The first
thing you hear when you walk into a grocery store is, paper or plastic? Or should I say, kill a tree or choke a
fish? The debate between these two items
has been getting bigger and bigger as environmental awareness is becoming a
bigger deal in Texas.
Austin
stores are now starting to ban plastic bags because they clog landfills and arehazardous to animals. According to the NW waste management website, Bags by the Numbers, an
estimated 14 billion plastic bags are used in the US every year. It takes 20+ years for plastic to biodegrade,
and only 1% of plastic bags are ever recycled.
The rest are dumped in landfills and the ocean. An estimated 100,000
marine animals are killed every year due to plastic bags. After hearing all of this information, one
might suggest that paper bags would be a better option, but they are just as
bad. About 14 million trees are cut down
in order to make paper bags. Also, paper
bags are much more costly to make. There
is 50% more air pollution and it takes 40% more energy to make paper bags
versus plastic bags. Both methods for
bagging your groceries are equally bad. The
best solution is a reusable bag.
Austin is
already doing their best to promote reusable bags, but this has to spread to
everywhere in Texas. Many stores in Texas
like HEB and Target are heavily promoting reusable bags and only use paper bags
when necessary. This is a great start
but I believe that a statewide ban necessary to produce serious change. This may seem like going overboard, but
without a statewide ban, serious change will never take place. The reason why billions of plastic and paper
bags are still being produced today, is because people still don’t take it very
seriously. An alternative solution, which
some stores already do, would be to charge people that don’t bring their own
bag. Over the years, Austin has been
labeled as a “green” city, now it is time to spread that label to the entire
State of Texas.
Helping or hurting the environment?
ReplyDeleteI recently read an article by Nirmal Mulji called "Paper or Plastic?" that addressed the issues of environmental harm due to the use of plastic and paper bags. I found many of the statements and facts very relevant to his argument. It was basically about the fact that plastic bags cause a lot of harm to the environment and how paper bags are not the solution to this problem.
One of the points that Mulji made in his article was that plastic bags degrade very slow at a rate of 20 plus years. This coupled with the fact that very few people recycle them makes plastic bags a horrible environmental option. This is a prim example of how many people simply don't care about the environmental effects or possibly don't see the effects right away. If people really cared about the environment yet liked plastic bags over other types of bags then recycling would be higher than it currently is but this simply isn't true.
Another point Mulji brought up was how paper bags are no better than plastic. This is not because of the rate of decomposition but because of the heavier resources needed to make them. This includes more trees being cut down and more fuel burned to transport and make these bags. This makes a lot of sense and shows how easy it can be to think that just because something is biodegradable it can have underlying consequences.
Mulji mentioned one more point that I found interesting in is article and that was the banning of environmentally harmful bags all together. I agree with his point of bringing in government although I think it might need to be handled in a different way. Banning of paper and plastic bags would mean the only alternative, reusable bags. Reusable bags can be costly and many people might not want to pay or even use them. Instead I think a gradual decline while informing the public of the dangers of plastic and paper bags would be best. This is already something that is going on in the smoking industry with the raising of cigarette cost and mandatory warnings on all cigarette packs to deter the use of tobacco.
To sum things up, plastic and paper bags are by no means helping the environment. The law is a necessary tool for cracking down on the wide spread use of these bags and promoting better alternatives for the future.
Among other things that Texas ranks low in, the Lone Star State ranks low compared to the rest of the United States in environmental conditions. Thankfully, the City of Austin has begun to address this problem and implement new policies to preserve the environment.
ReplyDeleteAustin has recently gone "bagless". This means that stores in Austin no longer provide plastic bags, and in some places paper bags are a small fee. Texas Within's blog post about this issue calls for action, backing the movements in Austin and expecting the rest of the state to follow. As a native Austinite, I am proud of the way the city is making movements to not only save money on bags, but protect the environment from harmful production emissions and superfluous waste. I admit it was a bit annoying to remember my reusable bags when going shopping at first. However, I've concluded that the convenience of plastic bags is not worth the waste caused by them. We, in developed suburbia sometimes don't take into consideration the damage we do by making things convenient for ourselves, such as overusing plastic bags which kill wildlife indirectly. Reusable bags have existed for years, but only recently has it been an official public policy that consumers but use them. I think that the government getting involved with this has helped the effectiveness of the movement. I also agree that because of the success in Austin, the policy needs to expand to the rest of the state to continue to affect the environment. Thank you, Nirmal, for your thoughts of the subject and for moving to call the rest of the state to action.