Local bazaars have been selling bags emblazoned with the text, “I Am Not a Plastic Bag.” I’m not sure if they’re made in China or in Thailand, but they seem to be the latest craze, part of the growing environmental chic look. The bags, made of canvas, are intended to replace plastic bags when you go shopping.
The world’s moving away from plastic bags, and the most significant development has been the decision by our giant neighbor, China, to ban flimsy plastic (that’s the term used for very thin bags) starting in June, even as they impose a tax on other plastic bags.
Billions of plastic bags are now used each year, and have been found even on the peaks of the Himalayan Mountains. The plastic bags have created many problems, foremost of which is the way they take up landfill space, where it will stay intact into the next few millennia. That’s for the plastic bags that do make their way into garbage disposal systems. Other plastic bags stray into waterways, including the ocean, where they kill marine life.
Plastic bags also block drainage systems. Bangladesh banned the bags in 2002, identifying them as the leading cause of severe flooding. When plastic bags clog drains, they also create stagnant pools of water that become a resort for mosquitoes and other disease-causing insects. I’m wondering if the rise in dengue in the Philippines might have something to do with the plastic bags in our rivers and creeks.
A recent article in the British newspaper Guardian reports on how several countries are now devising different strategies to deal with this serious problem. There are outright bans on plastic bags in countries as diverse as Papua New Guinea, Bhutan, Zanzibar, Botswana, Rwanda and Eritrea. Taiwan has not only banned plastic bags but has also asked restaurants and supermarkets to stop issuing plastic knives, forks and cups. Taiwan’s move is considered to be quite drastic because they have a large plastics industry and the ban on plastic bags will mean many lost jobs.
Like China, South Africa and certain boroughs in London are cracking down first on the thin bags, which seem to be more problematic in the way they block drainage systems.
Dilemmas
Ironically, plastic bags were first introduced some 50 years ago as an environmentalist measure, specifically to save trees. Paper bags were being used then, with concerns that all those bags were contributing to deforestation.
But with the plastic bags now creating new problems, governments have to look for a combination of alternatives. Last year, San Francisco in California passed an ordinance banning plastic checkout bags from supermarkets and retail pharmacies and also prescribing alternatives, namely, compostable bags made out of corn starch, or bags made of recyclable paper. (Note that earlier, San Francisco also outlawed Styrofoam food containers in another environment-friendly measure.)
Plastic is actually recyclable in two ways: through consumers re-using them, or having the plastics re-melted and re-formed. New York City just passed an ordinance that requires establishments to provide recycling bins for plastic bags.
We would need a massive consumer education campaign if we are to get people to reuse their plastic bags. A few weeks back, I described how several local commercial establishments have tried to get customers to shift to cloth bags. Powerbooks was a pioneer here -- offering discounts if you brought in one of their Powerbooks cloth bags and purchased books. Alas, when I returned recently to ask if they still sold those bags, the sales clerks had no inkling about what I was talking about.
On a more positive note, Rustan’s and Shopwise supermarkets, actually parts of one chain, now offer their own bags and bonus reward points on their Fresh card if you use the bags. All these moves are encouraging, but as I pointed out in my column, I wish all these establishments would just offer discounts or other incentives even if you didn’t use their special bags. Simply bringing your own shopping bag should be “rewarded” in some small way to get more consumers to shift away from plastic.
When I was studying in the Netherlands back in the 1990s, stores and supermarket checkers didn’t automatically give you a bag; they’d ask first if you needed one or not. I learned, early enough, to bring my own recycled plastic bags, or simply put the groceries into my backpack. At my apartment, I had a place where I stored plastic bags. It’s a habit I brought back to the Philippines.
No bags?
Sometimes, too, it helps to be reminded of a “pre-bag” era, as I discovered recently in Vietnam. Strolling along Hanoi’s Old Quarter, I picked up a loaf of baguette or French bread from a street vendor, who handed it to me without any wrapping paper. I didn’t have a bag, or a “furoshiki” (a piece of square cloth that the Japanese use to wrap everything, from books to skateboards). Shame, shame, I thought to myself but thought, it’s only a baguette, so I walked on.
Then I found an old woman selling “hoa mai,” or plum blossom branches. The Vietnamese love flowers and the street vendors offer a dazzling diversity, but hoa mai are hard to find, so I bought a bunch without second thoughts.
The vendor handed it to me, again without any wrapping paper. It was inconvenient, but I was thrilled by how environmentally politically correct it all was, all the way to her wrapping the branches with rattan twine, rather than plastic straw.
I walked on, one hand with the baguette, another with the hoa mai, sometimes eliciting smiles from passersby as they admired the flowers. Then I found a shop selling sturdy straw cushions stuffed with kapok. I’d been looking for cushions like that and thought too that maybe if I bought one I would get a paper bag, to go with it.
No such luck. The store owner used a thin rope to secure the cushion, then tied it, with a flourish, into a handle.
I was thrilled with my lesson in Third World environmentalism, but now I was in a dilemma: how was I going to carry so many things without a bag? In a flash, the solution came to me. I walked on, head held high, cradling the plum blossoms with one arm, dangling the cushion on the other hand. The baguette? The best way to carry them, I remembered, was to stick them under your armpit.
I’m not sure I’m ready to go back to a pre-bag, underarm era, so I’m pushing for recycling. Plastic, cloth, or paper bags and wraps can be reused, if we’d just remember to bring them with us next time we shop.
Previous columns:
Nanos – 01/16/08
God and science – 01/10/08
American UP – 01/08/08
Catching up – 01/03/08
The race is on – 12/30/07
12 Things That Made Us Proud in 2007 – 12/30/07
