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The old plastic bag debate
Posted
at
12:01 am
It wasn’t too long ago that a thick cloud of pollution drifted from China to the Pacific Northwest.
It wasn’t the first time it had happened, but the phenomenon still seemed unreal. It triggered another wave of news reports regarding China’s dangerous environmental record.
Yet for a month now, China has managed to take one major step toward green that the U.S. hasn’t yet managed to do: ban plastic shopping bags.
The ban triggered fines for stores using the bags. One shop was reportedly forced to pay $1,200 for doling out the bags.
Why is it so hard to make the change here?
We’ve all heard the arguments against plastic bags, and for re-usable cloth or durable fiber bags.
Critics of re-usable bags say they can easily become cesspools for bacteria.
Let’s assume the re-usable bags are washed frequently and protected from meat juices and bruised fruit slime.
Perhaps the real issue of plastic vs. re-usable has more to do with convenience than anything else. Who hasn’t had good intentions of dutifully bringing a cloth bag to the grocery store only to forget it? Who wants to use the gas to return home to pick it up?
One blogger recently wrote this damning treatise:
“For me it is the litmus test for material rich humans to prove that they are prepared to really do something, do anything to protect the environment.
If with our free will, without the threat of sanctions, we can’t make this one simple behavioral change, that of bringing our own bags to the shop, then quite simply we have no chance. If we cant take a step back one generation, to an age where people did, without thinking, bring their own bags shopping then how are we ever going to make the real sacrifices needed for 6 billion people and our natural systems to co-exist.
If we can’t solve this problem for ourselves then we, the spineless and spoilt, deserve what nature fires back at us.”
Some stores offer a small credit for bringing your own bag. Others don’t give shoppers bags unless asked. The tide is turning, such as in San Francisco, where lawmakers decided more than a year ago to ban plastic bags.
But as a country, we’ve got a long way to go.
Perhaps the Chinese way is the answer. Who would forget a re-usable bag when faced with a potential $1,200 fine?
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