Question by Cozza: Do you believe financial consequences should be implemented…?
…for the use of Plastic Bags? I had heard that some parts (at least) of Britain make you pay for each plastic bag you use. As a studier of economics, I see this as a great economic deterrent and incentive to not use plastic bags so that resources can be diverted elsewhere for more efficiency. We could use the money in other things than polluting our environment with plastic bags.
If you were charged $ 0.50 per plastic bag, what could you do?? People have said to me “The horror! It would be a burden on me because I need the money for food for my family!! That’s a STUPID idea.” Well, if you go to a store like Walmart and buy one of their “environmentally green and re-usable” bags for $ 1.00, not only would you cut down on plastic bags, but it would be safer for the environment. So you spend $ 20 for 20 bags you may or may not use all at once. They would last you months; maybe even years.
“But I always forget my 1 green bag!” There’s no incentive to remember. What’s going to happen? Momentary guilt and just using (free) plastic bags? I’m sure someone shopping would remember if they were forced to pay $ 0.50 per bag, for 10 bags, where its $ 5.00 extra on their tab.
Lets go into a hypothetical situation here and assume everyone receives 10 plastic bags a week (grocery bags.) They use 1 per week for the bathroom. They do not recycle. They’d receive 520 bags a year, and use 52 bags per year for the bathroom. That’s 468 bags tossed out.
If around 4 billion other people did the same, that’s 1,872,000,000,00 plastic bags tossed out every year. The environmental costs are massive, and the pollutants are no doubt crazy.
I’m not sure at what extent the pollutants unleashed for producing green bags would be, but it has to be more than plastic.
As someone who worked retail for a couple years, I’ve had people say “Please put this in a bag.” It was one item. ONE item that was small enough to fit in their hand. I’ve even had people get pissed that I didn’t ask them if they wanted a bag for one small item or two. i think plastic bags just reinforce an unneeded necessity that seems absolutely important to daily life.
Best answer:
Answer by ThatCompyNerd
I agree, man! And some people don’t compost their own feces too! These people should be put to death.
Give your answer to this question below!
John W
February 20, 2012 at 10:33 pm
It’s all about money. Plastic bags were expected for free and actually produce far less pollution in their manufacture and recycling as do paper bags plus they consume less space in the landfill (paper bags do not decompose in an anaerobic landfill, paper will decompose in an aerobic compost pile but not in a landfill). Besides plastic bags are more easily recyclable than paper, it just can’t be collected in curbside recycling because it would get tangled in the sorting machinery and it can’t be recycled back into bags, it must be recycled into other products like insulation.
However the greenwash movement has allowed companies to sell expensive reusable bags which people promptly forget in the trunk of their cars and wind up buying more expensive reusable bags. Certainly the opportunity exists for people to be ecologically friendly with reusable bags but the net effect is more pollution, more energy, more raw materials, more waste and more profits. The ecologically conscious amongst us have unwittingly dealt a devastating hand to the environment.
The financial consequences need not be severe, a mere 3 cents per bag and the public emphasis on environmental friendliness is sufficient for people to cough up a couple of dollars for a reusable bag, it needn’t be 50 cents at all.
J.
February 20, 2012 at 11:15 pm
If you truly advocate such social engineering, why stop there?
It is bad enough there is so much applied social engineering going on currently, so be careful what you wish for.
There are times when that single item allows people to round up a lot of loose items in their car, or other alternate reuse, I know I do that with my own plastic bags I do get, and sometimes it has been for a single item that could fit in my hand. And I much prefer paper BTW.
emscorp
February 21, 2012 at 12:06 am
Australia offers an alternative to plastic bags. we have these green bags. they can be purchased in every supermarket now for around $ 1. its common now to see many people carrying green bags with their grocerys. problem with them though which i cant understand is that in a lot of them they have this thick plastic board in the bottom I guess to make the bag sturdy in the base. I beleive this defeats the purpose because i rekon if you melted that bit of plastic down it would make 10 plastic bags. Also once upon a time you had a kitchen cupboard full of plastic bags and now its full with green bags, i have thrown these out to …they may be better in landfill but what about the environmental impact to make these “green bags”.
Some department stores and supermarkets will offer you a biodegradable plastic bag for 10 cents or you take your purchsed items with no bag. There are also some towns in particular a little town near me that advertises as a plastic bag free town, so no shops retail outlets/stores have plastic, only paper bags. Now paper bags also have an environmental impact cutting down trees.
As far as the cost goes to buy these green bags i do try to avoid paying for them. slowly people have gotton used to taking their green bags shopping its no big deal really now, and i have noticed the decline of plastic bags in my cupboard at home , I personally liked the plastic bag cause i can use them for the garbage bag so i am more concious to collect them now.
andy
February 21, 2012 at 12:45 am
I agree, when I was in Germany, they didn’t give you free bags at the grocery store, other stores they did or they asked. Also, let us not forget that there are grocery stores that don’t give out free bags you have to buy them.
I would have to disagree with your assumption that people just throw out their plastic bags. A certain portion of the US population already recycles their bags. We do, my girlfriend works at at library that uses plastic bags for people checking out books.
Also, your 4 billion other people doesn’t compute since a lot of the World doesn’t have the same problems that the United States does.