Lose the plastic bags, already
Published in the Boulder Daily Camera, 5/27/12
The City of Boulder is considering a way to improve the local environment that Boulderites might actually feel. No, I’m not referring to renewing our coveted Climate Action Plan that, despite it’s good intention to “think globally and act locally,” appears to have had no discernable influence on either our climate nor the policies of other cities that might have followed our lead. Nor am I referring to the much debated energy municiplization initiative that, so far, has yielded little beyond a few new City employees and about 150,000 more tons of CO2 than if we had just played nice with Xcel.
I’m talking about outlawing plastic bags.
While plastic bags do help us get the groceries home, my ethnic background of “frugal Scotsman” – the part that makes me save bits of string – leads me to believe that we should haul our groceries in reusable bags. In addition to thriftiness, reusable bags come with other small pleasures, like using Safeway bags when checking out at Whole Foods. But, I am a libertarian at heart and just because I think people should be thrifty and ornery doesn’t mean I can impose my values on everyone. I need more.
But, there is one more thing – plastic bags make great sails, know how to fly, and Boulder’s winds send them soaring. Is there anybody out there who has not had to extricate a plastic bag from a thorny bush in the last month? On my acre in the foothills I am constantly gathering bags that, I suspect, fly in from Aspen. It’s my civic duty to avoid dumping garbage downwind into the yards of my Front Range neighbors.
If flying bags showed some respect for borders, the problem might be manageable, but they seem to know no limits. Through some metaphysical process not yet understood by scientists, plastic bags are attracted to poorer parts of the world, like Mexico. Poor people have more pressing items on their agenda, like eating and keeping a roof over their heads, than picking up plastic bags that blew in from Boulder. I have traveled to Juarez and been shocked by the sea of plastic bags strewn all over the countryside. This is injustice on an international scale.
Perhaps the greatest sin of our current addiction to plastic bags, though, is that they are filling up our oceans. There’s that vortex in the Pacific Ocean that is teeming with plastic bags that will be there for centuries. Even worse, many of the bags that get to the ocean don’t even make it to the vortex before being eaten by fish, turtles, and whales. Apparently, Darwin has not yet found a way to stop these innocent creatures from thinking that the bags still contain the tasty tofu and bean curd treats that we Boulderites brought home in them.
I have lived in a world free of plastic bags, and I can say for certain that it was paradise. Maui banned plastic bags last year and, while I’m pretty sure Maui was paradise even with plastic bags, after they were gone, the groceries still made it home while the ocean and countryside were less littered. Paradise improved. Think about it, Boulder.
There are risks, though. As the movie Slum dog Millionaire taught us, people in the Third World use plastic bags in all sorts of ingenious ways, like carrying water and plugging leaks. My guess is that they aren’t using plastic bags from Boulder, but if we need to assuage our First World guilt, we can always do things like ship plastic bags to our new Cuban sister city who, I am sure, will be diligent in keeping them out of the nearby ocean.
Of course, there are those out there who will view the government taking away our right to plastic bags with patriotic fervor and bumper stickers will soon appear proclaiming “I’ll give you my plastic bag when you pry it from my cold dead hands.” But, c’mon, guys… lighten up. Taking away our plastic bags is not a liberty issue on the level of, say, taking away the right to walk our dog on open space or tube down Boulder Creek. Sometimes, you have to give a little to get a lot, and foregoing plastic bags is a small price to pay for saving whales and avoiding international incidents, to say nothing of keeping litter off the streets of Boulder. A cheap way to improve paradise, by any measure.
[email protected]
The City of Boulder is considering a way to improve the local environment that Boulderites might actually feel. No, I’m not referring to renewing our coveted Climate Action Plan that, despite it’s good intention to “think globally and act locally,” appears to have had no discernable influence on either our climate nor the policies of other cities that might have followed our lead. Nor am I referring to the much debated energy municiplization initiative that, so far, has yielded little beyond a few new City employees and about 150,000 more tons of CO2 than if we had just played nice with Xcel.
I’m talking about outlawing plastic bags.
While plastic bags do help us get the groceries home, my ethnic background of “frugal Scotsman” – the part that makes me save bits of string – leads me to believe that we should haul our groceries in reusable bags. In addition to thriftiness, reusable bags come with other small pleasures, like using Safeway bags when checking out at Whole Foods. But, I am a libertarian at heart and just because I think people should be thrifty and ornery doesn’t mean I can impose my values on everyone. I need more.
But, there is one more thing – plastic bags make great sails, know how to fly, and Boulder’s winds send them soaring. Is there anybody out there who has not had to extricate a plastic bag from a thorny bush in the last month? On my acre in the foothills I am constantly gathering bags that, I suspect, fly in from Aspen. It’s my civic duty to avoid dumping garbage downwind into the yards of my Front Range neighbors.
If flying bags showed some respect for borders, the problem might be manageable, but they seem to know no limits. Through some metaphysical process not yet understood by scientists, plastic bags are attracted to poorer parts of the world, like Mexico. Poor people have more pressing items on their agenda, like eating and keeping a roof over their heads, than picking up plastic bags that blew in from Boulder. I have traveled to Juarez and been shocked by the sea of plastic bags strewn all over the countryside. This is injustice on an international scale.
Perhaps the greatest sin of our current addiction to plastic bags, though, is that they are filling up our oceans. There’s that vortex in the Pacific Ocean that is teeming with plastic bags that will be there for centuries. Even worse, many of the bags that get to the ocean don’t even make it to the vortex before being eaten by fish, turtles, and whales. Apparently, Darwin has not yet found a way to stop these innocent creatures from thinking that the bags still contain the tasty tofu and bean curd treats that we Boulderites brought home in them.
I have lived in a world free of plastic bags, and I can say for certain that it was paradise. Maui banned plastic bags last year and, while I’m pretty sure Maui was paradise even with plastic bags, after they were gone, the groceries still made it home while the ocean and countryside were less littered. Paradise improved. Think about it, Boulder.
There are risks, though. As the movie Slum dog Millionaire taught us, people in the Third World use plastic bags in all sorts of ingenious ways, like carrying water and plugging leaks. My guess is that they aren’t using plastic bags from Boulder, but if we need to assuage our First World guilt, we can always do things like ship plastic bags to our new Cuban sister city who, I am sure, will be diligent in keeping them out of the nearby ocean.
Of course, there are those out there who will view the government taking away our right to plastic bags with patriotic fervor and bumper stickers will soon appear proclaiming “I’ll give you my plastic bag when you pry it from my cold dead hands.” But, c’mon, guys… lighten up. Taking away our plastic bags is not a liberty issue on the level of, say, taking away the right to walk our dog on open space or tube down Boulder Creek. Sometimes, you have to give a little to get a lot, and foregoing plastic bags is a small price to pay for saving whales and avoiding international incidents, to say nothing of keeping litter off the streets of Boulder. A cheap way to improve paradise, by any measure.
[email protected]
