Paper nor plastic, please
By Laurie Posted on April 13th, 2009 in Living Green, Must Reads
A couple of years ago, I bought a few shopping bags at Whole Foods to reuse when I grocery shop. Offering a small reduction off the final total was an added bonus to the study, forest green carrier bags that could fit a few piles of produce.
Since then, interest in plastic bag reduction has monumentally grown. Some supermarkets have long since touted the use of boxes over bags, charging 5 to 10 cents for each bag to purchase. Costco, too, has supplied their extra boxes for reusable carry-out.
A long, drawn-out battle
In as early as 2004, some areas of India set a ban against the use of plastic bags. Various regions around the world – Taiwan, Australia, Bangladesh, Ireland, Italy and South Africa began charging for (and therefore reducing the use of) plastic bags and utensils. In 2006, Tanzania placed a ban on plastic bags, followed by Kenya and Uganda in 2007. San Fransisco was the first city in the U.S. to take hold of the ban, also in 2007, along with the small town of Leaf Rapids, Manitoba, the first Canadian community to ban plastic bags. China took lead in 2008, along with Australia, who made a clean sweep of the excess.
Although many other communities are taking part, most larger cities, provinces and states are still lagging behind.
What’s with the plastic, anyway?
Plastic bag usage became wide-spread in the eighties, but along with tapered jeans and, crimped hair, and shoulder pads, should have stayed there indefinitely. Using up our natural resources, they consume energy to manufacture, fill landfills and city streets, emit greenhouse-gases associated with petroleum-based products and are an ailment to marine life.
Environmental concerns tend to take the forefront in the plastic bag issue, but with staggering numbers of 100,000+ sea life killed each year by plastic bags, according to international environmental group Planet Ark.
Do they make that much of an impact?
There is constant debate over the environmental impact of plastic bags. The folks at My Plastic Bag, for example, discuss the benefits and realities of plastic bag use. However, the abundance of bags combined with the lack of people who choose to recycle them seems to be the issue that results in the constant battle.
People, too, it seems just don’t care. Plenty of plastic bags are floating around the city, in the streets, creeks, and trapped in trees; second, probably, to only the ubiquitous Tim Horton’s coffee cup.
Earth Day, April 22, marks the date for the largest grocery chain in Ontario to take hold of the anti-plastic bag campaign. Already to work in the Greater Toronto Area earlier this year, Loblaws has begun to charge customers 5 cents for each plastic bag.
Customers at Loblaws will have to pay five cents for bag, part of a plan to reduce plastic bag use.
Andre Iacobucci, Loblaws’ executive vice-president, explained that the fee makes more sense than giving a discount. In our Quebec stores, for example, we have historically given a discount for the use of a reusable bag and our plastic bag use reduction in those stores is in the five to 10 per cent range versus the 55 per cent reduction when you charge a nominal fee.” In giving the discount, customers could easily use it to their advantage, for example, telling retail cashiers they needed a bag for chewing gum or lottery tickets.
A few months later on June 1st, all retail stores in the Greater Toronto Area will have to charge 5 cents for each bag used.
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Reusable bags are cropping up everywhere, from the logo-blazed grocery store options to trendy retail and clothing stores to online stores. Feeling crafty? Try making your own, with one of these handy tutorials.
Images courtesy of Zazengo
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