Save or scrap the plastic bag?

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California looks set to be the first state to ban plastic bags completely and implement charges for single-use paper bags. The bill was passed at the State Assembly this week 41-27 and looks likely to be approved by the Senate. If the bill is signed into law, shoppers who don’t bring reusable bags would be subject to a nickel surcharge on every paper bag they use, and these bags must be made of 40 percent recycled materials.

Right now San Francisco has banned plastic bags from major chain grocery stores. However some other stores, like smaller businesses and convenience stores, still use them. The new legislation would take effect for large stores January 1, 2012 and then smaller businesses and convenience stores in 2013.

The measure, AB 1998, authored by Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, (D-Santa Monica) “would ban all of the single-use bags that have been polluting our oceans and waterways and threatening marine life," she said. Environmentalists place great blame on plastic bags for litter and the Pacific Garbage Patch, a huge stretch of trash in the North Pacific said to be the size of Texas. However, according to Project Kaisei, an organization based here in San Francisco,  which collects and analyzes samples and data from the patch, the exact size is unknown.

Steven Joseph, an attorney for Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, says that plastic bags are being demonized and the extent of their effect on the environment is being exaggerated.

He drew my attention to an article published in the London Times, quoting David Santillo,  a marine biologist with Greenpeace. “It’s very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags,” Santillo told the Times. “The evidence shows just the opposite. We are not going to solve the problem of waste by focusing on plastic bags. However when I looked on the Greenpeace website I saw a statement from campaign manager Steve Campbell, published online from March 12 2008, leaning towards the contrary:

"Plastic bags cause problems for waste management, contribute significantly to plastic litter on land and at sea and harm and kill wildlife. Greenpeace believes that a levy should be put on the use of plastic bags and ultimately they should be phased out. We encourage recycling and reuse in the short term. However, much more needs to be done to address the broader global plastic pollution problem. Plastic bags undoubtedly account for a proportion of the deaths of marine mammals, turtles and seabirds, in addition to other plastic waste such as old fishing nets," he said.

Joseph’s website illustrates many different arguments against the complete ban of plastic bags. One of his main concerns is that if plastic bags were banned, stores who provided a collection point to recycle plastic bags would be taken away. This leaves the consumer with nowhere convenient to dispose of them responsibly  Plastic bags cannot be put into domestic green recycling bins.

But why can’t plastic bags be put into domestic green bins? According to the recycling section of the Stanford University website, “plastic bags cannot be recycled with rigid containers because they have a different melting point. The plastic bags melt very quickly compared to rigid containers and therefore cannot be used in the same process.” So it seems that the process of separating rigid plastic containers and plastic bags in green bins would be tedious and time-consuming for recycling companies and thus not economically efficient.

Paper bags, however CAN be put into domestic green bins and easily recycled but with grocery stores generally “double bagging” for the most part, most people build up a large collection. Are all of these reused and recycled? In my own instance I use paper bags to hold recycleable items, so I can pop the whole lot in the green bin without much hassle.

However I almost always bring my reusable totes when grocery shopping. This may be because I try to be environmentally conscious and seeing all the papers bags being used at the store unsettles me. It may also be due to having lived in Ireland, where there is a government levy of 22 cents (Euro), (about $0.26) on each plastic bag you use. Personally, I don’t want to spend that much on single-use bags.

This levy goes towards an environmental fund used to manage litter and other environmental initiatives. According to official numbers released by the Irish Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the levy which came into effect on March 4,  2002. It had an almost immediate effect on consumer behavior, with plastic bag per capita usage decreasing from an estimated 328 bags to just 21. Other countries and cities across the world have also followed suit. Bangladesh banned polythene bags after it was found that they were blocking drainage systems and had been a major culprit during the 1988 and 1998 floods that submerged two-thirds of the country.

Now with California looking likely to follow their example, the question is, is a nickel enough to deter people from paying for single use bags? Or should it be more?