Greens bag huge mainstream ally

Paper or plastic?

Increasingly, supermarkets and other retailers are hoping consumers answer the perennial, and politically loaded, checkout question with “none of the above.”

A movement to replace plastic shopping bags with reusable cloth ones is gaining momentum. In March, hyper-ecoconscious San Francisco restricted the use of plastic bags at large retail and grocery stores. Austin and other U.S. cities are considering similar laws.

Of course, a small fraction of green-blooded Americans have for years been shunning plastic bags, which they argue take large amounts of fossil fuels to make and live on in landfills for hundreds of years. Green-leaning retailer Whole Foods Corp. has long offered its shoppers 5 cents for each reusable bag they bring.

Tipping Point?

But if historians ever want to identify the point when the notion, at least, of using reusable bags went from alternative to mainstream, they’ll want to look at a decision Wal-Mart made this month. That’s when nation’s largest retailer — and arguably the largest shaper of shopping trends — unveiled black bags touting the slogan: “Paper or Plastic? Neither.” The bags, which will arrive in local stores next week, will hang near checkout counters and sell for $1 each.

“Any step a big company like Wal-Mart takes to move into a direction in support of the environment represents a shift,” said Bradley Berman, editor of ethicalshopping.com. “Given the reach that Wal-Mart has in terms of the incredibly large number of plastic bags that go out of the store every day, this will have an impact.”

If Wal-Mart sells 2 million reusable bags, made with recycled plastic from soft drink and water bottles, it won’t have to produce 100 million disposable plastic bags, which would require the use of 1.2 million pounds of plastic resin, the retail giant said.

Environmentalists concede and industry warns that U.S. consumers, who used 88 billion plastic bags last year and are on pace to use 91 billion by year’s end, will have trouble kicking their habit.

Advocates of reusable bags have a “difficult and long-term approach to persuade customers to alter their shopping routines,” said the Progressive Bag Alliance, a Houston-based organization that bills itself as a pro-recycling group funded by plastic bag industry.

They’re Everywhere

Environmentalists say that plastic bags aren’t the biggest problem the planet faces, but their sheer volume and improper disposal make them a big problem all the same.

Ubiquitous now, plastic bags didn’t arrive on the supermarket scene until 1977. But consumers can hardly remember or imagine life without them. Before plastic became so common, shoppers used paper or cloth bags.

For some, plastic bags are a matter of convenience, stashed beneath kitchen sinks and in pantries and reused by millions as trash can liners or as a way to tote lunch.

Faced with the paper or plastic question, 90 percent of consumers answer with the latter, industry trackers say.

“They’re very convenient,” said island resident Les Horner, leaving the island’s Wal-Mart on Thursday with a few plastic bags filled with groceries. Horner said he even custom built a garbage receptacle for his kitchen so the plastic grocery bags would fit. He said he saves all his plastic bags and reuses them.

On the other hand, Hitchcock resident Ken Steblein began using cloth bags nearly 20 years ago. He used to get odd looks when he began sacking his own groceries in canvas bags. Now, most store employees know him.

Younger shoppers don’t think his cloth bags are so strange, said Steblein, an engineer specialist who also is responsible for conservation initiatives at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

“I’m starting to get more people saying, ‘that’s so neat,’” he said. “The younger generation is grabbing hold of it.”

Steblein keeps about 20 reusable bags in his truck so he doesn’t forget them.

Ones That Got Away

Compared with paper, making plastic bags uses less energy and water and generates less air pollution and waste, according to research organization Worldwatch Institute.

But too many plastic bags don’t make it to the landfill and U.S. consumers recycle less than 1 percent of them each year, the organization said.

Stray plastic bags trash cities, hang from trees and fences, blow down streets and clog sewers and waterways.

Millions of plastic bags end up in bodies of water and hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine life are harmed because they mistake them for jelly fish or other food, according to environmental groups. Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation. That’s also true for Galveston Bay, say groups who track its health.

“Plastic bags tend to get airborne and make their way into waterways; if wildlife eat them it’s bad,” said Christy Corse, environmental information and data specialist for Houston-Galveston Area Council Community & Environmental Planning. “They can cause flooding if they get into storm drains and are big obstacles to proper drainage.”

But Corse said it isn’t realistic to expect consumers to stop using plastic bags altogether.

“I don’t think they’ll ever get rid of them totally,” she said. “They are very convenient and people don’t always remember to bring their own bags.”

Fueling Debate

It takes about 430,000 gallons of fuel to make 100 million plastic bags, according to Worldwatch Institute.

Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade, meaning they break down into “smaller and smaller toxic bits, contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web” when animals ingest them, according to reusablebags.com, which sells reusable bags.



Weighing In

The plastic bag industry says its product has been maligned and demonized.

The Progressive Bag Alliance is pushing for all retailers to begin aggressively promoting in-store recycling of plastic bags.

Few consumers realize that plastic bags are completely recyclable, said Donna Dempsey, managing director for the alliance.

Recycled plastic bags were used in the making of millions of pounds of outdoor decking last year, Dempsey said. Old plastic bags are recycled to make clean new ones, she said.

“There’s a growing market for recycled plastic,” Dempsey said. The industry also contends that plastic bags are energy-efficient to make. About 80 percent of the plastic used to make bags in the United States comes from domestic natural gas, officials say.

More consumers would recycle plastic bags if the option were available to them, Dempsey said.

The Kroger Co. in April began selling its own reusable bags and plans in coming weeks to install plastic bag recycling bins at its local stores. Consumers can take their plastic from dry cleaners and shrink wrap to the bins.

The reusable bag movement is here to stay, Kroger and other retailers say.

“Our customers have been very supportive of the reusable bags,” said Russell Richard, Kroger manager of consumer affairs.

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Reduce, Reuse

In Galveston, the city recycling center accepts plastic bags.

While cloth bags are ideal, Corse said reminding people to properly dispose of plastic bags is a good start.

“I think it’s important to remind people what goes into storm drains eventually go into bays, bayous and rivers around here,” she said.

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Bag Facts

• Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That’s 1 million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.

• According to the industry publication Modern Plastics, Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year — 900 per person.

• According to Australia’s Department of Environment, Australians consume 6.9 billion plastic bags each year — 326 a person. An estimated, 7 percent or 50 million end up as litter each year.

• Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.

• As part of Clean Up Australia Day, in one day nearly 500,000 plastic bags were collected.

• Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats and even bags. According to the British Broadcasting Corp., one group harvests 30,000 a month.

In 2001, Ireland consumed 1.2 billion plastic bags, or 316 per person. An extremely successful plastic bag consumption tax, or PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90 percent. About 18 million liters of oil was saved because of the reduced production. Governments around the world are considering implementing similar measures.

Source: Compiled by resuablebags.com