You’ve probably seen me--the harried defiant woman shoveling various grocery items -- fresh produce, gourmet smoothies, and eggs into her-- purse. Harried because once again I forgot to bring a bag to put my items in, and defiant because I refuse to buy a bag at the counter. I’ve been bag shamed all over the People’s Republic of Cambridge. You three-bags-and-a- backpack people apparently never leave your bags in the car or at home, and relish giving me the silent tsk tsk stares at the checkout counter.
I know I should do better. I know the ubiquitous plastic bags are causing damage—they aren’t biodegradable and end up as permanent waste in landfills, and as floating rubbish choking lakes, rivers, and oceans. And they clog up the rudders of municipal recycling equipment, forcing costly shut downs to clear out the shreds.
It’s been a little over four months since Cambridge banned plastic bags under the Bring Your Own Bag regulation. Mike Orr from the city’s Department of Public Works says in large stores 50 to 80 percent more consumers are using reusable bags. Even if I still can’t get into the habit. But, at least having no plastic bag still puts me on the side of people saving the earth, right?
That’s what I thought until I read a provocative Atlantic magazine article titled “Are Tote Bags Really Good for the Environment?” Turns out while it is important to take plastic bags out of circulation, and replace them with reusable bags, there is no real positive impact unless the reusable bags are –well—used. Really used. The Atlantic article reports a huge study conducted in the UK which shows that to almost eliminate the carbon footprint for one paper bag, you have to reuse it 7 times, that’s 327 times for cotton tote bags. You heard right, and 26 times for tote bags made of recycled polypropylene plastic, the kind distributed by Cambridge. I’m certain a lot people like me didn’t realize that the environmental benefit is not derived from the kind of bag, as much as it is from how much you use the bag. That’s why the goal of Cambridge’s ordinance is not just about getting rid of plastic bags, says the Public Work’s Mike Orr, but about stimulating a multiple use habit for reusable bags.
Not so easy, as my own behavior demonstrates. In a 2014 online poll more than half of the respondents admitted they didn’t use reusable bags even when they were “the easier, cheaper option.” â¯The same number chose to use plastic, even though they had reusable bags and knew the environmental benefit. What is it they say about the road to hell being paved with good intentions?
Pretty soon it will be near impossible to find a plastic bag for shopping anywhere in the state. Cambridge is one of 17 Massachusetts cities and towns with a plastic bag ban, but 19 other towns are set to implement one. Others are moving in that direction. But it won’t matter much if many of us don’t start actually using reusable bags—a lot. I’m going to be real—I want to do it, I’ll try to do it, but…. it’ll be a while before I give up my cache of hoarded plastic bags and really use those bags stored at home and piled up in my car. I know one thing-- I am tired of fishing loose onions out of the bottom of my purse.
