Plastic bag revolt spreads across Britain

[TechBear_Seattle]

Plastic bag revolt spreads across Britain

London - It was watching sea creatures choke on plastic bags in the Pacific Ocean that finally persuaded Rebecca Hosking that enough was enough.

The British filmmaker had already recoiled in disgust at deserted Hawaiian beaches piled up with four feet of rubbish, the jetsam of Western consumerism washed up by an ocean teeming with plastic. Now, filming off the coast, she looked on aghast as sea turtles eagerly mistook bobbing translucent shapes in the water for jellyfish.

"Sea turtles can't read Wal-mart or Tesco signs on plastic bags," fumes Ms. Hosking, who returned to Britain in March. "They will home in on it and feed on it. Dolphins mistake them for seaweed and quite often they'll eat them and it causes huge damage."

Within a few weeks of coming back, Hosking persuaded her hometown to ban plastic bags outright and found herself in the vanguard of a sudden British revulsion for that most disposable convenience of the throwaway society.

The article continues at http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070620/wl_csm/orevolt

[Warpy]

1. Not to mention it takes YEARS when one of the pieces o crap

gets caught up in a tree for it to shred enough to stop making noise and looking dreadful.

I've always hated the damned things.

Of all the ways we're squandering oil on this planet, that is one of the worst.

The H2 is the other one.

[gatorboy]

2. I've noticed stores don't even give you the choice between paper and plastic anymore.

Convenience over environment, I suppose. :eyes:

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. I bring my own shopping bags

I have some older ones made out of canvas, and two new ones made out of recycled plastic (they are soft, very strong, stain-proof and can be machine washed when necessary.) So I don't pay attention to what my store has available.

[noamnety]

3. I finally realized my grocery store

doesn't actually require that anything goes into bags.

Costco always just puts your purchases right in the cart without any bagging, but for some reason I assumed the regular store near me requires that food is bagged - so they know you paid, I guess, since in the old days they used to put a "paid" sticker on anything like milk that wasn't bagged.

I finally asked them once if it had to be bagged at all, and they said no. I keep a couple of buckets in my trunk and unload from the cart to those so I can carry them inside easier, because I don't have it in me to remember to bring bags to the store.

It would be great if, instead of Paper or Plastic, stores asked customers if they wanted their stuff bagged, or put up signs saying "groceries bagged upon request."

Maybe that will be my activism for this week, to print out this article and talk to the local store manager about doing that, and in return, seeing if I can get some local press for him then if he does it for being environmentally responsible.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

5. I don't understand why biodegradable plastic bags aren't being used? eom

[TechBear_Seattle]

9. Because nothing biodegrades in modern landfills

I know National Geographic has done reports, and I've seen a number of scientific studies on the matter.

Despite rules prohibiting toxic materials in landfills, inevitably there is a lot of poisonous material that ends up going to the dump. In the past, this has tended to cause huge environmental problems as rainwater seeps down and leaches these toxins out to contaminate the soil and groundwater. Also, anaerobic decomposition (the only kind that can happen in a landfill with little or no oxygen) produces methane, which can seep back up through the soil and cause a lot of problems. So for several decades now, landfills are designed with an elaborate waterproofing and drainage system to prevent water from getting in and causing the garbage to rot. As a result, the trash that gets dumped cannot decompose.

Even using older technology can not guarantee decomposition. Landfills from the 1920s and 30s have been excavated where accidental waterproofing was so complete that newspapers buried 80 years before were still perfectly readable, and where it was possible to examine thrown-away food and see that this bit of gristle came from a steak that had been cooked medium rare and seasoned with pepper and thyme.

So basically, anything thrown into a landfill will remain there, unchanged, pretty much forever. There is no such thing as "decomposing plastic" if your local sanitation company hauls it away.

[formercia]

15. I concur

I was hunting bottles in an old dump in the woods and there were newspapers from the turn of the 20th century, matted down and still readable. People would throw away old paint cans with residue of lead paint that would kill the few bacteria remaining. After seeing that, I stayed out of there.


There was a documentary recently that showed the nests of Albatross at Wake island with dead chicks and you could see the bits of plastic that their parents mistook for food they fed to them still in the remains.

[robinlynne]

That breaks my heart. I sort of wish the "end" of petroleum were her so we could just CHANGE already

people are so terrified of the decrease in petroleum. I say stop using it all together now, no matter how much there is. We have ready alternatives for all petroleum products. We absolutely do not need them at all. i think that anyone who sees a documentary about the sea creatures who are being killed will immediatley stop using plastic bags. i did. it was much easier than finding an electric car.

[robinlynne]

22. biodegradable bags are extremely expensive. Better to use reusable bags,

made of cloth or string.
but we still need a solution for picking up after our dogs.
i'm really glad people are catching on and stopping using plastic bags! It's so easy to change the habit.

[Annces]

6. What about garbage bags

What is a substitute for them?

[wordpix]

8. The company Trellis Earth makes biocompostable bags out of corn oil

[Annces]

12. Thanks n/t

[wordpix]

7. right on! I was shocked 10 yrs. ago when I saw mountains of plastic crap washed up

on a remote beach at Cozumel. No one around and no buildings on this beach but civilization had arrived there just the same. The WORLD should ban plastic bags and other plastic crap, too.

BTW the company Trellis Earth makes biocompostable bags out of corn oil now, in case you need to buy some "plastic" bags. Another company that produces biocompostable products is worldcentric at www.worldcentric.org

[babylonsister]

10. I've seen it, too, in the Badung Strait off of Bali, Indonesia, while

sailing. We were sailing almost literally on plastic and rubbish. Truly disgusting, and every shopkeeper gives you your purchases in a plastic sack. Likewise with supposed holy places and landmarks; plastic bags decorate trees, and the Balinese have no concept that this is not a good thing. :(

[marions ghost]

11. you know

while I'm in admiration of any form of consumer revolt, the mountain of plastic packaging we are wallowing in is truly earth-strangling and will take a lot more than this feelgood kind of movement to put a dent in it. Still it's better than nothing I suppose.

The Brits obviously have time and energy for this kind of consumer solidarity...I'm jealous. We are so beaten down over here with even bigger and more basic issues that environmental concerns are seen as a highbrow luxury.

[noamnety]

13. There are two kinds of dents

One is a reduction in the amount of plastic, and you are right that the amount of plastic packaging we're buying likely dwarfs the amount used in the bags themselves.

The other dent is that slight shift in consumer mentality, that shift in mindset that they will be required to change their habits in order to be responsible citizens. This is a relatively easy way to get the ball rolling, because really the impact of this on a person's lifestyle is incredibly small. It changes the paths a little more in the brain, to get from "we have an environmental crisis" to "I will be changing my habits." This is one of those slippery slopes I'm embracing.

Edit to add: I would like to see two more recommends on this, precisely because it is such a relatively easy form of activism, to encourage your local store to: a) give refunds if people bring their own bags, and b) offer bags only upon request.

[FloridaJudy]

16. I'm with you on the packaging

Is there any reason everything I buy has to be enclosed in industrial-strength plastic? It took me two minutes, a butcher knife, a pair of scissors and eventually a box-cutter to get at a new toothbrush the other day. An MP3 player I ordered by mail came in a box big enough for a microwave oven, surrounded with bubble-wrap and Styrofoam peanuts and encased in a hard plastic shell: the actual MP3 player was the size of a box of Tic-tacs.

There's a recent phenomenon called "wrap rage" that sees increasing numbers of older adults being treated in Emergency Rooms for injuries inflicted while trying to open impermeable plastic packages. And don't get me started on CDs/DVDs. I lose more fingernails that way...

It's a personal pet peeve, but it's also destroying the environment. Something has to be done.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

14. K & R.

I always turn down the request of "paper or plastic" by saying neither, thanks. I can take care of it myself.

[Kerrytravelers]

17. We've been using canvas bags for a while now.

P.S. Recommended thread!

[K8-EEE]

18. I bring my bags and half the time they are bagging stuff that goes in the bags!!

Like the ice cream and stuff, I bring an INSULATED bag just for that stuff anyhow and they auto-bag it anyway....it's not hard to remember the bags, it's hard to keep them from jumping the gun, the bagging is so auto-pilot.

[jasmeel]

19. This is a great resource for fun reusable cloth bags!! I bought a

few and bring them with everywhere!

http://www.reusablebags.com/

[robinlynne]

23. Also see ecobags.com another similar source.

[Maeve]

20. We went to reusable bags after our trip to Ireland

You have to pay for bags there--and now I try to always have my own bags with me.

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. You're about to be inundated with Plastic Bag Defenders

Who will swear to high heaven that it is Absolutely Impossible (tm) for them to give up plastic bags, or that It Doesn't Matter Anyway Because Cars Pollute Too (tm).

Good luck.

[pitohui]

24. i like it

i notice when i was shopping recently in canada the grocery store had a small charge if you used a plastic bag, terrific idea, even tho the cost was trivial, it was enough to remind you to bring back your own bags!

in louisiana i get no reinforcement to bring my own bags, when i do, it can be a hassle for them, when i don't, i'm not charged extra...so i forget

a campaign like this, yet at a trivial fee (i believe the fee at the canadian grocery store was 5 cents) would be a great way to encourage people to bring their own bag

and when you do plan to re-use the bag as a trash can liner, you don't mind paying the fee

so it all works out

[badgerpup]

25. I recycle mine...

...take them to the local health food store and they use them...and their patrons believe in recycling as well. I wonder how many time a bag is used before it gives out...

I also recycle my medicine bottles...the little brown Rx bottles go to my vet. He says that by recycling and re-using they help keep the costs down.

This might be worth checking out in other areas...;)