"Would you like paper or plastic?"
For years, we opted for plastic, even though the decision reminded us of the plastic bag menagerie exploding out from beneath our sinks. Sure, they are good for carrying pet products, lunches, and wet bathing suits, but who needs so many? We all mean to bring them back, to recycle them, but somehow the thought never registers prior to departing for the grocery store. That luxury of being able to forget our bags may soon be coming to an end, as governments around the country and the world are trending towards banning or taxing the use of plastic (and sometimes paper) bags.
Late March of 2007, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic bags, due to their inability to be recycled or decomposed in landfills easily and tendencies to blow into trees and waterways, where they are blamed for killing marine life. Stores now give out paper bags or plastic bags made from cornstarch that easily biodegrade when disposed of.
Those supporting the ban credit it with saving around 800,000 gallons of oil used to make the 180 million plastic bags handed out annually in San Francisco alone. Four to five trillion nondegradable plastic bags
are used worldwide annually.
Other towns in California have quickly followed suit. Similar bans were enacted by Manhattan Beach, Malibu, and this week, Las Angeles opted to ban plastic bags by 2010. Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, slated to vie for California's Governor in 2010, favors a statewide program to reduce marine debris that may include a California-wide plastic bag ban.
Although the plastic bag ban was bucked recently in Baltimore, plenty of other governments have taken aim at these new and surprising icons of environmental destruction. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, City Council
Member Stephen Rapundalo is pushing ahead with a proposal to
ban plastic shopping bags. And on the other side of the world, China banned plastic bags in January of this year, claiming the move will save over 37 million barrels of oil.
Given China's reputation as a major polluter, the ban came as a surprise to many. But given our current oil crises, trends across the country, and our ever-shrinking cabinet space for grocery bags, perhaps this is one environmental policy we should adopt from China.