Ban the Ban on Plastic Bags

Earlier this week I asked What Makes a Ban Progressive?" and had a nice exchange with Emily Mills. I had linked to a post she had written in favor of banning plastic bags. Just before my post above I started listening to a BBC radio documentary called Driven By Oil and it is alarming. With the information I heard there and Emily's comments & post in mind, I decided to investigate plastic bags just a bit more.

The result? Get yourself canvas or cloth bags.

Emily said what I think a lot of people here in Madison feel:

As you can see from the above list, a plastic bag and bottle reduction plan wouldn't be as bizarre and infeasible as some of those in the opposing camp might have us believe. It would be part of the very welcome and much needed green revolution that's slowly but surely taking hold worldwide.

There is little doubt in my mind that Madison will ban plastic bags. I honestly don't know if this will mean more paper bags, the prevalence of some kind of biodegradable bag made out of corn starch usage, or whether everyone will go cloth. As this article in the San Francisco Chronicle notes, however, grocers there are heading towards more paper bags since they're cheaper and more readily available than other alternatives. With more paper bags being used, what does this mean for the environment? Is Emily right? Would banning plastic bags be more "green"?

Plastic bags don't biodegrade – we all know this. And they make for unsightly litter. But do Emily and supporters of the ban on plastic bags know that paper bags "generate 70 percent more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags"? Paper bags take up "a lot more landfill space" as well. (See above link.) The Institute for Lifecycle Environmental Assessment concluded:

Through a lifecycle energy analysis, plastic is the better bag. At current recycling rates two plastic bags use less energy and produce less solid, atmospheric, and waterborne waste than a single paper bag. Moreover future improvements only increase preference in plastic bags. Increasing recycling rates and reducing the 2-to-1 ratio through proper bagging techniques would further the energy preference for plastic bags.

Check out these Top 10 Myths About Plastic Grocery Bags:

Myth #2:
Paper grocery bags are a better environmental choice than plastic bags.

Fact:
Plastic bags are 100% recyclable and for all environmental impacts related to air emissions, water emissions and solid waste – those of paper bags are significantly greater than that of plastic grocery bags:

~~Plastic bags use 40% less energy to produce and generate 80% less solid waste than paper.
~~Paper bags generate 70% more emissions, and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.
~~Even paper bags made from 100% recycled fiber use more fossil fuels than plastic bags.

Myth #5:
Plastic bags feed America’s addiction to oil.

Fact:
Plastic bags are extraordinarily energy-efficient to manufacture. Eighty percent of the plastic used to make plastic bags in the U.S. comes from North American Natural Gas, not oil. Less than .05% of a barrel of oil goes into making all the plastic bags used in the US while 93% - 95% of every barrel of crude oil is burned for fuel and heating purposes. Although they are made from natural gas or oil, plastic bags actually consume less fossil fuels during their lifetime than do compostable plastic and paper bags. (Emphasis mine.)

Folks are pointing to San Francisco and saying, "Well, they banned plastic bags". According to the above site, "San Francisco is requiring that larger grocery stores and larger chain pharmacies use paper bags or compostable plastic bags instead of 100% recyclable bags." In other words, the city of San Francisco is requiring that more energy be used, not less. Instead of immediately jumping on the Plastic is Evil bandwagon, perhaps we can consider potential outcomes. None of the blog posts I've read in support of the ban spent any words considering an increase in the use of paper and compostable bags and the attendant pollution and energy usage associated with them. It was just assumed that plastic bags are a pox upon our house and that ridding ourselves of them would automatically bestow benefits.

And what about banning the sale of bottled water at public events? If someone wants water, are they turned away if they haven't brought a drinking container with them? Whatever we do, let's think twice before we hand out paper cups. A chemist at the University of Victoria named Martin Hocking studied paper cups and here are some of his findings:

Hocking calculates that paper cups contain six times as much raw material by weight. On average, paper cups weigh 10.1 grams; a polystyrene cup weighs only 1.5 grams. 'The paper cup consumes about 12 times as much steam, 36 times as much electricity and twice as much cooling water. About 580 times the volume of waste water is produced for the pulp required for the paper cup,' says Hocking.

The effluent from paper making contains 10 to 100 times the amount of contaminants produced in the manufacture of polystyrene foam. For each tonne of bleached pulp, 22.7 kilograms of air pollutants are generated, compared with 53 kilograms for each tonne of polystyrene. But cup for cup the polystyrene generates less air pollution.

According to Hocking, paper cups cannot be recycled because they contain chemical additives. Contrary to popular belief, the polystyrene ones can. Nor do paper cups break down quickly if buried. Even if they did, the breakdown of just 2 per cent of the paper in the cup would give off methane to match the greenhouse warming potential produced by all the pentane gas used to 'blow' the foam of a polystyrene cup.

Demonizing plastic containers and calling for a ban doesn't seem particularly green to me in light of the above statistics. If any of these are wrong or need to be updated to reflect 2008 technology, please let me know. Banning evil plastics and going with "natural" alternatives sure sounds nice but can anyone here in Madison that is in favor of banning plastic bags point me to any evidence that doing so actually saving energy? I'd love to see it. Ditto for bottled water at public events. Because, unless the city can do something to stop the use of paper bags concomitant to stopping the use of plastic ones, then merely banning those handy, collapsible, water-resistant white containers is nothing but a feel good measure. The problem isn't the inside your grocery store in the form of plastic bags. The problem is outside in the parking lot.

If grocery bags are to be the next environmental battleground, then let us forego a ban on 100% recyclable plastic bags and start recycling them. Perhaps we can tax paper and plastic and use that money to provide cloth or canvas bags. Or maybe we can use that lucre to have those bags turned into diesel fuel.

So, as Madison begins deliberating the above bans with all good intentions, can we take off our green blinders and set aside biases against the petrochemical industry for a moment and try to consider all aspects of the path we're paving? I suspect that won't happen.

For your consideration: Cloth bags made in the U.S.A.