Thursday, April 23, 2015

Reusable Part 2: Find Alternatives to Disposable Plastic Bags!

Years ago, my wife (then girlfriend) introduced me to the idea of a reusable cloth bag for grocery shopping. This was a novel concept for me. I grew up in an era of paper bags that gradually gave way to plastic bags, and so did my wife, though she was raised by Boulder hippies who lived through the energy scares of the 1970s and therefore strove to conserve raw materials and fuels. The idea makes great sense for every kind of shopping from groceries to hardware. The grocery store gives a very small credit for reusing a bag (either cloth or plastic) and that's one less plastic bag I have to deal with after I get home.

But oh, how plastic bags rule! They are so simple, so inexpensive, and kind of reusable. Many of us happen to use the cheap polyethylene grocery store bags to line trash cans (in our county, unfortunately, trash in the dumpster has to be in bags, partially due to an abundance of food waste and a lack of community composting). But they tear easily, and when they do, they become useless trash themselves. Best case scenario: the bag ends up "secure" in a landfill, where, in a few hundred years, anthropologists will dig it up and scratch their heads as they examine the contents. Often, however, these bags end up blowing on the breeze, where they eventually do this:



or this



and may become part of this*:


But how else do you get your stuff home from the store? If you have more than a few small items, there's no way you could carry them all the way from the store to your car without a bag! And, once you get home with the car parked safely in the garage, taking the groceries in the house without bags is next to impossible!

If you need a bag, maybe try one of these:

sayyestocanvas.com is not supporting me in any way. Just sayin'. But, I like canvas bags. A cloth bag is extremely durable and can be repaired should a handle come undone or a hole appear.
 And, of course, buy less stuff. My grad school roommate rode a bicycle everywhere, and used his backpack to carry the groceries home. He didn't need a car for a grocery run because he didn't buy much at any one time. Nowadays, I have a similar approach, though I have a milk crate I can strap to the rack on my bike to keep the weight off my back. The bike works great for those "milk, eggs, and bread" kinds of trips.

One of my heros, the so-called "zero waste" lady, has modified a catchy mnemonic--refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle--that applies here.

- Refuse: do you really need a bag for a pack of gum (do you have pockets or a handbag?) and a bottle of soda (you should have brought your reusable cup, anyway!)? Do you really need to put your apples or oranges into a plastic bag at the produce stand, which will then be placed into another bag at checkout**? Given the choice, put loose apples (or oranges, pears, carrots, peppers, etc.) straight in your cart rather than putting them in a plastic bag. You're going to wash them when you get home anyway, right?

- Reduce: again, don't double-bag your produce. If you really want to gather up produce (beans & peas might fall into this category), then take a smaller mesh bag with you to the store and have the cashier weigh it before you shop. This concept, incidentally, can apply to any bulk item from dry, shelled beans to soy sauce to honey to shampoo. Take your own container (could also be a jar, can, or foil bag) and refill it rather than getting another one.

- Reuse: take your plastic bags back to the store and reuse them. Better yet, make or acquire a more durable option like this

These bags are woven from recycled polyethylene or polyester rather than a natural fiber like cotton or hemp. But, they are reusable and created from a waste stream, and that's at least a step in the right direction.

which you can stuff completely full without worrying about a blow-out on the way to the car. The grocery sackers at the grocery store are often surprised at how much stuff these bags will hold because they are used to limiting the number of items that go into plastic bags. In addition to bags, you can also reuse old containers and jars for bulk items ranging from nuts to shampoo. 

- Recycle: when those polyethylene bags are torn up and destroyed, bundle them up and take them to a recycling center (often, your local grocery store!), don't just toss them in the trash. They could, quite possibly, make their way into something else, like the bags shown above or a fleece sweater or new plastic bags. We don't want them floating on the breeze or in the ocean.

One more important point about plastics--they are made from petrochemical feed stocks (or sometimes from corn, which is only better in the sense that the plastics are biodegradable***). I'm certain that in the not-so-distant future, we will be faced with the choice of having plastic bags at the store or burning fuel in the car to get to the store. There is no better time than right now to address this. The further down the road we kick the can, so to speak, the worse the problem will be.

There are arguments for cheap plastic bags. They are inexpensive and easy to make, requiring far less energy to make than paper bags (and probably, the textile bags, but I haven't looked that up) and being largely subsidized by companies. They can be reused, like I stated above, for a variety of unpleasant tasks like picking up dog poo on the sidewalk to lining your trash can (though in both cases they end up in the trash). These arguments are as weak as the bags they are for. I'd like to see community calls for a large-scale compost for food waste, increased recycling of paper (only 20% of paper is actually recycled!). And, I know I'm going to get some criticism for saying this, but the best place for dog poo is probably out in the sun on the sidewalk where it can break down, rather than buried underground. Not that I'm going to start encouraging my dog to crap on the sidewalk any time soon.

I should note here that I'm not a political activist. While I see no real place for plastic bags in society (even if I believed that every shred I put in the recycle bin was treated as advertised), I'd rather have thoughtful people work to eliminate the plastic bag market through their choices than see laws passed banning the bags outright. So, if you agree with me, buy, find, or make some cloth bags for your next trips to the store. Or take a backpack. I think you'll find (like I did) that the bags hold more, stand up to more abuse, and are generally more useful than the ubiquitous cheap plastic our society seems to worship. 

Next up: disposable plastic bottles!

--------------------------

*I found this image by searching for "great pacific garbage patch" on Google. There are a few full-length movies and more than a few YouTube videos on the topic. Even if you, like me, live in a land-locked state, your plastic can still end up in the ocean via the breeze or by our waterways. Some estimates I've read put the itty-bitty-plastic-bits to plankton ratio in the ocean at 6:1, which is pretty dire for those critters that depend on plankton. I encourage you to take some time to search for images, view and think about the effects on marine life, ponder how those effects impact human life, and make your choices accordingly. For a tear-jerker, check this video out: http://www.midwayfilm.com/. And then consider your choices.

**If I had my "druthers," the plastic bags at the produce stand would be long gone.

**The degradation of corn-based plastics may not happen as rapidly or readily as previously thought (hoped?). Furthermore, producing consumer products from corn raises a host of ethical issues. Growing commodity corn does little to directly feed people, as most corn is used to make chemicals, sweeteners, and animal feed (often for animals that aren't set up to digest it, like cows). Land that could be used to grow useful food (like grain or vegetables) is used to produce corn. It's all about money, folks. Don't believe corporate claims of altruism and service. See Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma for a much more complete rendition of this argument (with actual references and citations).