{"id":3154,"date":"2019-04-02T19:13:57","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T23:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musingsbymichael.com\/blog\/?p=3154"},"modified":"2019-04-03T15:26:56","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T19:26:56","slug":"banning-plastic-bags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musingsbymichael.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/02\/banning-plastic-bags\/","title":{"rendered":"Banning Plastic Bags"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Plastic<\/a><\/p>\n

Banning plastic bags will not help the environment as much as its advocates say. New York is the latest state to ban single use plastic bags.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is that the ban will not really do what the politicians and environmentalists make you think it will. Here is some very interesting information from the World Resources Institute<\/a>, \u201cUnfortunately,\u00a0while\u00a0these laws may reduce the most visible form\u00a0of plastic pollution, it could be\u00a0at the expense of\u00a0other environmental impacts. That\u2019s because, somewhat ironically, disposable plastic bags require fewer resources (land, water, CO<\/i>2<\/i><\/sub>\u00a0emissions, etc.) to produce than paper, cotton or reusable plastic bags\u2014by a wide margin.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

For example, Denmark\u2019s Ministry of Environment and Food found that you would need to reuse a paper bag\u00a0at least\u00a043 times<\/a>\u00a0for its per-use environmental impacts to\u00a0be\u00a0equal\u00a0to or less than\u00a0that of a typical disposable plastic bag used one time. An organic cotton bag must be reused 20,000 times\u00a0to produce less of an environmental impact than a single-use plastic bag.\u00a0That would be like using a\u00a0cotton\u00a0bag every day for nearly 55 years.\u00a0(Note that these figures aggregate the bags\u2019 impact on water use, CO<\/i>2<\/i><\/sub>\u00a0emissions, land use and\u00a0more, but they do not include\u00a0their\u00a0impact on plastic pollution.)<\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That is not to say that the plastic bag ban will remove the threat to wildlife, be it in the oceans or the land. But what is missing is the education component and it is a very important one. Of course the politicians have money on their minds. For example here is what New York passed (per CBS News<\/a>), \u201cmost single-use plastic bags provided by supermarkets and other stores will be banned statewide starting March 1, 2020. Individual counties will have the option of charging 5 cents for paper bags, with 2 cents going to local governments and 3 cents to the state’s Environmental Protection Fund.<\/i>\u201d In other words the money component is more important then the environmental one, for you and I know that any monies collected will not go towards the aforementioned fund.<\/span><\/p>\n

From Displayr<\/a>, \u201cVarious alternatives to LDPE (single use) plastic bags are in use. One solution is for retailers to charge a small fee for a\u00a0<\/i>high<\/i><\/em>-density polyethylene bag \u2013 a more durable plastic bag intended for reuse. Most supermarkets also offer \u2018green\u2019 bags and encourage customers to bring their own bags. These measures are intended to reduce the impact we have on the environment. But studies<\/a> have shown that it actually takes more resources to manufacture alternatives to single-use bags! Potentially this could have a greater impact on the environment.<\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I must conclude that replacing single-use plastic bags with either so called ‘green’ bags or canvas (\/cotton) bags is not the answer. As both are not any more environmentally friendly and are next to impossible to clean. Paper bags actually are more polluting to make although they will breakdown in a short amount of time.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is needed is a combination of public education and environmental inventiveness. Only time will tell what the answer will be.<\/span><\/p>\n

That is my opinion- Jumpin Jersey Mike<\/span><\/p>\n

4\/3\/19-<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is an article by CBS News that talks about a new way of recycling plastics<\/a> that sounds very promising.<\/span><\/p>\n

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