Big Plastic Steps Into The Fight

plastic bagsThe city of Seattle is considering a tax of 20 cents per plastic grocery bag, to be levied at the checkout counter at the grocery store.  Seems like a no-brainer, right?  Disposable single-use plastic grocery bags are a useless waste, and cost untold amounts of cleanup work later along the road.  However, the plastics industry is Fighting Back.  So far, over a million dollars has been donated to the pro-plastic-bag campaign, by big players in the plastics industry.

Unfortunately the bags are perfectly designed to catch the wind and blow away, which is why they often escape the dump and go drifting across the landscape to fetch up against trees and fences, or end up in the ocean where they kill sea life.  Furthermore, they are completely unnecessary. 

I bought five reusable tote bags from Safeway last year, for a total cost of five dollars, and have used them reasonably consistently ever since.  Based on my previous plastic bag usage (it takes a lot more plastic bags for the same load of groceries compared to totes, because they can fit more groceries into a sturdy tote bag) I estimate that I am saving about 100 plastic grocery bags a month.  A month!

The plastics councils argue that the twenty cent per bag cost is a burden on consumers, many of whom (In This Economy) can ill afford the extra funds.  However, most grocery stores sell tote bags for a dollar each.  Some of the fancier stores sell them for more than that, but at your regular run of the mill grocery store?  One dollar.  And it lasts essentially forever.* 

There is NO REASON not to buy tote bags.  Any family can afford five tote bags ($5) which will cover most of their needs (you can fit a lot of groceries into five tote bags), and last for years.  And that extra twenty cents per bag - considering a week's worth of groceries goes into at least twenty plastic disposable bags - will be a great incentive to remember to bring the totes.

I have also heard that the plastics councils are arguing that reusable tote bags are less hygienic.  Well first of all, their argument assumes that the disposable plastic bags are kept in ultra-sanitary conditions to begin with.  I doubt this is true.  Second, if you feel that this is an issue, simply spray the inside of your reusable totes with Lysol.  (Or better yet, a 50/50 mix of water and white vinegar.)  Third, I just don't think this is an issue.  You're already setting your groceries into a grocery cart, and those things are failry filthy.

Obviously the plastics companies need to admit that disposable plastic grocery bags are an environmental atrocity, and get with the times.  Why not just retool the lines to produce reusable totes?  Make them pretty and fun, and heck, add some Microban to the fiber so that it kills those pesky germs.

"    I have had only one tote bag blow-out.  I had hung it from a rack, then dropped in about 30 pounds of cotton knitting yarn.  Then I left it there for a month.  When I finally went back to it, I found that one of the seams attaching the handle to the tote had frayed slightly.  I fully intend to repair this with a quick bit of sewing... some day.