Paper or Plastic? Just Say NO!

In a recent blog post by Peter Gregory, he advocates charging consumers for the luxury of fast food take-out supplies. He like many others, is simply tired of cleaning up other people’s discarded food packaging trash. The concept is in lock-step with most environmentalists that believe in the principle of “polluters pays”: those who pollute should pay for the true cost of generating the pollution and cleaning it up.

Pollution is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Even the lowly plastic grocery bag has value to some people. When you return it to the store from which it came, it will likely be recycled into another product such as parking lot space tire curbs, playground equipment and most anything else that can be made with polyethylene.

The greater likelihood is that it will end up in a landfill or somewhere in nature where is harms wildlife and litters roadsides, streams, and sewers.

Imagine a world without flimsy plastic bags. It isn’t hard since they weren’t introduced until about 1977. Life will go on and we’d be better off without them.

The U.S. throws away about 100 BILLION bags each year. The manufacturing of plastic bags accounts for 4 per cent of the world’s total oil production.(1)

People are starting to get fed up about our love affair with the tragedy of the commons. Europe is levying significant taxes on the bags and San Francisco has banned them. South Africa, Taiwan and Bangladesh have also banned plastic bags. Paris will outlaw them by the end of 2007, and all of France will ban the bags in 2010. Phoenix and Boston are considering similar bans. Other USA communities are requiring use of thicker and stronger bags that cost more and motivate businesses to be less generous with their free distribution of the materials.

What should your local government do about the problem? The alleged pro-business solution is, of course, to ‘educate the public.’ Sorry, that just doesn’t work. Tell me, have we managed to prevent litter through cradle-to-grave anti-litter campaigns? No. If it affects your pocket book directly, you it sit-up and take notice. That is why Europe has pursued taxing plastic bags, and why US cities do so little more than establish ineffectual education programs because they a) don’t want consumers to ‘sacrifice' and b) don’t want to mandate environmental protection measures upon small businesses.

My view? Effective 12 months from passing a city or county law, place a 15 cent tax on plastic bags. The tax will fund year -round litter collection and prevention programs. In so doing, also let the marketplace find a solution that suits business customers. Some stores will help transition customers to cloth and synthetic mesh bags, encourage consumers to re-use their heavy-duty bags and boxes, or offer recycled paper or cellulose/corn-starch derived bags. Others will charge for the bags in addition to the tax. In so doing they will be sending a message that the company shouldn’t subsidize the use of wasteful packaging. It won’t be painless, but it will work. Consumers are price sensitive and when reminded at the point-of-sale of the true cost of wasteful behavior, they respond with intelligence.

All it takes is leadership.

Now, banning plastic bags will not completely solve Peter’s complaint about the other forms of community litter from fast food vendors. That’s another topic for the future.