Plastic Ain't So Fantastic

ACAN - Altona Community Action Network - Connie H. Mueller 

Plastic shopping bags - so convenient, so cheap, so lightweight...and so insidious. In less than a century we’ve gone from happily living without these items to depending on them. 160,000 bags are produced every second worldwide. It’s a number that’s hard to grasp. 

Altona/Municipality of Rhineland Landfill Site. Clearing landfill fencing of bags costs taxpayers thousands each year. How many of these bags came from your household?

What’s also hard to grasp, or grab rather, is one’s own reusable bags on the way out the door. Local grocery store clerks report less than a quarter of their customers bringing their own bags.

Here’s what I often hear with regard to plastic bags:

I reuse my plastic bags. Reusing bags doesn’t actually reduce how many bags are produced and released into the world. 

I use plastic shopping bags as garbage can liners. Great! How many garbage bags do you need per week? Take only that many from the store and now we’ve reduced some waste. Better yet, start composting and very few if any plastic garbage bags will be needed as your garbage won’t be messy.

I’ve read that you’d have to use a reusable bag hundreds of times until the resources needed to make a plastic bag and the ones needed to make a reusable bag are equal. This can be true, depending on what kind of reusable bag we’re talking about. Always choose a durable bag that you can use for many years. Or invest in a good backpack for a hands-free option.

I just burn them. Burning plastic releases harmful chemicals into the atmosphere which are then transferred to the ground through rain and then into our food chain where they are known carcinogens and hormone interrupters. 

We’ve all heard of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. It’s time to add Refuse. “Would you like a bag?” “No thanks, I’ve brought my own.”

I always forget my bags. Put “Bags” on the top of your grocery list. Put a sticky note on your door. Keep the bags by the door, in your purse/bag or in the car. As soon as you have unpacked your groceries, put them back. Get creative! When a young person in our community forgot her bags, she took off her hoodie, tied the hood shut and then used it for her grocery bag. Brilliant!

Bag Stats:

• Our local governments need to spend thousands of dollars each year to clean our bags off the fencing around the landfill and to fix fencing that gets blown over when bags clog it up. (see photo)
• The average plastic bag is used for 12 minutes.
• 8% of all oil extracted from the earth is used for the production of plastics.
• The average Canadian uses between 350-500 bags per year.
• Bags never break down.They only break up into tiny plastic particles which often enter the food chain causing harm to our health.
• Plastic bags are not easy or even possible to recycle. In our area there are no facilities that accept soft plastic for recycling. (Blue sky will accept soft plastic which they bale for use as supports at the landfill.) 
  

This is a call to all citizens - There are many actions we can take to clean up the environment and the local landfill, and bringing our own bags to the store is one of the easiest.

This is a call to shop owners - Bags are not free. There are many actual and hidden costs. Giving them away at no apparent cost is part of the problem of waste. This is a call to offer more incentives to shoppers to encourage them to bring their own bag.

This is a call to governments - Four Manitoba communities (Leaf Rapids, Thompson, The Pas and Snow Lake) have joined many communities around the globe that have passed legislation to eliminate bags from their communities. When will we make the environment important enough to write its protection into law?

We’ve all heard of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. It’s time to add Refuse. “Would you like a bag?” “No thanks, I’ve brought my own.”