FC NOW: The Fast Company Weblog
March 14, 2007
Giving Filmy, Flimsy Plastic Bags the Sack
The city of San Francisco is on the verge of banning use of the plastic grocery bags that have been a marvel (for their carrying capacity) and a plague for 30 years. The ban, supported by six of 11 supervisors and the mayor, was the subject of a three-hour hearing last Thursday. Action was postponed because the ordinance as written would only apply to San Francisco’s 54 large supermarkets; the board decided to consider extending the ban to drug stores and pharmacies like Walgreens. San Francisco takes up the issue again March 22.
NPR’s Morning Edition did a brief story on the ban this morning, but didn’t really capture something significant: How far behind we in the U.S. are at getting tired of the bags.
The bags were outlawed in South Africa in 2003, they are banned in Bangladesh (where they were blamed for causing flooding during monsoons by clogging drains) and Taiwan. Ireland imposed a 19-cent per bag tax five years ago, and reduced plastic bag consumption 90 percent.
Alaskans have actually been ahead of Californians in this particular environmental effort: The bags are banned in at least 30 villages and towns in Alaska, including the towns of Emmonak, Galena, and Kotlik. And a ban on the plastic sacks goes into effect later this year in Paris; they are outlawed in all of France starting Jan. 1, 2010.
San Francisco may trigger a wave of similar measures in California and further east. Ikea, the trendy home furnishings retailer, imposes its own tax on the bags in U.S. stores starting tomorrow — charging a nickel to any customer who wants a plastic sack. A similar charge has been in place since last spring at Ikea stores in the UK, and the company says it has reduced use of bags in UK stores by 95 percent. Ikea hopes the 5-cent fee in the U.S. cuts bag use in half, from 70 million bags a year to 35 million.
The EPA estimates that U.S. consumers throw away 100 billion of the bags a year. Across the landscape, where they snag on everything and flutter in the breeze, they are a discouraging visual pollutant. And while their energy and solid waste impact may be modest, they should also be an easy habit to kick.
Posted by Charles Fishman at March 14, 2007 12:24 PM | Category: sustainability |
38 Comments
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What in the world are you going to replace them with? They were implemented to replace paper bags to save trees. Now what?
It's about time somebody decided it might be worthwhile to "save a plastic tree"... These bags were intended to relieve the excess cutting of trees; but, it now seems that everything under the sun ABSOLUTELY MUST be put into some sort of a plastic bag. The fact that the composition of that plastic may resemble some sort of a pesticide product escapes notice; and, the breakdown of the bag into inhalable components is overlooked. Indeed: What WILL it be replaced with? A little common sense and some restraint might come up with another version of paper bags again; and, lacking that, personal totes for the grocery store...
What will the bags be replaced with?
In San Francisco, the ordinance would require stores to use bags made of out recyclable paper; bags made out of plastic that is compostable; or to provide sturdy reusable bags of canvas or heavier plastic.
Ikea is selling a reuasable bag, Whole Foods also sells sturdy canvas grocery bags that are reusable. In Paris, the trend is toward small wheeled carts for toting your purchases home — a solution that works better in a walking-centric city than our car-centric ones.
c'mon guys, in Australia we are accustomed to bringing our own fabric or canvas bags to put your shopping in. ALDI charges you $ 1AUD per bag and those that are too tight to pay load their shopping straight into the trolley and into their boots (trunks) Cans and groceries rolling around, the lead comes from the retailer and the customer will solve the problem their own way. Some bring their own boxes e.t.c.
i'm very encouraged to read about california
banning plastic bags. years ago i purchased canvas bags for groceries and clerks are resistant and still want to give me plastic, when i ask for paper, they still give me plastic.
having visited my local landfill to recycle my old computer i was shocked to see how massive the trash mountain was and how many plastic bags
there were, many stuck in trees nearby as if greeting visitors to the landfill. people will
adjust to life without plastic bags and reusable totes will become a fashion statement.
I reuse every one of my plastic bags for trash, wet clothing, etc. instead of wasting money buying bags to handle liquid and other waste that would otherwise attract bugs and require me to use pesticides. I do not think it's a good idea to use paper or fabric bags instead, which are porous and can't handle everything.
So now I'll have to shell out cash for plastic trash bags? Ah, back to the good old days of desperately racing through the rain with a self-destructing paper bag full of canned goods. Wonder what unintended consequences will follow.
My family doesn't use paper or plastic anymore! We've made the plunge into reusable bags that are awesome (www.reusablebags.com). We happen to use this model which is heavy duty, washable and can carry a lot more than any paper or plastic bag and no problems with broken handles or bags breaking and spilling contents or getting rain soaked.
http://www.reusablebags.com/store/acme-bags-earth-tote%E2%84%A2-heavy-duty-reusable-shopping-p-10.html
This version costs from $14-17 bucks. I've had 5 of them for about 4 years - can get a weeks worth of groceries in 4 bags. When stored in the trunk of the car we bundle them all inside of one, ready for shopping, anytime. The only downside, . . . getting accustomed to grabbing them from the trunk before shopping.
Dear old San Francisco, you may recall this is the same city that banned the Segway before it was even released in a panic that the streets would be flooded with them. So lets see just how much sense this actually makes.
On the surface recylable paper sounds like it has to be better than plastic, but if you look at the numbers they aren't
First it takes more energy to make a paper bag. 549 BTUs for plastic and 2511 BTUs for paper
Next consider all the energy expended in cutting down the 14 million trees that it takes to make 10 billion paper bags. At least that's how many were cut down in 1999, probably more now.
Then there's pollution The majority of kraft paper is made by heating wood chips under pressure at high temperatures in a chemical solution. As evidenced by the unmistakable stench commonly associated with paper mills, the use of these toxic chemicals contributes to both air pollution, such as acid rain, and water pollution. Millions of gallons of these chemicals pour into our waterways each year; the toxicity of the chemicals is long-term and settles into the sediments, working its way through the food chain. Further toxicity is generated as both plastic and paper bags degrade
Then there's the fact that Paper sacks generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.
Source: "Comparison of the Effects on the Environment of Polyethylene and Paper Carrier Bags," Federal Office of the Environment, August 1988
Then there's recycling energy costs It takes 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper. But recycling rates of either type of disposable bag are extremely low, with only 10 to 15% of paper bags and 1 to 3% of plastic bags being recycled, according to the Wall Street Journal.
ENERGY TO RECYCLE PACKAGE ONCE (BTUs)
Safeway Plastic Bags: 17 BTUs
Safeway Paper Bags: 1444 BTUs
Source: 1989 Plastic Recycling Directory, Society of Plastics Industry.
Although paper bags have a higher recycling rate than plastic, each new paper grocery bag you use is made from mostly virgin pulp for better strength and elasticity.
and Current research demonstrates that paper in today's landfills does not degrade or break down at a substantially faster rate than plastic does. In fact, nothing completely degrades in modern landfills because of the lack of water, light, oxygen and other important elements that are necessary for the degradation process to be completed. A paper bags takes up more space than a plastic bag in a landfill, but because paper is recycled at a higher rate, saving space in landfills is less of an issue. So personally I'll stick with plastic thank you and no I don't want to use a canvas bag, it's a personal thing.
I've been using paper bags lately because:
a) I can pack them with more stuff, thereby using fewer bags overall. I sometimes have to coax the local baggers into putting more into a bag; one unfortunate result of plastic bags is I find bags of any kind are notoriously under-packed. Still, I'd rather get one or two paper bags than 5 or 6 plastic ones.
b) I can recycle them at the curb (but cannot recycle plastic bags except at certain groceries). I also occasionally need some kraft paper so I reuse them in that way as well.
I should keep reusable bags, but I can't seem to ever have them on hand when I need them (e.g. dropping by after work to pick up a few things, but the bag is at home)
I hate those bags
I always ask for paper
They aren't banned in Ireland, they are taxed (€0.15), and most people took this as an opportunity to start using the reusable bags, or not using bags at all, it's actually pretty uncommon to use these plastic bags after shopping so much so that you have to ask for them, rather than them being offered.
Plastic bags are much friendlier for re-use as pooper scoopers than paper ones.
Seriously, though, why not just force businesses to charge extra for bags?
I am not sure about a total ban on them, but people should be encouraged to reuse them rather than just throwing them straight out. I reuse my "normal" plastic supermarket bags and they last for months, so no real need to buy heavy duty reusable bags.
As a manager for a U.S. retailer, a few personal observations:
- Our efforts to encourage customers to use a resuable product
(i.e. a canvas handle bag) over the years have met with pathetic results- even when the bags have been given away at a loss (50 cents) or for free. Customers take the bags, but typically never bring them back in to carry away their next purchase. From comments made, I believe men in particular are adverse to doing this- they view it as the equivalent to carrying a purse out the door.
- Customers, almost without fail, want their purchases in a bag, no matter the item is, or the quantity. On a daily basis, I see my employees having to bag beer and soda (as large as 30 packs), all of which essentially come in closed cardboard containers as is. We also are asked to bag items we know are for immediate consumption- single packs of gum, bottles of soda, candy bars, medicine bottles. The end evidence of this is the number of bags (and register receipts) we have to clean up in our parking lot on a daily basis.
I would welcome a ban and/or a deposit imposed on plastic and paper bags....there is no way, at the point which " the customer is always right", that we can force a change of behavior. If mandated by local or state goverment, then we can simply pass it on without arguement- as we do mandatory taxes and bottle deposits now.
^^^Manager for US retailer, very interesting post
>Customers, almost without fail, want their
>purchases in a bag, no matter the item is,
>or the quantity.
Yeah, this is ridiculous! People want stuff in a bag that is effectively (or literally) already in a bag, or that would just go into a pocket, or that are clearly being bought for on-the-spot consumption (like a single bottled drink as you mentioned)
Incidently, I live in Japan and it is probably worse here. Retailers go completely nuts when it comes to packaging and clerks give me a very surprised look when I tell them that I don't need a bag.
It takes a conscious effort, but it is quite simple to bring your own bag to a store...especially a grocery store. Also, I am constantly telling the clerks, "no thanks"; it's just not necessary to have a bag for a pack of gum.
It seems like a tax/deposit would work well as a means to curb plastic bag use. Sometimes people need a stronger "suggestion" to do the right thing.
we will be up and running by the summer.
fully recycleable reuseable polyproplene bags.
visit our site soon.
Great article! I tend to agree.
oh man, what am I going to jerk off into now? An oversized paper bag? What a waste..
This poses some increased costs for many stores where consumers aren't necessarily in the store to purchase things. I know in other countries they post security guards at the doors who are legally allowed to search your bags. If more people are walking around the city with empty bags, attempted thefts will probably increase. Many stores will probably post security guards at the doors and impose policies to search bags at their discretion. I Still think it's a good idea environmentally!
I don't think the security issue is valid at all... Just doesn't seem relevant.
There's a grocery store near my house where they charge extra for bags. They have this huge pile of boxes that you can reuse for free though. More stores should do that.
@John: you're attacking a complete straw man. The replacement for plastic bags isn't paper bags; it's non-disposable bags.
One place that is recycling is Walmart. Stores have large bin/boxes in the front of the store for plastic shopping bags. These are supposed to be sent to recyclers, being shipped out of the store on company trucks to their warehouses. Walmart, with the large shadow it casts, has the ability to find and use recyclers who will actually reprocess them.
Who knows, maybe that composite deck on the back of your next house will have your old Safeway, Best Buy and Walmart bags returning to you.
Wow, I can't believe how stupid some of you people are. Purchase reusable bags. http://www.reusablebags.com/
I guarantee fabric bags will be 5 times stronger than any thin plastic or paper bag. If you need plastic bags, buy some. Just like how you buy ziplock baggies, or trash bags.
The whole premise is reducing waste, you want to talk about what's going to replace plastic bags, let's talk about what we're going to do when we run out of landfill area.
It's also all about changing human behavior, if everyone does it, it will become acceptable. If everyone brings a bag, the cashiers will expect it.
Here in Japan, starting in April a price of 5 yen will be charged per plastic bag. Stores that previously did this voluntarily did not lose any customers and 80% of their shoppers did what I do - bring my own cloth bags to the store.
South Korea and Ireland have implemented similar schemes and reduced plastic bag use by 70%.
ok i dont get why so many ppl are so negative towards this... its simple, CANVAS!!! if everyone would use canvas that would fix all the problems, its stronger than paper or plastic, we dont hav to worry about cutting down trees as much (we can use hemp for bags too) and getting rid of plastic reduces the amount of non recycleable material that most of us dont think twice about how plastic is BAD for the earth and animals. so i say go san fran!!! hopefully more states/cities will follow their lead. i know i am going to start writing to my local gov't to get them to change!!
We bought one of those reuseable bags from Ikea and I plan on using it. It holds GOBS of stuff. I also like how the big price-saver stores like Sam's Club and Costco do it. You just carry the stuff out to the car and load it directly or you use some of their empty boxes (which you then put out for recycling).
The key (for those who claim that they never could remember to take the bag with them) is to put it by the door as soon as you've emptied it of your shopping. The very next time you go to your car put it in the car. Then, when you are at the store and realize you need a bag...it's just a matter of going out to your car. Yeah, a bit of an inconvenience if you have to walk back out to the car...but in this country of people who are progressively getting fatter...everyone can use a little more exercise anyway. :-P
I imagine that compact floresent bulbs will soon be outlawed as well. They contain dangerous mercury that if you are exposed to even once you will die in 5 seconds. These bulbs get thrown away into landfills where playing children may happen upon them.
What about trash can liner? I haven't been able to locate a merchant/company that sells (small) trash can liners.
Seriously: I reuse my grocery store bags to toss trash. If make the move to string or canvas bags, what do I replace trash bags with? Paper? Or, is more efficient to buy a roll of such bags, rather than use store plastics?
I can't believe this is a big problem. Canvas, denim, various upholstery fabrics, etc make great bags. Far better than flimsy plastic or paper, we can be 'bag snobs', what fun! Attitude is everything.
Plastic bags that make it home in tact will be used to pick up after my dog. Wish more people would do that. Other bags are used to hold bones and meat scraps in the freezer until trash day, line trash cans,keep shoes from getting your clothes dirty in the suitcase, actually we couldn't travel without plastic bags. And I have even taken up the latest fad - crocheting bags from strips of plastic cut from used bags.
Plastic bags that make it home in tact will be used to pick up after my dog. Wish more people would do that. Other bags are used to hold bones and meat scraps in the freezer until trash day, keep shoes from getting your clothes dirty in the suitcase, actually we couldn't travel without plastic bags. And I have even taken up the latest fad - crocheting bags from strips of plastic cut from used bags.
I just stared a poll: Should plastic grocery bags be banned? Here is the link: http://www.apopularitycontest.com/display_poll.php?ID=5705 Anyone can vote on it.
Charging a nickel is way too low. What is the cost of the use of that bag? At least $1, I'd say, and if you think that people easily shell out $5 for a coffee drink, maybe $5 for a plastic bag would get more people's attention.
I've stopped using plastic bags, and take my garbage out in the packaging that comes with other products such as cereal.
I believe we should leave a healthy environment for the children of the future. There are too many people in this world that only think of it as an inconvenience to themselves. Instead we need to focus on those that can't make the decision for themselves... babies and wildlife. They can't speak for themselves... if they could, I am sure they would tell everyone to protect their future. To have the capability to enjoy the seals in the harbor (who can die from one plastic bag mistaken for a squid), or enjoy beautiful clean oceans. Let's help them by being the adults in the situation and make compassionate, conscious decisions.
Eliminate Plastic Everything...
buy Recycled Merchandise whenever possible...
we have enough beautiful things that already exist...
someone's trash is someone's treasure.
There is Corn Plastic in our future.
By the way... canvas bags cost $2, hold 2x as much merchandise, and are 10x more comfortable to carry, b/c they get tossed over the shoulder instead of straining the hands like plastic does.
Especially carrying heavy items such as that plastic jug of juice and those plastic bag covered vegetables (are they really necessary?)
We are Plastic obsessed, America!!!
That is Truth... start the ban of plastic in your community... now that is a wise idea!!!
Louise posted the following question: I reuse my grocery store bags to toss trash. If make the move to string or canvas bags, what do I replace trash bags with? Paper? Or, is more efficient to buy a roll of such bags, rather than use store plastics?
This has been my dilemma as well. However I just came across a site that sells Biodegradable garbage bags http://www.trellisearth.com/. I'm going to order the starter pack and try them out. This could be the answer to our problem!