November 2014
FEATURES
Dear EarthTalk: What’s the latest
on efforts to ban plastic bags? How
many U.S. locales have instituted
some kind of ban, and have these
initiatives made a dent in the
amount of plastic litter?
– Melinda Clarke, New York, NY
(Photo by Lucien Mahin, aka LucyIn, courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
California made big news recently
when it announced the first statewide
ban on plastic shopping bags set to
kick in during the middle of 2015.
Beginning in July, large grocery
stores, pharmacies and other food
retailers in the Golden State will
no longer be able to send shoppers
home with plastic bags, while
convenience markets, liquor stores
and other small food retailers will
join the ranks a year later.
Back in 2007, San Francisco became
the first U.S. municipality to ban
plastic shopping bags. In intervening
years upwards of 132 other cities
and counties in 18 states and the
District of Columbia instituted
similar measures.
Of course, Americans are late to
the party when it comes to banning
plastic bags: The European Union,
China, India and dozens of other
nations already have plastic bag bans
or taxes in place.
But the trend here toward banning
plastic shopping bags comes in the
wake of new findings regarding the
extent and harm of plastic in our
environment.
Since plastic isn’t biodegradable, it
ends up either in landfills or as litter
on the landscape and in waterways
and the ocean. Plastic can take
hundreds of years to decompose and
releases toxins into the soil and water
in the process.
Littered plastic is also a huge
problem for the health of wildlife,
as many animals ingest it thinking
it is food and can have problems
thereafter breathing and digesting.
The non-profit Worldwatch
Institute reports that at least 267
species of marine wildlife are known
to have suffered from entanglement
or ingestion of marine debris, most of
which is composed of plastic; tens of
thousands of whales, birds, seals and
turtles die every year from contact
with ocean-borne plastic bags.
A recent European Commission
The Southwest Portland Post • 7
study on the impact of litter on
North Sea wildlife found that some
90 percent of the birds examined had
plastic in their stomachs.
Another reason for banning plastic
bags is their fossil fuel burden. Plastic
is not only made from petroleum—
producing it typically requires a lot
of fossil-fuel-derived energy.
The fact that Americans throw
away some 100 billion plastic grocery
bags each year means we are drilling
for and importing millions of barrels
worth of oil and natural gas for a
convenient way to carry home a few
groceries.
It’s hard to measure the impact
of pre-existing plastic bag bans, but
some initial findings look promising.
A plastic bag tax levied in Ireland
in 2002 has reportedly led to a 95
percent reduction in plastic bag litter
there.
And a study by San Jose, California
found that a 2011 ban instituted there
has led to plastic litter reduction of
“approximately 89 percent in the
storm drain system, 60 percent in
the creeks and rivers, and 59 percent
in city streets and neighborhoods.”
Environmental groups continue to
push for more plastic bag bans. “As
U.S. natural gas production has
surged and prices have fallen, the
plastics industry is looking to ramp
up domestic production,” reports the
Earth Policy Institute.
“ Ye t u s i n g t h i s f o s s i l f u e l
endowment to make something so
short-lived, which can blow away
at the slightest breeze and pollutes
indefinitely, is illogical—particularly
when there is a ready alternative:
the reusable bag.”
C O N TA C T S : W o r l d w a t c h
Institute, www.worldwatch.org;
Earth Policy Institute, www.earth-
policy.org.
EarthTalk® is written and edited
by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and
is a registered trademark of E - The
Environmental Magazine (www.
emagazine.com). Send questions to:
earthtalk@emagazine.com.
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