I was surprised by the chart that says that paper bags are worse than plastic, but if you click on the chart and the resulting source, you find a study done in Australia that indeed supports those numbers. It says several things though: Paper bags biodegrade, and biodegrading produces CO2, and is an easily quantifiable value. Plastic bags don't, they continue to be plastic bags for a very long time. A certain number of bags get littered: the paper ones you can't even find after a year, the plastic ones get eaten and then kill animals, but those numbers aren't studied/quantifiable, so for the purpose of the graphs they are assumed to be "zero" (which is obviously incorrect, but they don't know what the real number is.) The do point out that they do know what that number is in Bangladesh, (where there is no trash service, and so most (~85%) of bags end up in the gutter, blocking it, and then causing flooding,) but they don't have an estimate for 1st world countries...
They also make the assumption that paper and plastic bags hold the same amount of stuff per bag, something I seriously doubt. (Maybe Australian paper bags are smaller than US ones.)
But in any case, reading that does make me support the $.05 paper tax.
The Australian study also talks about the reuse issue, (people use the bags for trash can liners or pets waste or whatever.) In various other places where bags have been banned there has been a small increase in trash can bag sales, however, there is still a large reduction in bags use overall.
The "tax on the poor" issue is also addressed: They'll save money. The average person pays $10/year for shopping bag, (not directly, but in hidden costs attached to the actual purchases.) Assuming a $1.50/reusable bag, (I think I bought mine for 99 cents,) and a 2 year life, (mine are older than 2 years,) they'll save several dollars a year.
There was an increase in shopping basket theft in Ireland after the ban was introduced, but that has since subsided. However, they point out that that was only in stores where the shopping baskets left the store, in stores where you turned them in at the register, (like almost all stores in the US,) that was a non-issue.
By far the biggest negative impact of the ban is seen by the people that manufacture plastic bags. (Why do you think they spent $1.5M fighting it in Seattle?) In Australia many of those manufacturers are local, (Australia has a lot of oil after all,) where as in Oregon they are not...
Is there any way to escape the eco-guilt? What if I just sit very very still staring at the wall until I die? But then my corpse could fall over and crush some endangered house spider. I'll have to do it in the bath tub.
You guys should stretch out my internal organs and turn them into reusable grocery bags. Waste no part of the Blabby.
@Blabby: I had to listen to some guy telling me at lunch today that I should cut the labels of my shirt because I was using more oxygen riding by bicycle because I weighed more with the labels on. He wanted to e-mail me a study he'd done about it too, but I told I couldn't give him my business card because that would be heavy and would use paper.
What I didn't tell him was that I'm pretty sure the conversation used more oxygen than I'd save by cutting the labels off my shirt. And if I really wanted to save oxygen I should clean my chain, (although I should do that anyways.) And I though he was a freak: I'm pretty sure he scared a guy away from the bag recycling section at New Seasons, even before he told me about my shirt tags...
As long as it gets press for Adams.
They also make the assumption that paper and plastic bags hold the same amount of stuff per bag, something I seriously doubt. (Maybe Australian paper bags are smaller than US ones.)
But in any case, reading that does make me support the $.05 paper tax.
The Australian study also talks about the reuse issue, (people use the bags for trash can liners or pets waste or whatever.) In various other places where bags have been banned there has been a small increase in trash can bag sales, however, there is still a large reduction in bags use overall.
The "tax on the poor" issue is also addressed: They'll save money. The average person pays $10/year for shopping bag, (not directly, but in hidden costs attached to the actual purchases.) Assuming a $1.50/reusable bag, (I think I bought mine for 99 cents,) and a 2 year life, (mine are older than 2 years,) they'll save several dollars a year.
There was an increase in shopping basket theft in Ireland after the ban was introduced, but that has since subsided. However, they point out that that was only in stores where the shopping baskets left the store, in stores where you turned them in at the register, (like almost all stores in the US,) that was a non-issue.
By far the biggest negative impact of the ban is seen by the people that manufacture plastic bags. (Why do you think they spent $1.5M fighting it in Seattle?) In Australia many of those manufacturers are local, (Australia has a lot of oil after all,) where as in Oregon they are not...
You guys should stretch out my internal organs and turn them into reusable grocery bags. Waste no part of the Blabby.
To the Vita Cafe!
What I didn't tell him was that I'm pretty sure the conversation used more oxygen than I'd save by cutting the labels off my shirt. And if I really wanted to save oxygen I should clean my chain, (although I should do that anyways.) And I though he was a freak: I'm pretty sure he scared a guy away from the bag recycling section at New Seasons, even before he told me about my shirt tags...
Use a condom and quit breeding hippies !