HELPING TO STOP PLASTIC AND PAPER BAGS
Robin Wenrick forgot her reusable bags, so she ended up with a passel of plastic ones on a recent visit to Safeway.
The Berkeley resident said she’s heard plastic bags litter the land, kill fish and sit in landfills for a long, long time.
“If the stores charged for bags, I definitely would have gone home and gotten my reusable bags,” Wenrick said. “I used to live in Italy, and that’s what they do there.”
And that’s just what Berkeley is thinking about. A ban on plastic bags from retail stores and a charge on paper bags may go to the city council in February.
Each year, at least 12 billion plastic bags are manufactured and sold in California, according to an industry group. But Californians recycle just 1 to 4 percent of them, says the California Integrated Waste Management Board.
In the Bay Area, about 1 million of the 3.8 billion plastic bags used each year end up in San Francisco Bay, according to an estimate by Save the Bay.
The Berkeley plan is to ban all “take-away” plastic bags from retail stores and allow stores to charge 15 to 25 cents for paper bags. The goal: encouraging people to use reusable bags.
San Jose in September approved a ban pending an environmental impact report, to make sure an ensuing shift to using more paper bags wouldn’t pose even greater environmental problems.
This is the second time Berkeley has tried to pass a plastic bag ban. The city deep-sixed a similar proposal in 2007 after Oakland, which passed a plastic bag ban, was sued by plastic bag manufacturers for failing to consider the environmental effects of an increased use of paper bags. Because it lost the suit, Oakland had to overturn its ban.
“We need to create a hybrid ordinance that will keep plastic bags out of our waterways but not have the unintended consequence of increasing paper bag use,” said Berkeley’s recycling program manager, Andy Schneider. “We know we have to ban plastic, and we can’t shift everyone to paper because we know we will be sued.”
Bryan Early, a policy associate for Californian’s Against Waste in Sacramento, said Berkeley’s is a novel approach. “If Berkeley is sued by the plastic bag manufacturers, they can say this ordinance is not going to result in an increase in paper bag use because of the fee approach, which I think is 100 percent correct,” Early said.
Plastic bag manufacturers have claimed in lawsuits that paper bags contribute to deforestation, require more energy to make and transport and create greenhouse gas emissions when they break down in the environment.
San Francisco and Malibu have bans. Oakland, Los Angeles County and Palo Alto enacted bans but were sued, with mixed outcomes. While Oakland scrapped its law, Palo Alto agreed not to expand its law; lawsuits are pending elsewhere.
The city of Los Angeles is now preparing an environmental impact report, as is San Jose, to try to prove plastic is indeed more harmful than paper.
While the initial study out of Los Angeles acknowledges paper bag manufacturing harm the environment, it says paper is the lesser of two evils: An increase in paper bags would be offset by the fact that they carry more groceries, so fewer bags would be used. The study also says programs to encourage using reusable bags would decrease the use of paper bags.
Chris Peck, a spokesman for the waste management board, cast a different light on the paper-plastic debate.
“You see a lot of pictures of sea animals and birds caught up in plastic bags, but with paper bags, that doesn’t happen,” Peck said. “Paper gets soggy, and it disintegrates.”
Others argue banning the plastic bag is a bad idea. “The paper bags are going to be far worse for the environment,” said Peter Grande, owner of Command Packaging in Los Angeles, which makes plastic grocery bags.
“I think the real issue is be careful of what you wish for,” Grande said. “It becomes very dangerous for the government to be that involved in our lives.”
In Berkeley, Schneider said the city has contacted retailers for input and filed a “mitigated negative declaration” with the state in hopes of avoiding a costly environmental impact report.
The Berkeley law says no retail store can provide plastic checkout bags, and paper bags must contain 40 percent recycled paper. Stores must charge a fee for using paper bags, the law says, and it encourages them to sell reusable bags for future use.
While cities around the state align their plastic bag bans to fend off legal assaults, grocers are signaling their tentative support for a statewide ban.
Dave Heylen, spokesman for the California Grocers Association, said members are not as worried about having to buy more paper bags as they are about having to negotiate various plastic bag bans across California.
“We want it dealt with at the state level, so it’s consistent,” he said.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has come out in favor of a statewide ban, said spokesman Mike Naple, “and he looks forward to negotiating with the Legislature.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com
It’s time for a revolution in the way we shop. In the high street we’re routinely handed free bags with just about everything we buy. We too often just dispose of them and come back for more.
The plastic bag is one of the most durable items any of us will ever handle. You just can’t get rid of it without incineration (which can cause pollution). Throw it away and it will take decades to decompose.
Yet bags are still being dumped by the billion in landfill sites, despite the risk of damaging the landscape and wildlife for generations.
Indeed, the Chinese can claim better environmental credentials than us on this issue, since they are imposing a ban on free bags from June. But do Americans care about what is happening to our environment?
That is why we at Marks & Spencer are announcing that we will in future charge 5p for such bags in our food halls, in a move we hope will encourage a fundamental change in shopping habits. Of course we’re not doing this out of the blue. We’re responding to what our customers have been telling us.
Understandably, they want us to make it easy for them to do their bit to go green and tell us they want us to take a lead. So we were happy to try out this new approach with pilot schemes in Northern Ireland and South-West England, where we gave away tens of thousands of “bags for life”.
The result: a 70 per cent reduction in the use of plastic bags, a dramatic increase in the use of reusable bags and customers who seem genuinely pleased to do their bit for the environment.
Following that success, we’re launching the 5p scheme across Britain. At the moment, M&S uses over 390million plastic bags a year, but we have the potential to reduce that by 280million. And those we sell for 5p will in future be made from 100 per cent recycled post-consumer waste – another major UK retailer first.
It doesn’t end there. Under Plan A, our 100-point eco plan, we aim to make M&S carbon neutral and send no waste to landfill by 2012. We want to use more sustainable raw materials, set new standards in ethical trading and encourage healthier lifestyles. It’s time to break the carrier bag habit.
It’s not difficult, it’s not painful, but it IS responsible. Let’s stop the talking and see some action.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
Project Kaisei is a non-profit organization based in San Francisco and Hong Kong, established to increase the understanding and the scale of marine debris, its impact on our ocean environment, and how we can introduce solutions for both prevention and clean-up.
Our main focus is on the North Pacific Gyre, which constitutes a large accumulation of debris in one of the largest and most remote ecosystems on the planet. To accomplish these objectives, Project Kaisei is serving as a catalyst to bring together public and private collaborators to design, test and implement break-throughs in science, prevention and remediation.
Kaisei means “Ocean Planet” in Japanese, and is the name of the iconic tall ship that was one of the two research vessels in the August expedition. The other was the New Horizon, a Scripps Oceanography vessel that was arranged via a new collaboration between Project Kaisei and Scripps to provide additional research on the impacts of debris in the gyre. Each vessel obtained a wide variety of samples from this part of the ocean which are now being analyzed. What was evident was the pervasiveness of small plastic debris that was found in every surface sample net that was used for regular sampling over 3,500 miles between the two vessels.
In the summer of 2010, Project Kaisei will launch its second Expedition to the North Pacific Gyre, where it will send multiple vessels to continue marine debris research, and in particular, to test an array of marine debris collection systems. Debris collected will be used to further study the feasibility of converting this to fuel or other useable material. As a collaborative action program, Project Kaisei is seeking sponsors, participants and leaders in their respective industries who can help to make a difference, on land, or at sea, in reducing marine debris.
Show your support: www.projectkaisei.org
Marks & Spencer will introduce a charge of 5p ( about 8 cents USD) for the bags at its 600 UK food stores. Marks & Spencer is to stop offering free throwaway carrier bags in a landmark move to fight “plastic poison”. The company will introduce a charge of 5p for the bags at its 600 UK food stores.
The decision is a major breakthrough for the Daily Mail campaign to cut the waste caused by the 13billion single-use carriers handed out by retailers every year.
M&S executives believe their move could cut customers’ use of throwaway bags by more than 70 per cent. The Mail’s “Banish the Bags” campaign, launched yesterday, won massive support from political leaders, academics, environmental campaigners and celebrities.
Nick Jenkins, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, summed up the reaction when he said: “Retailers have to take a lead in stopping shoppers from the madness of using plastic bags just once. “Ninety per cent of the debris in our oceans is plastic. That is a horrifying statistic.”
M&S has already run highly successful trials of its 5p scheme in Northern Ireland and the south-west of England, where there was a huge fall in the number of bags issued.
While throwaway carriers will cost 5p, customers will be offered free “bags for life”. The company expects to hand out some 20million in April in preparation for the 5p charge beginning in May. It will use cash from the scheme to fund Groundwork, an environmental charity that provides parks, gardens and play areas.
M&S chief executive Sir Stuart Rose said: “We want to make it easy for our customers to help the environment and our trials have shown us they want to take action. “Just imagine if M&S customers across the UK cut the number of food bags they use by 70 per cent – that’s over 280million bags.”
The move will heap pressure on the other national chains. Retailers are due to hold crunch talks with the Government’s packaging body Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) today amid accusations that they have done too little to tackle the menace. The Government is also under pressure to force them to take meaningful action.
The Mail yesterday highlighted the huge waste and harm associated with single-use bags, which are made from a component of crude oil. An average of more than 800 are issued to every UK family each year. But they are used for an average of just 20 minutes before being dumped and carted to vast landfill sites where they can take centuries to rot.
Fewer than 10 in 1,000 are recycled. Millions spread like urban tumbleweed to pollute the countryside, rivers and the seas with deadly consequences for wildlife, including millions of seabirds, turtles, seals and dolphins.
The Marks & Spencer scheme will apply throughout its food stores. M&S Simply Food franchise partners, including BP and Moto, are supporting the initiative.
The bags for life will be replaced free of charge by the store when they wear out and will be sent for recycling. Over the next year, some 40 areas will benefit from cash from the scheme going to Groundwork. Tony Hawkhead, the charity’s chief executive, said: “Not only will this reduce the amount of food carrier bags sent to landfill sites but it will also help improve the quality of life in towns and cities across the country.”
“We all want our neighbourhoods to be cleaner and greener and our experience shows that when a major household name takes the initiative, it can encourage millions of people to change their behaviour.” The decision by Sir Stuart has tapped into the public mood. There is a wealth of evidence from around the world that shoppers want stores to take a more responsible approach.
A voluntary ban by supermarkets in France has taken millions of free throwaway bags off the streets, while a bag tax in Ireland reduced usage by 90 per cent when it was adopted in 2002. In the UK, Ikea and the budget chains Aldi and Lidl also charge for plastic bags. The Mail has been inundated with support for our initiative.
Tory leader David Cameron said: “I wholeheartedly back the Daily Mail’s campaign to ‘banish the bags’. “It is absolutely vital that we urge all supermarkets and retailers to act responsibly and look at their policy. “However, we as consumers must also change our attitude.”
Jeremy Paxman, a keen angler and presenter of BBC2′s Newsnight, endorsed the campaign on air on Tuesday night. While reading newspaper front pages, he announced: “The Daily Mail is starting a campaign – thank heavens someone is – to banish plastic bags.”
Bruce Sparrow, of the Ramblers Association, said: “We fully support the Daily Mail’s call for a plastic bag ban. “Plastic bags are an eyesore and a menace to the countryside and urban open spaces.”
Author Jilly Cooper said: “The animal issue is more important to me than anything else. “I passionately believe in trying to get rid of all these plastic bags.”
Journalist Jonathan Dimbleby said: “Plastic bags are immensely damaging in almost every way you can imagine. “They litter our roads and countryside. They are extremely environmentally harmful. “There are perfectly adequate substitutes.”
Some 33 local authorities in London, involving politicians from all parties, support either a ban or fee for single use plastic bags. They hope a Parliamentary bill will give them the power to force the change.
Marks & Spencer www.marksandspencer.com
Source: dailymail.co.uk
A brief from Dr. Marcus Eriksen, Phd, Co-Captain of the JUNKraft and research scientist and educator for Algalita Marine Research Foundation
I want my fellow Americans to understand the true life cycle of our plastic trash. Our “Throw Away” society produces 120 billion pounds of plastic in the U.S. alone, and recovers less than 5%. That recovered post-consumer plastic waste (bottles, caps, bags, straws, etc…) is not typically recycled in our country.
I recently visited America’s greatest landfill in Puente Hills, California. Of the 1300 tons of trash they receive daily, they recover plenty of plastic, but when asked, “Where does it go?” the reply was, “China.” On top of that, we lose much of our plastic waste out to sea. The JUNKraft expedition was my third time visiting the Eastern Garbage Patch. I’ve had the privilege of working with Captain Charles Moore to see first-hand the rapid accumulation of plastics in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, as far from land as you can get in the world. We found fish full of plastic. Years earlier I had pulled hundreds of bottle caps, lighters and toothbrushes out of the carcasses of Laysan Albatross on Midway Atoll. The environmental costs are enormous, and then there’s human health.
On the JUNKraft expedition, as our food reserves dwindled, we caught fish, specifically a Rainbow Runner. Joel Paschal, co-navigator, and I discovered their stomachs filled with plastics. We know that plastic as sea is a sponge for pollutants, like DDT, other pesticides, PCBs, and PAHs, from the incomplete burning of fossil fuels. Ingested plastic carries these toxins into the food that we harvest, and you and I eat. I don’t want garbage accumulating in my body from what’s on my dinner plate. I don’t want these synthetic compounds accumulating in my tissues and organs, or the bodies of my family, or my future children.
Anna Cummins, one of my partners in the JUNKraft project, will soon conduct her own body burden analysis. It is sad that every American currently carries a body burden of synthetic chemicals in his or her tissues and organs. Anna and I about to embark on a 2000-mile cycling/speaking tour about plastic waste down the west coast of North America, called JUNKride. Somewhere along the way we will marry, and someday start a family. It is a sad note that the surest way to unload your toxic load is to give it to your newborn child through breastmilk. We are terrified of this, as every American should be. The true lifecycle of throw-away plastic is that it is to wasteful to value.
When I talk about the entire lifecycle, I need to include the raw material for plastic, which we all know is petroleum. In 1991, as a U.S. Marine, I stood in the desert outside Kuwait City covered with oil falling from burning wells. I understand very well the price average Americans pay for our ‘written policies to go war to secure access to the energy reserves of the Persian Gulf’ (I’m quoting James Baker here, former U.S. Secretary of State). This is the beginning of the lifecycle of plastic. Then we create billions of pounds of plastic and distribute it around the world, knowing that recovery and recycling are largely inefficient, and knowing that the chemistry of plastic is bioactive in the marine environment and in our bodies. This is the true cost of throw-away plastic on society, which we unknowingly pay so that we may have the convenience of throw-away plastics. I truly believe that if every American understood lifecycle of plastic waste, then we as a nation would do the right thing. With the right information, we make the right choices.
If polar bears are now poster boys for climate change, then plastic bags are the new pallbearers for poor planet earth.
From San Francisco to Modbury (a quaint Devon town that has sprung from nowhere to become Britain’s ban-the-bag cheerleader), the plastic bag is, all of a sudden, persona non gratis. People it seems have woken up to the fact that any wider social commitment to reduce carbon emissions sits uneasily alongside the continued energy-intensive mass production of this instantly disposable product (a mayfly of consumer culture, the humble giveaway bag averages but 15 minutes of useful life).
Concern for sea turtles and other marine animals (who are haplessly swallowing large quantities of bags, or fragments of bags) has been another powerful driver for change. Both sets of motivations appear genuinely altruistic – rooted as they are in worries over well-being for future generations of people and marine wildlife.
However, there is no real substitute for having a clear, present and direct threat against current human well-being to really effect political change. In China and Bangladesh, such a threat has arisen and the use of thin (<0.025mm thickness) plastic bags has been prohibited at the highest level. A proliferation of small bags is blocking watercourses and sewers in these two nations, greatly exacerbating flooding, especially during the monsoon season. As a result, Asia has quickly become a world leader in terms of outright plastic bag bans.
Unfortunately, legislation is proving both difficult to enforce and controversial. In Bangladesh, the use of flimsy bags is still widespread, six years after a ban was first introduced. While in China, where the ban became law at the start of 2008, bag manufacturer Suiping Huaqiang Plastic, which employs 20,000 people, has already gone into liquidation.
More ‘battles of the bag’ can be expected in the future, especially given that some alternatives – including greater use of giveaway paper bags, linen bags and the like – are not uncontroversial themselves, given that carbon is still emitted through their manufacture. Cynics will also worry that plastic bag bans cast far too comfortable an illusion of sustainable living.
Many families, it seems, abandon the use of disposable plastic bags the same week that they buy a big plasma screen telly (perhaps in celebration of their imagined carbon neutrality). But only the most curmudgeonly of cynics would deny that plastic bag bans are, at least, a step in the right direction.
For more information about Project Kaisei visit: www.projectkaisei.org
Source: waterworlds.wordpress.com
Holland & Barrett health food stores are introducing a total ban on plastic bags from 1 January and calling for a tax on disposable carriers to encourage other retailers to do the same.
As part of its green overhaul, the chain of 539 health stores is replacing plastic bags with paper, jute and cotton bags costing between 4p and 99p each.
“Many retailers have introduced half measures such as charging for plastic bags, to encourage customers to shy away from using them. But no one has stepped up to the mark and banned plastic bags all together, until now. We’re the first major retailer to take this stand and I challenge the rest of the high street to follow us and move Britain a step closer to a total bag ban,” said chief executive Peter Aldis.
He pointed to the effects of an Irish government crackdown on plastic bags, with a bag tax on retailers there leading to a sharp drop in throwaway carrier use.
“It is rare for a retailer to call for more taxes, but I would encourage the government to follow suit here,” said Aldis.
Holland & Barrett customers use 7.6m plastic bags a year and nationwide the UK uses an average of 167 bags per person per year, adding up to 13,000 bags per person over a lifetime, according to the chain.
The retailer has invested in a recycling centre and opted for sea freight over air freight for imported goods.
In 2002, Ireland introduced a 15 euro cents tax (10p) on each plastic bag – the so-called “plastax” – and within months a 90% fall in the number of bags being used had been recorded.
• Holland & Barrett customers use 7.6m plastic bags a year
• Usage of plastic bags fell 90% after Ireland introduced a levy
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
You know how everyone raves about green bags? We use them to help our efforts to reduce the number of plastic bags we bring home from the grocery shop.
Well, it turns out many green bags aren’t so green after all!
Do I think green bags are a better option than regular plastic bags? Sure thing. It’s still better to reuse plastic a bunch of times than go for single use items. However, if we can make the same product out of natural, biodegradable fibre isn’t that an even better choice? Yes.
Source: eco-lesbo-vego.com
The Los Angeles City Council voted to ban plastic shopping bags from stores, beginning July 1, 2010. Shoppers can either bring their own bags or pay 25 cents for a paper or biodegradable bag.
The council’s unanimous vote also puts pressure on the state, which is considering an Assembly bill that would impose bag recycling requirements on stores. City officials said their ban would not be implemented if the state passes the bill and requires at least a 25-cent charge per bag.
“We’ve gotten to a point where we need to act as a city, where we can have real results,” said Councilman Ed Reyes, who proposed the bag ban. “We’re trying to do it in a way where we can educate and inform the public of what we’re doing.”
Reyes said the ban will minimize cleanup costs for the city and reduce trash that collects in storm drains and the Los Angeles River. The city estimates more than 2 billion plastic bags are used each year in Los Angeles. About 5 percent of plastic bags and 21 percent of paper bags are recycled in California.
Banning plastic bags will not solve the litter problem, said an attorney who opposes the regulation of plastic bags.
“We’ve had enough of politicians accepting the misinformation that’s spread around the Internet about plastic bags,” said Stephen Joseph of the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, which represents bag manufacturers.
3% of the bag fee will be returned to the retailer, 3% will go to the state, and the rest will go back to the city to fund an education campaign.
Source: huffingtonpost.com
If you can not make it to an event today. You can still do your part to help stop plastic bags.
Check out Project GreenBag’s collection of eco-friendly, fashionable bags!
Clean Energy Bag: http://www.projectgreenbag.com/cleanenergy/
Recycle Bag: http://www.projectgreenbag.com/recycle/
San Francisco Bag: http://www.projectgreenbag.com/sanfrancisco/
A Day Without a Bag is an education and grassroots event coordinated by Heal the Bay that involves businesses and individuals throughout Los Angeles County. On this day we ask holiday shoppers and retailers to forgo single-use, plastic shopping bags in favor of reusable bags.
Held the third Thursday in December, Heal the Bay’s third annual A Day Without a Bag will be December 17, 2009 when Southland shoppers will receive an early holiday present, courtesy of a giveaway of nearly 20,000 reusable bags at more than 50 Giveaway Locations throughout Los Angeles County. In addition, a Community & Media Event will be held the same day in Downtown Los Angeles featuring education activities and a press conference.
A unique coalition of major retailers, local governments and regional environmental groups has formed to organize the third annual A Day Without a Bag, which urges consumers to forego environmentally harmful one-use plastic or paper grocery bags in favor of reusable totes. By raising consumer awareness about personal choices, the event’s short-term goal is to educate Southland shoppers to adopt more sustainable practices during the holidays and coming year. The event’s long-term goal is to reduce the use of single-use plastic bags throughout California by empowering shoppers, and the community at large, to take simple and direct actions to eliminate unsightly debris and save taxpayer dollars.
More than 70 of the county’s 88 cities have officially endorsed the A Day Without a Bag or “Brag About Your Bag” campaigns. “This year we have more than doubled the number of cities in the county that are supporting A Day Without a Bag,” said Mark Gold, president of Heal the Bay. “It reflects the growing groundswell in Los Angeles for reusable bags, which not only save the environment but taxpayer dollars as well, especially in a time of drastic budget shortfalls.”
In addition, many other locations in California are holding similar A Day Without a Bag events on December 17th including San Diego County, Orange County, Santa Barbara and San Francisco.
Source: http://www.healthebay.org
