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We ought to bag the plastic bag tax
Susan Lee
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TEXT OF COMMENTARY
Kai Ryssdal: In San Francisco this week, plans are afoot among city officials to expand their ban on plastic shopping bags. Three years ago the city outlawed plastic bags in grocery stores and chain drug stores. The talk now is of extending it to all businesses there. Other cities have tried to control what has been called the "urban tumbleweed" by charging for bags at the checkout aisle.
Commentator Susan Lee says that's not the way to go either.
Susan Lee: I live in New York City, which happens to be the plastic-bag center of the universe. According to one estimate, New Yorkers use over 3 billion bags a year.
Most of these bags are reused as liners for garbage buckets or as pooper-scoopers. But a lot of them just blow around -- and get caught in trees where they hang forever.
Well, a total ban seems a bit extreme. So I was interested when Washington D.C. started taxing bags this year. All grocery and convenience stores now charge five cents per bag -- paper or plastic. Lots of people don't want to pay, so stores use about half as many bags as they did before the tax.
Hoo-Ha, I thought. A bag tax produces a trifecta of good things -- less repulsive litter, less environmental damage and less waste in general.
However, it turns out that I was wrong.
Yes, fewer bags do cut down on repulsive litter. But only on the margin. A huge majority of street litter consists of paper and cigarette butts.
As for the environment -- plastic bags may be better than the alternative. Certainly they're better than paper bags. And those durable, poly-bags require more energy to produce. And unlike flimsy plastic bags, they aren't recyclable.
Same goes for waste. Beyond lining wastebaskets or picking up after pets, plastic bags are deployed as lunch boxes or totes for ancient tennis shoes.
Clearly, the need for some sort of bag won't disappear. Instead, other less energy-efficient bags will be purchased.
According to the Tax Foundation, at least 15 states have bag-tax laws in the pipeline.
It makes me very sad to say this, but we probably ought to bag the bag tax.
Ryssdal: Susan Lee is an economist living, as she said, in New York City. Take a second, no matter where you are, and send us your thoughts.
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The Scoop on the Poop Sadly, AB 1998 failed to pass the California State Senate. Among the objectors to the Bag Ban are pet owners who rely on plastic bags for pooper-scooping. If I love my pet, why would I object to picking up behind it with paper instead of plastic? A piece of junk mail that would otherwise go straight from the mail box to the dumpster is an excellent choice for cleaning up behind Rover. Another objection is about bacteria. Like most Europeans, I haven�t used a plastic bag in years and have yet to be threatened by germs lurking in my reusables or in my immense inventory of paper bags that will last me for the rest of my life. I have a stash of them, as do most of us, clean and ready to carry whatever I need, as long as I remember to take them into the store. And, I get a 5 cent credit when I do so. Unless it�s a gift bag for a special occasion, I won�t pay for a bag. Never have, never will. But I need plastic bags to line my trash cans! I used to think so, until I quit cold turkey. What�s the big deal about lining the trash can? Put food scraps in the compost bin, separate cans, bottles, paper, and plastic according to the recycling guidelines, and wash the container out occasionally. And, for heaven�s sake, quit with the yard waste plastic bags. You want to talk about baggies and ziplocks? Don�t get me started. Everything ends up in the landfill, folks. Or the ocean. Creative alternatives exist for anyone who wants to live more simply and cares about how they leave the planet for the next generation. We are addicted to plastic, not unlike any other habit that prevents us from living a smarter, healthier lifestyle. Ya think there�s a connection to cancer, diabetes, asthma, allergies, etc? The latest research says autism and Altzheimer�s as well. I have three dangerous words for you ... plastic, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals. I am sickened by the amount of single-use plastic I�ve seen at all the �pink events�. And they don�t want to talk about it. What about recycling? How�s this for an analogy? If we are all cigarette smokers and we have this great idea to collect all the filters and remake them into a useful product ... aren�t we still addicted to smoking? That�s what�s happening with a FEW of the plastic bags and bottles. Did you see Sanja Gupta�s �Toxic America�? What he exposed cannot be denied ... toxicants from chemical factories and refineries, mostly in poor neighborhoods, fouling the water, land, and air. Many in the government have their heads �in the sand� on this and other issues. Charlie Moore at www.algalita.org will tell you that the sand is polluted with lots and lots of plastic. And, cigarette butts are some of the most common trash found on our beautiful beaches. Millions of them! Am I suggesting that we live without plastic, oil, and chemicals? Of course not. But, where is it OK to dump this stuff? Unfortunately recycling is not the answer. Beware of the chemical industry and plastic manufacturers who support �bottle bills� and who defeated AB 1998 because they don�t want their profits touched by this common sense legislation. Jobs? I am all in favor of jobs, but not at any price. We all know our economy depends on having more manufacturing here in the US. Is there some reason these factories can�t retool to produce something sustainable? The scoop ... 19 billion plastic bags a year in our state ... and the poop, are both hitting the proverbial fan. Comments? Clkk411@aol.com
Well I'm glad that after hearing this commentary, which I was shocked made it onto NPR's airways, that a littany of listeners have commented on the absurd nature and sophmoric ideas expressed by Susan Lee in her commentary on plastic bags. She really needs to do a better job with her research and comparing both sides of an issue. Paper bags are biodegradable and recyclable while plastic bags may be recyclable but are not biodegradable. The more durable bags or totes being sold as substitues are to be used indefinetly and never thrown out...so when Susan says that they take more energy to produce..how does she account for their durability and reusability? Not to mention there are many different kinds of totes being sold and made from many different kinds of materials. The level of screening for this story was astonishingly abysmall
I'm glad to be merely the latest in a long line of those condemning Ms. Lee's "plastic is better than paper" assertion (although I believe she was referring to the heavy reusable plastic bags). While I usually bring such reusables with me to shop, I find myself taking a few paper bags to use in the kitchen wastebasket and for the weekly recyclables mixed paper & newsprint. I feel less guilty reusing paper bags for these purposes, knowing they'll break down in landfills, unlike the plastic alternative.
Funny, I seem to remember a time before flimsy plastic bags, and people got along just fine until someone saw some profit in replacing paper with plastic and people (again) bought into the whole cheap-and-convenient over sustainable-and-responsible. Ms. Lee (and many politicians) seem to think that if an idea doesn't immediately and completely solve a problem, we're better off without it. It's sad that so many people will swallow an argument like this, despite its complete lack of logic. Many of our larger problems have become so because they have been ignored for so long, and so there can be no single solution, and no solution will come without sacrifice on our part.
PLEASE do your own research. Plastic is killing our environment. This is a throw-away commentary that adds to the superficial dog-poo that covers the sidewalk of our lives. Thanks once again NPR for failing to do justice to a very important issue.
It is shocking that you would air this flip commentary on such a vital topic, without at the very least presenting a more informed point of view! According to Ms. Lee, the plastic bags that are used for garbage and dog poop must somehow end up in plastic bag heaven, rather than going directly into our environment, unlike those nasty escapees, that flutter in the trees! She goes on to say that plastic is certainly better than paper- why? Perhaps this commentator has some lucrative oil investments stocks that would account for such ludicrous statements. Maybe she fears that we might end up like Ireland, where a mere 5 cent charge per bag reduced their use by 95%!
It is my understanding that the life of a plastic bag is 1,000 years. Well in that case Miss Lee can use them into her next life!
She doesn’t know the damage she is contributing to this problem. I guess she also thinks there is no global warming!
The European community has gone this route with plastic bags and they have changed their habits. Something we are unable to do unless there is a law or a tax. We don’t seem to get the idea in our heads that we are killing the very source of life. There is so much plastic in the environment it’s in our bodies. Look for the web site that shows the islands of plastic in the ocean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
The Irish have special wrapping paper that they use to wrap meat and fish that protects and is biodegradable. Why are we so far behind? Well it’s simple, the government and people do not want to change. But please present them with the facts on the front pages of the newspapers and televisions about the possible death of Earth. Then you might get change.
When the last living thing
Has died on account of us,
How poetical it would be
If Earth could say,
In a voice floating up
Perhaps
From the floor
Of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done."
People did not like it here."
— Kurt Vonnegut
Had to comment on this one, because I don't think I have ever heard an NPR story that was less supported by the facts: 1) a little reduction in litter is still a good thing, certainly better than nothing 2) paper is undoubtably better than plastic; trees are renewable, oil is not 3) The best choice, a reusable bag, may take more energy to produce, but they last a very long time (I've had mine for over 10 years)
Despite not necessarily agreeing with Ms. Lee assessment of the paper vs. plastic conundrum, I applaud Marketplace for doing a story that questions what many take as a given: that plastic bags are the worst option for the environment. Too often, people, companies, and even governments get behind a popular eco-concept without looking deeply enough to understand the whole issue (ethanol being a prime example).
If Ms. Lee's story could have included more data and taken all alternatives into consideration (reusable cloth bags, etc.), this might have been the perfect story. As it is, I applaud the effort esp. when feedback such as that above was bound to follow.
Thanks Marketplace for keeping us thinking.
I'm no economist but I can confidently say that a durable cloth bag used over and over is by far the best choice. The author states "A huge majority of street litter consists of paper and cigarette butts." Paper biodegrades. Plastic does not. Cigarette butts are still a problem, but banning the bag tax won't do anything about it. But using a bag tax to pay for street cleaning will.
Plastic is a killer. Plastic pollution chokes marine animals, birds, zoo animals (alligators and giraffes), and even desert mammals (camels, endangered lynx...). Plastic bags are a scourge, and it is time for them to go.
Marketplace: if you do a follow up, here's the perfect song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVh15aUt8-c
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