Plastic bags get a bad wrap

 

The late George Carlin said God made everything useful he could think of but met His match with plastic, which is why it is not found anywhere in Nature.  So he invented humans, just to get the plastic.

 

Alarmism knows no bounds.  The current theme is plastic supermarket bags.  Less than 1% of all plastic bags become litter, because we all recycle them.  Research by the Australian government shows that 2 per cent of annual expenditure on cleaning up litter is attributable to plastic bags.  In Ireland the figure has come out that just 0.3% of waste is plastic bags.  They are not a problem in landfill, where the biggest problem is paper, mainly newspaper, then wood, mainly from demolition, then concrete.  Landfill operators actually like plastic bags, they can be burned, they can be retrieved all at once, and if you're worried about CO2 they don't break down so can be considered good carbon sinks.  Plastic is very recyclable.  It can be melted down, passed through an extruder and made into plastic fence posts.

 

The bags do not kill animals or birds.  As to marine mammals the main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands.  Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.  The impact of bags on whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals ranges from nil for most species to very minor for perhaps a few species.  Yet you see the same old pictures of the same animals eating the same plastic bags repeated over and over.  Plastic bags have been around for 30 years so where are all the other pictures?

 

Plastic bags are biodegradable.  Polyethylene melts at 280deg.  Glass has to be heated to 700deg to recycle it.  In the sea, the sun, waves and wind break plastic bags down.  A bigger problem is from nurdles, the plastic debris discarded from factory wastes.  Plastic is recyclable.  Compare to glass which plastic replaced.  Glass takes as much energy to recycle as to make.  Plastic uses 100x less energy to recycle as to make.  Plastic is so cheap to make, all over the world they give bags away at street markets, at which some items are sold at even less than 10c.

 

Do the bags use up resources?  Hardly.  A pinhead of oil is all it takes to manufacture 1 plastic supermarket bag.  One teaspoonful would make 1300 bags, which means if you shopped every day for 3.5 years, received a bag and threw it away (assuming you didn't recycle it as most do) the amount of oil used in that whole 3.5 years worth of bags is only one teaspoonful.  One 600ml Coke bottle weighs the equivalent of 30-50 plastic bags but no one is calling Coke bottles a social evil.  One cup of oil is needed to make one disposable nappy on the landfill - in terms of oil represents 150,000 plastic bags.  At the rate of buying one bag a day and throwing it away, you'd have to shop for 400 years before those discarded bags equalled one nappy in oil used.

 

How do paper bags compare?  Greenhouse gases emitted in producing a paper bag are 5x greater than those from producing a plastic bag.  Paper bags are 6-7 times as bulky, require more transport fuel because the ratio of trucks is now 7:1, and fall apart after 1 use.  Paper bags rot and release more greenhouse gases.  I thought that's something we're trying to avoid.  Paper bags use up trees, and the industry is filthy because they rot so quickly and encourage rats.  Because they are also more expensive to produce, so we will also be charged for them eventually.

 

It is no accident that plastic bags have evolved.  There is a reason we use them.  They are hygienic, handy and hardy.  Plastic is healthy because it retains juices and prevents contamination.  Our health will suffer if plastic is banned.  Who will front the extra medical bills from salmonella?  When every supermarket item from meat through to cheese and each loaf of bread is covered in some form of plastic wrap, and nearly all solids are sealed in plastic cartons and even paid for using plastic notes, it is hard to see how the non-use of the one final bag at the checkout alters the universal use of this material.  If we outlaw plastic, where are we going to start?

 

If fundraising for charities is the focus, then the question may be asked why it is not done purely in the name of charities and not in the name of the environment, because that science simply isn't there.  There are more realistic goals.  We could improve and increase our rubbish collections.  Many suburbs are only allowed one small bin or one rubbish bag.  We could introduce refund systems for bottles and bags, as of twenty years ago.  One never saw discarded bottles lying in gutters when return of them fetched 4 pence for the small and 8 pence for the large.  We could introduce vending machines so people can get refills to shampoo bottles etc.  We should be tackling packaging waste, because so much is unnecessary.  Often we find products in sealed bags within boxes and the surrounding box also has a plastic shrink-wrap covering.  We could bring down the cost of fuel to get the country moving again, bringing about more jobs and more productivity.  We could take away regulations and permit systems all which stifle economic growth.  We could establish a consumer watchdog department that stood outside of state-funded science which is now more political that knowledge-based.  This would enable projects to progress in a cost-effective manner.  Through such a body all applications for research funding could pass before grants for billions of dollars went out for silly things, like the question of tiny fractions of a yearly degree the planet might be heating, or the fractions of a millimetre the sea may be rising, or which glaciers are retreating and which are advancing.  Also whether planting a tree in Ponsonby melts Antarctica ice or not.  Just about the only thing they haven't thought of so far to study is whether the tide is coming in at the correct angle or not.

 

© Ken Ring