When it comes to plastic bags I'm reminded of the dieter's maxim: a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips. Give the words a slight twist and the same can be said for the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag: a moment in your hand, a lifetime on the land.
The statistics are staggering: hundreds of billions of plastic bags are used every year, according to reusablebags.com.
Many countries -- including Ireland, Belgium, Bangladesh and Switzerland, to name but a few -- are banning bags or taxing them in an effort to curb their wastefulness and their harm to the environment and to wildlife. In the U.S., San Francisco is leading a similar charge.
And what are we doing here in the Twin Ports? Well, let's see ... Cub Foods and Super One have been selling reusable bags for about a year now. The Whole Foods Co-op (not to be confused with the national Whole Foods Market chain) gives a credit if you bring your own bag. And Wal-Mart and Target offer their own versions of reusable bags.
But unfortunately, my observations lead me to believe most people either don't bother, or can't be bothered, to think about the issue. It's a rarity to see a person using anything other than plastic or paper bags. I routinely watch small purchases placed in unnecessary bags. I see carts loaded with plastic bags trundling out of stores. Cashiers are routinely surprised by my refusal to take bags. "Are you sure?" they ask. Gosh, I've just made it across the entire store with my purchases in my hand. What is it about the trip across the parking lot that necessitates a bag?
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Am I coming off as haranguing? I do apologize; I don't mean to offend. It's just that I am an old hand at the reusable-bag game, having kicked my plastic grocery bag habit 18 years ago. It was around 1990 that the store I frequented in Canada did the unthinkable: They took the plastic bags away! Are you shocked? Oh, don't worry, they still had bags, but if you wanted them you had to pay for them. And it worked: The few pennies it cost for a plastic bag was enough to make a lot of people bring their own bags or bins.
When we were transferred to Duluth nine years ago, I was dismayed that few shoppers packed groceries into anything other than paper or plastic. But I'll let you in on a dark secret: I fell off the wagon.
Our move here involved seven weeks in a hotel, with most of our belongings, including my bag of reusable grocery bags, in storage. So I grudgingly went back to packing groceries in paper or plastic bags. I'm not sure if it was the "when in Rome" phenomenon, or the convenience of the free bags, or simply that I had gotten out of the habit of grabbing my bags when leaving the house; but whatever the reason, I spent a year or two amassing plastic bags. The sight of these overflowing bags of bags finally knocked me out of my torpor and spurred me on to resurrect my cloth grocery bags. But it has taken years of lining kitchen and bathroom garbage bins to whittle down that plastic bag collection.
Now, perhaps you're not aware of the environmental cost of these "free" bags. If you'd like to know more, I have two Web sites to recommend. The first is an outstanding documentary found at www.cbc.ca/doczone/battleofthebag/video.html . The second is reusablebags.com, an Internet site which, in addition to offering the sale of all manner of reusable bags, contains a plethora of astounding facts and refutes the notion that paper bags are better.
So what will it take to get people around here to reduce their consumption of bags? Will major change come with stores gently coaxing customers to go green? I doubt it. I believe that until it hits people in the pocketbook, or until they have an environmental revelation, behavior will not change.
What I would like to see is a charge for bags; just a nickel or dime or (gasp!) a quarter to make people aware, to change the bag from its status as a freebie to a product requiring purchase. Here's my reasoning: Bags cost retailers money; their production uses precious oil and energy; they have dire environmental costs when they are allowed to roam the world as litter; and recycling them also costs energy. So why should consumers continue to operate under the delusion they are free?
Marian Nikel of Hermantown is the mother of three, meaning she does plenty of grocery and other shopping -- always with her reusable cloth bags.
