"cut your hair you hippy!"

This was posted by someone I know on the mainland. I felt it necessary to respond.

"Recently, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors opted out of an aggressive deal that would have imposed strict regulations on the use of plastic shopping bags, with the possibility of an outright ban looming should specifications not be met. Though this might not seem like a large issue, consider this:

L.A. County uses approximately 6 billion plastic bags each year (Source: Los Angeles Times)

430,000 gallons of oil are used to produce 100 million plastic bags (Source: San Francisco Chronicle)

Do the math: L.A. County consumes 25,800,000 gallons of oil each year in plastic bags. At oil prices as of 2:28 p.m. the day I'm posting this, Feb. 6, 2008, according to CNNMoney ($87.14 per barrel, or per 42 gallons), that's $53,528,857.14 that L.A. County consumes each year in plastic bags. 53 and one half MILLION dollars.

Methinks the L.A. County Board of Directors needs to stop listening to the grocery lobbyists, especially since China just banned plastic bags altogether."


Things to consider in this debate:

1. What is the alternative to plastic bags?
2. What is the cost (monetary and environmentally) of the alternative.
3. What are the economic impacts of the implementation of the alternative?
4. What are the ecological impacts of the alternative?
5. What are the societal impacts of the alternative?

Obviously there's a lot of questions to be answered in response to what looks like a simple solution. Yes, we reduce oil consumption if we eliminate plastic bags. But are they really the only bad guy in this debate? So we eliminate plastic bags. Ok, what now? Do we use paper bags? Sounds like a good idea right? Well let's answer some of our questions from above.

1. Let's assume that the elimination of plastic bags forces paper as the only alternative to be found. For the sake of example of complexity, let's assume (a nasty thing I know), that no one is bringing their own shopping bag to the store.

2. The production of paper bags comes at a double whammy cost. We all know (at least we should by now) that paper comes from trees. And trees come from forests. So, to make paper bags we need to cut down a forest. But that forest wasn't just sitting there before we needed our paper bags. It was a dynamic system. For one, it was absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting it to oxygen. Another cool thing trees do (if you didn't know by now).

So now that we've cut down a forest we need to actually make our paper bags. Which means transporting our trees to our factory. Which is going to produce some more gases and use up more oil. But the consumption doesn't stop there. Our paper bag factory doesn't run on good intentions. It runs on good old fashioned oil. Producing more green house gases. The amount of pollutants produced by the production of paper bags is astounding. Consider this: "Paper sacks generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags."
Source: "Comparison of the Effects on the Environment of Polyethylene and Paper Carrier Bags," Federal Office of the Environment, August 1988.

That's a lot to digest, I know. But let's continue with our questions.

3. Economically let's consider how often we are recycling paper bags. According to the Wall Street Journal, an estimated 10 to 15% of paper bags are recycled. That's a pretty low number. At this point, and I could be wrong, I don't know of any campaigns or drives to recycle paper bags. Again, I could be wrong. So we have to spend more money to cut down more trees, drive them to a plant, and run that plant to produce more bags.

4. As for ecological impacts, let me be frank. We're cutting down forests to make paper bags. Forests. Like I said before it's not like those forests were just sitting there waiting to be made into a bag. They were actively participating in the atmospheric exchange. And doing a fine job of it I'm sure. So why would we want to cut them down?

5. This is a question that can only be speculative. What do we as a society stand to gain from setting aside forests to be made into bags that we will use once a week. Do people who were formerly using plastic bags take it upon themselves to suddenly start recycling paper ones? My guess is no. I try to see the upside to most things, but frankly, if someone doesn't care enough now to recycle, then taking away plastic bags isn't going to make them care. That's a bigger problem to be addressed.


So, I guess my whole point is this: Is it getting rid of plastic bags the only answer? Or there something else that needs to be done?

Once again, education is a key component to a successful campaign to reducing the impact of plastic bags. Did you know that if you re-use paper bags at the grocery store you will often get a discount? At Vons they take 5 cents off per bag. (6 cents at WinCo for those of you living in Oregon.) If you were to use the same paper, or even plastic, bags two weeks in a row for an entire year, you've reduced your impact that year by a half.

Or better yet, dig around your house and see if you have any canvas bags. Use those for shopping. They work just as well and last for years. Head to a GoodWill or Salvation Army and pick up a couple for cheap. I have three bags that I've used going on three years and they may be ugly but it's helped reduce at least my impact.