Bag the question

All of Sonoma County’s local governments (nine cities and one
county) these days are tossing around one of the world’s oldest
philosophical questions that all of us are asked every day: paper
or plastic?
The county’s Waste Management Agency is proposing a countywide
ban on all plastic shopping bags, with all but two cities already
affirming the move.
There’s no question that the over-use of plastic bags is a waste
of energy and an environmental problem. Using paper bags without a
high rate of recycling is an equal waste and the county agency is
also proposing a user fee for each paper bag under the proposed
ordinance.
Sonoma County would not be the first to implement such a
region-wide ban and bag ordinance. And it also would not be the
first to duck another, equally monumental philosophical
question.
And that is, “should we legislate or educate” when it comes to
changing the public’s behavior?
Some of us already have had enough Big Brother laws about bike
helmets, tobacco smoking, vernal pools, smart meters and other
perceived erosions of our personal liberties.
Why should Big Government tell us in what kind of bags to put
our groceries in and bring home from market? Paper or plastic; the
answer is a test of our freedoms, or so some of us believe.
Well, not so fast. Even the California Grocers Association is
supporting a uniform approach across California to control the use
of the ubiquitous bags.
And, the superior answer to the “plastic or paper” question
always has been “neither.” More and more of us already have a new
habit of never shopping without our reuseable canvas tote bag in
hand, right?
Sonoma County residents used 232 million plastic bags last year.
That’s 1.3 per person, per day! Less than 10 percent of this
mountain of plastic was recycled or reused.
Over the same year’s period we used 46 million paper bags, a
total of just over two a week per person.
Just when Sonoma County’s governments are considering a plastic
and paper bag ordinance, a California legislator this week proposed
a law to ban all styrofoam food containers by the year 2016.
Democratic state Senator Alan Lowenthal introduced SB 568 to ban
polystyrene containers (not packaging) citing the millions in
public treasury costs to clean our beaches, rivers, streets and
storm drains. Lowenthal said 15 percent of all storm drain litter
can be traced to these throwaway containers.
So some people will want to know what’s next to be banned. Well,
how about banning individual serving-sized plastic water bottles?
Drilling for oil and refining hydrocarbons at no small expense to
hold six ounces of drinking water for a one-time use has to be the
height of our environmental stupidity.
Local author Dan Imhoff, of Healdsburg, wrote a book in 2005
entitled “Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an
Overpackaged World.”
While the author emphasizes consumer education and public
awareness about the negative impacts of living in an “overpackaged
society” he also clearly points out the marketing power of the
plastics, hydrocarbon and mega-retailer industries in America today
which have us average consumers way over-matched.
Perhaps a little legislative nudge in the right direction
wouldn’t be too bad after all. In fact, Imhoff and others declare
that less packaging, vacuum sealing and cartonization of our foods
and household needs would bring us expanded choices and better
consumer markets — more freedoms, not less.
Never to be asked the “paper or plastic” question again sounds
like a great liberating moment, doesn’t it? Right up there with
never being asked “and did you find everything you were looking for
today, sir?”
— Rollie Atkinson