SWRC Blog: Boiling Blood and Bag Bans

A recent article in the Financial Post criticizing Montreal’s ban on shopping bags “Plastic bag bans are actually terrible for the environment and make us sicker” has my blood boiling. Before we discuss the content, let’s start with the lack of references. Even direct quotations are not referenced. This is not good journalism. Include your sources, man, they’re readily available (I found them).
The gist of the article is that disposable plastic shopping bags are necessary because they save us from the health hazards of reusable bags. He cites the author of a 2011 study (paid for in part by the American Chemistry Council), who sampled reusable shopping bags in California and Arizona and found bacteria on most of them and E-coli on 8 percent. What would have been truly shocking would be if they had found zero bacteria. Microbes are everywhere. [I recommend I Contain Multitudes for a comprehensive look at our relationship with bacteria, I learned a lot.]
The purpose of the study was to see if there was the potential for groceries to be cross contaminated if reusable bags were used. The researchers added meat juice to reusable bag material and put it in a car trunk on a hot day (temperatures reached 47-53 degrees C) for two hours and found a 10-fold increase in bacteria. (Talk about boiling blood.)
So, if you have leaky meat, don’t leave it in your trunk for two hours on really really hot days? Not rocket science folks. Also, researchers found that washing bags removed more than 99.9% of bacteria and that most people reported not washing their bags. Their main message: wash your bags folks.
A second study mentioned in the article points to an increase in the number of emergency room visits and deaths from bacteria-related illnesses in San Francisco immediately following the city’s bag ban. What the author failed to mention was that the study was unpublished (i.e., not subject to peer review) and its findings have been debunked by San Francisco’s Health Officer. Their conclusions aren’t true.
Back to banning plastic shopping bags. Canadians use 2.86 billion bags a year – that’s about 200 for each household (Globe & Mail). Plastic shopping bags are made from non-renewable resources. They are designed to be used once and discarded. To me, this means that the ‘market’ for reduction is huge. Reusable bags (occasionally washed :) ) can go a long way toward decreasing plastic bag use.
Some retailers have stepped up to reduction by charging a fee to discourage bag use. Other retailers, like Costco, don’t even offer shopping bags. I’ve never heard anyone refuse to shop at Costco because they don’t supply bags (if you have, I’d like to hear from you). Another useful reduction technique would be to train all cashiers to ask the question: “would you like a bag with that?” Don’t give us a bag for one or two items that are in their own packages already. It serves no purpose.
Some shopping bags are used again for pet waste or garbage or other things, depending on the state of the bag. I think it’s worth noting that not all plastic bags disappear under a bag ban. Bread bags, food bags and other package-type bags tend not to be included. These could be reused for some purposes. Certainly not all bags are reused. Even the plastic industry (who we would expect the highest numbers from) estimates reuse at 40-60%, which leaves at least 1.1 billion bags out there.
Some shopping bags are recycled, although not all programs accept them (here in Saskatchewan, Regina’s program doesn’t allow them. BC’s program has kicked them out of the blue box). Remember, recycling is the third “R” for a reason – it’s the least environmentally preferable. Recycling requires resources – to collect, process and ship to market.
Another problem that is not often pointed out to the public: plastic bags make a big mess in recycling facilities. They get tangled in the machinery and require frequent shutdowns to clean them out. I don’t know any operators of recycling plants that would oppose a bag ban (again, happy to hear otherwise).
Plastic bags (film) have one of the lowest values in plastic recycling. Recent market upheavals have resulted in processors not being able to sell plastic bags and some are being disposed of (example). While we expect (hope?) this situation will be temporary, again, why not reduce instead?