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+--- Thread: Council to Decide on Plastic Bags for Big Island (/showthread.php?tid=2438)
RE: Council to Decide on Plastic Bags for Big Island - mattastic78 - 08-08-2008
quote:
Originally posted by aprild
Matt, Matt, Matt.
Why don't you research some info on the production of paper bags and post it? Perhaps you can even find an article which compares paper vs. plastic. Then we'd have some real facts to sink our teeth into. And you'd be able to back up your claim.
For you to think I'd be spouting off without doing my own research is slightly insulting to me. And I really shouldn't have to post links to websites telling you why it takes more gas to transport paper bags, since it's fairly obvious how much heavier and how much more volume they occupy.
But I'll bite, this one summarizes the whole issue well.
http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/1268.html
Please pay attention to where the site specifically points out how plastic is "better" than paper when looking at the production, transport and the landfill issues. Please also note where the site actually says paper is better than plastic when talking about sea life. The site covers ALL the issues of BOTH sides very well, don't you think?
My point is, you can't sit there and say let's ban plastic without looking at the larger issue. A simple ban on plastic is going to have the immediate effect of more consumption of paper bags, which is in some ways opposite of the intended outcome.... a healthier environment.
My preferred solution is a bill which gives incentives to use re-usable bags. This would be the most environmentally friendly solution.
By the way, I did find out 711 will put my 6 pack in my re-usable cloth bag, instead of forcing me to put it in plastic! Awesome!
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RE: Council to Decide on Plastic Bags for Big Island - mattastic78 - 08-08-2008
quote:
Originally posted by Glen
Chicobags are sturdy, strong, reusable, and the energy expended to create them will pollute China only! (And that place is a lost cause).
Excuse me if you're joking, but if not...
That's the most ignorant thing I've seen in this thread yet! Concern for the environment is a global issue, not a local one.
RE: Council to Decide on Plastic Bags for Big Island - Kelena - 08-08-2008
Yeah, I'm joking and you are awfully snippy for a new guy.
RE: Council to Decide on Plastic Bags for Big Island - mattastic78 - 08-08-2008
quote:
Originally posted by Glen
Yeah, I'm joking and you are awfully snippy for a new guy.
"Snippy" is a polite way of saying it I guess. [
]RE: Council to Decide on Plastic Bags for Big Island - Bob Orts - 08-08-2008
In response to the emails, here are the impact factors-
Manufacturing: All reputable environmental groups have agreed that the manufacturing of paper grocery bags has a much greater negative impact on the environment versus the manufacturing of plastic bags. They all agree that a paper bag is a very poor replacement for plastic bags
Logistics: The cost to transport manufactured bags to the end user favors plastic bags. It would take 8 commercial trailers of paper bags to equal 1 of plastic bags. The energy and pollution generated by those additional vehicles must be factored in. Additionally, paper bags have a higher spoilage rate versus plastic bags and require larger storage areas.
Cost: Although the per piece cost is negligible, even at only one cent, a store using 50,000 bags a year will be spending over $500 to use paper versus plastic in the purchase price, not factoring in distribution cost. Overall, there isn’t that much real cost to the individual consumer but a significant increase in the overall cost of shopping when all consumers are considered.
Use/Re-use: The preliminary numbers show a sharp increase in sales of plastic food bags and garbage bags in San Francisco. The initial estimates are that as much as 75% of the sales of those bags are due to the reduction of plastic grocery bags. People are just buying commercially packaged plastic bags to take the place of the plastic bags they got from shopping.
Solid Waste: The number of plastic grocery bags has been reduced in the waste stream, but an increase in garbage bags has been reported. Additionally, the alternative compostable and biodegradable bags are still ending up in the landfill instead of being recycled. Concerns are being raised that tonnage of landfill material has spiked after the ban due in part to the extra bulk of paper bags. there is also a need to educate people that a paper bag in a landfill does not decompose for decades.
Environment: No withstanding any claims otherwise, plastic bags when improperly disposed of presents a serious threat to the environment. How big that threat is compared to the serious threat from paper bag manufacturing and distribution has not been determined.
RE: Council to Decide on Plastic Bags for Big Island - Bob Orts - 08-08-2008
Here are some issues that came up since the SF ban regarding the 4 types of approved bags.
Paper Bags: Paper bag pollution has increased. The number of paper bags making its way into the recycling stream has not met the targets. It appears many end up as trash.
Biodegradable Plastic Bags: The preliminary information seems to be they are despised by the people. They begin turning into a “gooey mess” whenever they come into contact with moisture. They are being shunned and when used are discarded immediately and not reused for anything. Because their main ingredient is corn, the same concerns raised about diversion of food for fuel is being raise about the diversion of food for shopping bags.
Compostable Bags: Environmentally they are considered a poor replacement to plastic since the plastic isn’t converted just broken apart into tiny plastic grains. These bags are prohibited from most compost facilities. The compostable requirement is heat in excess of 140 degrees. These bags can retain their original shape and form for hundreds of years, just like plastic bags if they are not exposed to the high heat. When they enter the water systems, they are just like plastic bags and pose the exact same threat to wildlife. They may be banned after the next review.
Reusable Bags: The preferred choice.
RE: Council to Decide on Plastic Bags for Big Island - aprild - 08-08-2008
Matt,
I won't be insulted by your misreadings of my posts and your rather, I agree, 'snippy' posts if you won't be insulted by my suggesting that you post something to back up your claims.
Thanks for the post. It informs everyone who reads the thread. I'm not at all convinced that plastic is better than paper. Paper bags should be recycled and reused. They should not go into landfills. Perhaps there needs to be money given for paper bags that are returned, too.
I don't think any remedy should be 'simple,' but carefully thought out. That means that commensurate with getting rid of plastic bags, there is a thoughtful alternative. Humans are going to dispose of everything they use, eventually. Hemp, anyone?
I think that the trade-off for paper vs. plastic vis-a-vis killing off ocean life (eventually all of it) still tells me that I would pick paper.
To simply say that turtles and other sea life eat the bags and die is to not understand fully what is happening in the ocean: the tiny bits which the plastic breaks into becomes part of the oceanic 'soup.' This soup is usually composed of plankton and other easily decomposed material, but now is impossibly mixed with tiny, tiny bits of plastic. This imperils the smallest life, phytoplankton, which is the basis for all life on the planet.
This is the guy I have been most influenced by, Charles Moore:
"We cannot wait for more studies. If there is any time left to turn this around, there isn’t much. My own opinion is that there is no good plastic and that we must immediately end or at least put severe limitations on its use."
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Sea-Plastic-LN-PG5oct05.htm
"I often struggle to find words that will communicate the vastness of the Pacific Ocean to people who have never been to sea. Day after day, Alguita was the only vehicle on a highway without landmarks, stretching from horizon to horizon. Yet as I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean, I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic."
"Trash has always been tossed into the seas, but it has been broken down in a fairly short time into carbon dioxide and water by marine microorganisms."
"What we saw amazed us. We were looking at a rich broth of minute sea creatures mixed with hundreds of colored plastic fragments-a plastic-plankton soup."
"In 2001, in the Marine Pollution Bulletin, we published the results of our survey and the analysis we had made of the debris, reporting, among other things, that there are six pounds of plastic floating in the North Pacific subtropical gyre for every pound of naturally occurring zooplankton."
"Entanglement and indigestion, however, are not the worst problems caused by the ubiquitous plastic pollution. Hideshige Takada, an environmental geochemist at Tokyo University, and his colleagues have discovered that floating plastic fragments accumulate hydrophobic-that is, non-water-soluble-toxic chemicals. Plastic polymers, it turns out, are sponges for DDT, PCBs, and other oily pollutants. The Japanese investigators found that plastic resin pellets concentrate such poisons to levels as high as a million times their concentrations in the water as free-floating substances."
"The potential scope of the problem is staggering. Every year some 5.5 quadrillion (5.5 x 1015) plastic pellets—about 250 billion pounds of them—are produced worldwide for use in the manufacture of plastic products. When those pellets or products degrade, break into fragments, and disperse, the pieces may also become concentrators and transporters of toxic chemicals in the marine environment. Thus an astronomical number of vectors for some of the most toxic pollutants known are being released into an ecosystem dominated by the most efficient natural vacuum cleaners nature ever invented: the jellies and salps living in the ocean. After those organisms ingest the toxins, they are eaten in turn by fish..."
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm
NOW READ CAREFULLY: There is a solution and that would be to, over time, require everyone to bring their own bags. If one forgets, then, for a small fee (I paid $1 for a huge Home Depot re-usable bag) a reusable bag can be bought. I think money to buy back plastic for recycling is also important.
I came to some of my conclusions by reading others' posts which informed me, not only of the facts, but also of others' ideas and preferences. This was elucidating.
Since I believe that, when the oceans and everything in them die, then humans are next, I think that keeping plastic out of the ocean is THE most important thing. There is already so much CO2 created by the U.S., China, corporations, coal burning, the military, cutting down the rain forest; methane from raising meat, etc. that I don't know if transporting paper bags is the biggest or worst culprit. But, bottom line, it seems that we must quit doing all these things that are destroying the earth's environment.
Biggest problem, bottom line? Too many people.
p.s. I was beginning to think Matt was a troll, but preferred to give him the benefit of the doubt. That's one of the reasons I asked you to post some research, Matt. I thought that, if you didn't, it would mean that you were just here to see what sort of trouble you could stir up.
april
RE: Council to Decide on Plastic Bags for Big Island - mella l - 08-09-2008
For some people pictures are better than words! LOL Try googling North Pacific Gyre and get an eye full. This is serious, and the health of our oceans need vast attending too. Here is a photo of a seaport, but the swell of plastic garbage in the Pacific (google Pacific Garbage Vortex) is more than 1,000 square miles and growing exponentially.
http://synthesismagazine.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/pollution.jpg
Sometimes wonder if newbies even have a clue about the sound of their voice??
mella l
RE: Council to Decide on Plastic Bags for Big Island - james weatherford - 08-09-2008
Here are some links to someone who is out there doing and not just sitting around talking, Captain Charles Moore:
http://www.alguita.com/feature.html
http://www.algalita.org/
http://orvalguita.blogspot.com/
James Weatherford, Ph.D.
15-1888 Hialoa
Hawaiian Paradise Park
RE: Council to Decide on Plastic Bags for Big Island - Kapohocat - 08-09-2008
quote:
...NOW READ CAREFULLY: There is a solution and that would be to, over time, require everyone to bring their own bags. If one forgets, then, for a small fee (I paid $1 for a huge Home Depot re-usable bag) a reusable bag can be bought. I think money to buy back plastic for recycling is also important.
So far except for the hemp bags, and the reusable bags my mom or aunties sew for us from cotton, the bags I see for purchase are made with plastic of some sort.
Any thoughts?