycling and to fight any fees or taxes.

 

In recent months, the industry formed an advocacy

group called the Progressive Bag Alliance, raised

$700,000 from various companies and hired public

relations experts to fight the attacks. They have good

reason to be concerned.

 

The bags have been banned in some countries, while

others are imposing fees. Three years ago, after

Ireland set a 15-cent-per-bag fee, the use of such

bags fell an astounding 90 percent.

 

" It's a serious threat, " said Tim Shestek, public

affairs director for the American Chemistry Council, a

trade group that includes the American Plastics

Council. " The urgency is real. "

 

The industry includes various sectors, not all on the

same page.

 

Shestek represents companies that manufacture plastic

resin pellets, which get heated and blown into sheets

of plastic film. They are pushing more recycling sites

and anti-litter measures, but object to fees or other

steps that would reduce the use of bags.

 

The actual makers of the bags have a slightly softer

position.

 

They also oppose fees. But they recognize the

environmental toll of their products and want to

reduce wasteful use, even if it means a hit in sales,

said Johnson, chair of the Alliance.

 

In particular, the group sees a problem at the

checkout stand and has begun promoting better training

of clerks so they stop double-bagging and filling bags

only partially.

 

" We want our product used efficiently and correctly, "

Johnson said. " It could cost us some sales, probably

will. But it won't cost us our business. "

 

For shoppers, the choice between paper and plastic

remains highly individual.

 

Many like the light weight and flexibility of plastic

bags, which can be used to line waste baskets or clean

litter boxes.

 

But Kathy Howton, a South Natomas resident who works

for the state, finds that loaded plastic bags tend to

topple in the car, so she chooses paper bags, then

reuses them to hold garbage.

 

" When I do get plastic bags, I try to find other uses

for them, " Howton said.

 

Barbara Bechtold, an urban planner from downtown

Sacramento, avoids both, relying instead on reusable

canvas bags. It bothers her to see people going home

from the store with bags destined for a landfill.

 

" The effort is so minimal, " said Bechtold, who also

won't buy bottled water because she finds the

packaging wasteful.

 

Given the way plastic bags have so thoroughly invaded

everyday life, the state needs more individuals like

Bechtold, said the waste board's Flowers-Ewing. People

making choices that benefit not just themselves, but

all the rest of us.

 

PAPER OR PLASTIC

 

--Best choice: Neither. Use reusable canvas or nylon

bags to transport your groceries.

 

--Next best choice: Paper bags. They have more

recycled content and are more recyclable. Be sure to

reuse them next time you shop.

 

--If you use plastic bags, recycle them. Go to

www.plasticbagrecycling.org, set up by the American

Plastics Council. Click on " General Public, " then

" Search for a Drop-off Location " and type in your ZIP

code to find the stores nearest you that accept

plastic bags and film.

 

--Don't assume your curbside recycling program

recycles plastic bags. Local programs vary.

Sacramento, for example, accepts the bags in its blue

curbside bins, but the bags are sent to the landfill

during a later sorting process.

 

--Keep plastic bags clean and dry for recycling. If

they have food or other materials clinging, they are

hard if not impossible to recycle.

 

--Think you can't live without plastic grocery bags?

Get creative when emptying the litter box or picking

up after your dog: Try using an empty chip bag or

cereal box liner or fresh-cut lettuce bag destined for

the landfill anyway.

 

--For more information, visit the Californians Against

Waste Web site, www.cawrecycles.org. Or contact your

local solid waste collection agency.

 

To see more of The Sacramento Bee, or to to

the newspaper, go to http://www.sacbee.com.

 

Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Excellent article! Thanks for posting it.

 

I think education is an essential factor as well, and the school

lunch room is a great place to start talking to children about

packaging waste. Our Web site, www.wastefreelunches.org, provides

information on how to implement a weste-free lunch program at your

school. We also offer waste-free lunch kits: a set of reusable bento-

style containers and a book of vegetarian lunch ideas. After all, a

child taking a disposable lunch to school will generate approximately

67 pounds of lunch waste annually. Come visit us online and share

your waste-free lunch story.