» I ♥ Plastic Bags
Last year Victoria city council and the CRD went through a process of considering whether to ban plastic bags. Vancouver recently went through the same thing so I’ve decided it’s still relevant enough to rant about:
My biggest problem with this is that it’s a case of liberal fascism: I’d be much more likely to support a tax on disposable bags (to internalize externalities presumably) than an outright ban. A ban feels like a knee-jerk reaction to rising levels of environmental awareness (although plastic bags don’t significantly contribute to greenhouse gases) and a particularly symbolic gesture.
And it is nothing more than symbolic: plastic bags make up less than 1% of municipal waste. Organic material makes up 30%, but where is the cry for a municipal composting program? (Which would be able to compost meat and larger amounts of “brown” waste than home composts.) About 50% of recyclable material leaving Vancouver households does so in the garbage where is the cry for better recycling support? (San Francisco is a world leader in recycling with around 25% waste, some municipalities are targeting 0% but I’ll believe it when I see it.)
Finally, it’s ironic that municipalities are seen as key players in the fight to protect the environment given that it was on their watch that much of the damage happened. Poor urban planning and lack of public transit funding created our current high emissions of carbon. An insatiable lust for industry suppressed any push for green industry until cities were rich enough to be picky (and dirty industry was scarce enough to be an insignificant target). As fun as “think global, act local” is to say, Alberta is demonstrating that environmental issues need to be addressed on at least a national scale to prevent a tragedy of the commons.
I personally think banning plastic bags is an example of an “environmental” initiative that’s actually going to cause far more harm than good. It’s symbolic, but it’s enough of a symbol that people will tell themselves they’re so very environmental because they use their popbottle/bleached-pesticide-cotton bags that they can have a bit of lee-way in other areas, like maybe they don’t feel like washing and sorting their cans this week, or they let their car warm up first in the mornings, meanwhile patting themselves on the back for living in a place so progressive they’ve banned plastic bags. So banning the bags might actually increase environmental degradation.
Not to mention, that won’t get rid of bags in landfills. People still need something to pack their garbage in, which, I imagine, is where a lot of the bags in landfills came from. Only now, they’ll have to pay Glad for their packages of kitchen bags instead of reusing old grocery bags. Actually, has Glad funded this campaign? If not, then someone is missing a golden opportunity. So now, instead of rich people using reusable grocery bags and lining Glad’s pockets as they buy extra-spiffy “kitchen catchers”, and poor people using free plastic bags which they then reuse for garbage day, we can ALL pay more money, whether we like it or not, so rich yuppies can feel like they’re making a difference!
Kyla
19 Feb 08 at 9:32 am
It’s an interesting question of whether people try to maintain a specific level of environmentalism or whether doing some environmental stuff causes you to do more? I think microeconomists might actually be able to do a study on this…
Almost all environmental laws hurt poor people, at least in the short term.
Jared
19 Feb 08 at 2:21 pm
this issue has nothing to do with the carbon footprint or the “new age” environmentalism. it has to do with the fact that it takes plastic one use bags 1000+ years to biodegrade in landfills. i am pretty sure that the 30% organic material won’t last a year nevermind 1000. the Byzantines are remembered 1000 years later for their amazing mozaics, lets try and aim for our 1000 year legacy to be something more than our shopping bags that are finally starting to break down
Will
23 Feb 08 at 9:02 pm
Things don’t decompose properly in the anaerobic environment of landfills, hence stories about 100-year-old newspapers being still readable. And plastic bags are recyclable, although not curbside in Victoria.
Jared
24 Feb 08 at 9:53 pm
[...] map could lead to enforcement prioritization, moral persuasion or a grassroots campaign like those against plastic bags. Unfortunately, it looks like after the campaign died down nobody kept using the [...]
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