May 3, 2008
Plastic Bags, Cold Dead Hands, Got It, Guys?
In one of those mysterious black-is-white, up-is-down occurrences, Mayor Greg Nickels and the City Council's Richard Conlin have in unison agreed to push for a $0.20 per paper-or-plastic bag fee at grocery and convenience stores and drugstores. While we're still trying to figure out what the vision is, we're aware that paying for bags bugs the hell out of a lot of people.
Unsurprisingly, a new fee isn't popular except with people who already share a green vision and have been making lifestyle changes. For the rest, it's just a tax. (The enviro-wonks at Sightline were against the idea of taxing plastic bags; their reasoning would seem to apply to fees as well.) More than that, it's something that used to be free, and now isn't. We love getting something for "free." But we hate losing something that used to be free. (Generally with public policy you want to avoid inspiring hatred, but Mayor Nickels has a demonstrated thick skin.)
Some people argue that it's a symbolic move--in which case, we argue, time being short, why don't we do something symbolic that also matters a great deal? What is charging everyone a fee to do a little, right thing really symbolic of except our inability to do a little, right thing in the first place?
We're not sure what plastic bag "problem" is that is being solved--disposable bags are not a remarkable contributor to litter, and they are often reused (notably as trash bags) or recycled. A far greater problem than disposable bags is all the stuff that goes into them that then heads to landfills. This fee business strikes us as worrying about how green the teaspoon is that we're going to use to clean up a supertanker oil spill.
As reported in the Seattle Times, Mayor Nickels "said Seattle residents go through 360 million disposable bags a year, or 600 bags per person, and 75 percent come from grocery, convenience and drug stores." If there were no reduction at all in bag use, that would be fee income of $54 million per year, about $13 million for the retailers and the rest for Seattle Public Utilities. But here's their guesstimate, again from the Times:
The utility estimates it would bring in $10 million per year. About $2 million would be used to provide and promote reusable bags. The rest would be spent on waste prevention, recycling and environmental education programs.If our math is correct, that means that stores will see extra income of $2.5 million annually from fees. How much, we wonder, will customers now spend on heavy-gauge plastic trash bags?
Restaurants must be kicking themselves--when they wanted to cut down on unneeded water usage, they just stopped supplying glasses of water unless you asked. Sure, that worked, but had they but known they could have instituted a water fee.
|
A 32-gallon garbage bag costs about 4 cents, a small grocery bag about a penny. Bring your own freaking bags to the store, bag your own groceries, done.
Heck I even think a few homeless people could make some (little) cash of this. Think, they could set up shop and sell platic bags for 10 cents to people who forgot their own.
One of the reasons Siteline was against a plastic-only tax was that it would cause people to switch to paper, which is probably a worse option if you look at the life cycle implications.
However the Seattle bag fee is for both paper and plastic (as you noted), so I think that at best only 2 out of the 4 points they make in the article you linked to would still be a concern with the bag fee.
For the record, I'm not arguing as a plastic-bag fetishist. I have three reusable bags on hand, and only really use one at a time, since that's all that fits in my bike's basket. If I don't have a bag with me when I'm just popping in for one or two things, I just carry whatever I get.
That said, I don't think that it raises green awareness when you piss people off first. I find it very easy to imagine the frustration of a harried mom now needing to hunt down five or six cloth bags before she heads off to the store. Going green shouldn't be a low-level irritant.
Disposable bags are very useful; the reusable bag is less useful. If we're going to ask people to give something up (even convenience), I'd like there to be more at stake than what I see so far.
What amazes me is that the bags were ever free. From what I hear, profit margins in the grocery industry are razor thin. Think about it, they are now trying to get us all to scan our own groceries so they don't have to hire a minimum wage employee to do it.
What were they every doing giving away bags? None of the other items in their store are free, and they actually sell other forms of plastic bags.
bags in stores aren't free; the cost of the bag is worked into the cost of the merchandise.
so when you go in, make your purchase and use your cloth bag, that little discount you are given in some stores, is actually part of the store's cost for bags being refunded to you. if you don't get a rebate then that's you paying twice for a bag.
if the mayor really wants us to be greener he needs to just outright ban bags instead of instituting a fee that he has to know people will complain about but will ultimately come to just accept. this will not stop bags from ending up in the landfill.
"Going green shouldn't be a low-level irritant."
Ha. Going truly green -- I mean REALLY grean, not Prius-Faux-Green -- is going to be an irritant on EVERY level.
If you think this is bad wait until US consumers discover the TRUE cost of all the shit we consume. It ain't gonna be pretty.
So everyone needs to stop their wanking and buckle down.
This isn't supposed to be a silver bullet and instead of pissing and moaning whenever our leaders try something let's try to give them the benefit of the doubt and not make everything a viaduct debate.
Wait. Paper too?
I used those as trash bags. Honestly, I could care less about 20 cents. Anyone getting their panties in a bunch for 20 cents and raising an uproar need to sit down, breathe, and think about worse atrocities (17 Billion dollar profit for oil companies) to the American Consumer.
The Metropolitan Market was giving away reusable ones for free last week. One per transaction. Sweet!
Plastic bags are just one of many examples of frivolous usages of energy and production.
A simple reusable bag, available at Whole Foods, Metro or Trader Joes will run about $1 a bag. Just buy it and use it and feel good at all the unneeded production! If you don't want to be charged and view this as a money making venture, than this is all the more reason to carry your own bag.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_shopping_bag
Read some disadvantages and decide whether your 'convenience' of megamarket and nihilistic consumerism is worth it...
Actually, plastic isn't a frivolous use of energy or production. Plastic is created from the waste of the fuel refining process. Only about 3% of the oil that comes into the country is used for making plastic. ALL plastic, not just bags. And the energy used in production and transportation is far lower than that of paper bags. Many reusable bags (those cheap ones that look woven, but aren't) are also made from plastic, and many come from China, where environmental conditions are fairly non-existant.
If you haven't guessed. I'm an advocate for plastic bags. The public perception is that plastic is evil. But every study, and every bit of science available shows that plastic bags are not as harmful to the environment as it is made out to be, and are certainly a better choice by far than paper. Don't believe me? Look it up.
The biggest argument for bag bans and taxes seems to be addressing litter, but litter is caused by improper disposal, not by the product that is littered. And pound for pound, cigarette butts get the gold ribbon for litter. Educating the public about how to properly recycle and/or dispose of plastic bags is a much better solution to litter.
Recently, Ireland instituted a plastic bag tax, and what they have found is that sales of plastic bags went up around 400%. The bags they got for free, and reused as trashcan liners, lunchbags, and other uses, went away, so people started buying packaged plastic bags for those uses. Bags that are generally thicker, and are in a package that gets tossed.
Most people in the US(one study shows over 90%) reuse their plastic grocery bags - everyone I know has a kitchen drawer full. And while reusable bags are great, you can fit a dozen or so plastic grocery bags in your pocket just as easily, and they will hold much more. I also have a dog...so the bags come in very handy.
Plastic is also VERY easy to recycle, and in Seattle you can just bundle your bags and put them in your curbside recycling. The energy used to recycle plastic is a fraction of what it takes to recycle paper, and also causes much less air and water pollution.
Newer technology also exists that can render plastics compostable and/or biodegradable in a short period of time. Some of these products will even break down completely when buried in landfills (where almost nothing decomposes.)
Mayor Nickels is doing nothing with this proposed tax but further the legitimacy of inacurate and misleading public perception. And boosting tax revenue, of course.
While plastic bags may be easy for us to recycle (throw them in the bin), they are actually a pain in the ass for the recyclers. Seattle only started accepting them because people were putting them in the regardless of what the city said. An excerpt from a recent article in Slate:
"While it's technically feasible to recycle other plastics, the process is expensive and results in plastic that's widely deemed inferior. Products made from plastics No. 3 through No. 7—a range that includes food trays, grocery bags, six-pack rings, and your yogurt cups (designated No. 5)—are typically either landfilled or shipped overseas for incineration."
I'm not sure if Seattle truly recycles them or not. Just remember, reduce > reuse > recycle.
@kenholmes - great post. very informative. thanks.
Reuse bags, yes. But recycling is a bitch and three halves. There are so many kinds of plastic, I just throw them out. When I was a kid, I was told "When in doubt, throw it out" because it can really mess up the recycling process to have the wrong things in there.
I don't think I'm alone.
I understand it's probably more of a symbolic gesture from Nickles (what, him symbolic?), but seriously, I'd rather not have to deal with figuring out if they're recyclable.