RECENT BLOGS ON RISING CONSUMER CREDIT SPENDING underscore an even more pressing everyday spending decision: paper or plastic. That's said tongue-in-cheek, but just barely.
Shoppers Snag Designer Grocery Totes uncovers the entrepreneurial response to a law, slowly being adopted in cities and counties nationwide, that bans non-biodegradable plastic bags at supermarkets, pharmacies and other retail stores. San Francisco was the first major city to enact the ban earlier this year, and Boston, Berkeley and other municipalities are considering it. In April, Los Angeles County supervisors voted last month to start a study that could result in a county-wide ban.
Plastic is a by-product of oil refining and accounts for 4 percent of the world's total oil production, according to Greenfeet. Certainly, the less dependency we have on oil at this point, the better.
Such stores as Safeway already facilitate recycling, but only 3 percent of plastic bags reportedly get recycled. The remaining 97 percent reportedly end up in landfills, where they could still be – in various stages of decomposition – for the next 1,000 years. And that’s not even counting the plastic that clogs are rivers and oceans. So, in my book, this is a great move.
Stores have several options, ranging from biodegradable paper to naturally-derived plastic to reusable fabric bags. All are now areas ripe for entrepreneurialization. Even in the paper versus plastic debate, there's no real right answer.
"When it comes to paper and plastic, the answer is neither," says Washington State's Department of Ecology Spokesman Larry Altose in a recent Seattle P-I article. Because "it's kind of a draw" as to which is worse for the environment. Instead, he recommends a fabric tote (though it needn't be designer).
I’d still like to see the law apply to fast-food bags and garbage-can bags purchased off store shelves, but in the meantime I’ll continue taking my trusty hemp market bag for convenience store items and my branded canvas bag for shopping at Trader Joe’s. If I forget my fabric bag, I’ll still largely request paper at checkout, to support the Northwest’s economic contribution as part of the timber trade. Paper bags also hold four times the amount of plastic ones, so they're great as stand-ins for biodegradeable kitchen garbage can bags.
But there’s a time and place for everything. For the plastic bags I do get, it would be nice to know that the results of my dog-walk clean-ups will one day soon -- along with their contents – fade away.
Related research:
Short and sweet Seattlepi.com article ("Paper or plastic?" Bring your own bag)
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| Jennifer D. Meacham, Gather Money Correspondent | ||||
Jennifer's column, "The Bottom Line," is published every Wednesday to Gather Essentials: Money. Jennifer also covers business/personal finance for The Oregonian newspaper and real estate news for RISMedia, and co-authored the best-selling retirement investing guide "IRA Wealth: Revolutionary IRA Strategies for Real Estate Investment" (Square One Publishers, New York). Keep up on the latest news and analysis into how you can take control of your business and personal financial future by joining Jennifer's "Self-Directed Investing 101" network. | ||||
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Comments: 32
Very interesting article, thanks for posting!
P.S. Check out my new article about going diaperless.
I now have to remember to use it, I think it should cut out 1 or two bags per shopping trip. I am thinking of buying a few more canvas bags like that. Anyone have a link. I tried searching, but kept coming up with basically lighter beach totes.
Daniel I can believe that. Like Mary Beth I used to live downwind of a paper mill, and that smell is awful. So, on the front end paper is the bigger polluter. On the backend, it's plastic.
If everyone were to recycle their plastic, as you suggest, it would seem to solve this problem. The biggest harm from plastic is indeed when it's left in landfills or littered in our water supply. Not only does oil-based plastic not decompose for up to 1,000 years and, as Dan mentioned, lead to animal injuries and death, but it also attracts and multiplies toxic chemicals when waterborn. So, hear, hear to your suggestion for plastic bag recycling. However, consider that reusable fabric bags only need to be manufactured once, rather than over and over to be branded for individual grocers. A plain, no-logo one like the one Cat's mother made seems ideal.
Aurora, as to your comment about kitchen trash bags, here are a few stats from Seventh Generation, makers of recycled tall kitchen trash bags
Finally, Cyndi has intrigued me with her article about going diaperless. Not sure if I really want to read it (smile), but I'd love to see how she pulls this off. Just FYI, there are new brands of biodegradeable/flushable diapers now (one brand I saw recently had a recycled waterproof pull-on-style cover).
As to your question on reusable market bags, here are ones similar to what I use. (I keep one in the coat closet for nearby walks and one in the car):
Ecobags Organic Canvas Tote Bag
Port & Company Jumbo Tote (B300)
Taraluna Fair-Trade/Organic Hemp Market Bag
Hope this helps!!
As for recyclying plastics; Kroger stores usually has bins to collect the plastic and paper bags. I gather the pastic bags I don't fill with other refuse in the little bags they put our newspapers in and stuff them in Kroger's recycle bins. I wish more store did that. I hope Kroger is actually getting them to a recycler.
Second, I used to work at a major grocery store and although they had one of those nice bins out front to recycle the bags, they didn't actually recycle them. They ended up in the dumpster, with the rest of their trash. So it might be a good idea to ask your store if they actually recycle them.
Do any of you find it slower to bag your own groceries using totes? I have never done this before and just wondering. I know how convenient it is to use the plastic bag holders at the self bag checkout stores. Trying to figure out if totes/cloth bags will be convenient enough that I can talk Hubby into using them, since he is the one that usually goes grocery shopping.
The organization that did the school fundraiser is called "Roots and Shoots" Their website is www.rootsandshoots.org I am going to look at their site and see if they serve other areas.
Gwen, keeping a couple of plastic bags in the cloth bag to reuse is a great idea.
That is horrible that the store collected bags in the bin and than never recycled them! Kind of like false advertising.
Hubby went shopping yesterday and I counted bags for his once a week shopping trip. 15 plastic bags including the doubled ones for meat and canned goods. That is 60 bags a month. Add to that the couple Walmart trips for household goods, plus clothing trips, convenience store stops, I would average about 10 bags a month, that is 70 a month total. That is with self bagging and stuffing the bags full.
Crazy. I plan on talking to him about using totes over his weekend and see what he thinks about it.
We reuse some of them for can liners in the bathrooms/laundry room. I keep a bunch in the cupboard, recycle when it gets full.
I know the feeling Katrina. Before I came up with my current "system," I was always forgetting -- and then kicking myself. Trader Joe's gives anyone bringing their own bag a raffle ticket toward a $25 Trader Joe's shopping spree, so it's really nice to have the bag in the car and be able to take advantage of that.