STATEWIDE PLASTIC BAG BAN LOOKS FOR SUPPORT ON BAY

Supporters of a ban on the use of plastic bags are pushing Maryland legislators to protect the Bay by passing the bill once and for all this legislative session. The statewide ban bill was a victim of the 2020 General Assembly, cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The proposed ban—named the Plastic Bag Reduction Act (HB209/SB331) — would outlaw retailers providing plastic bags to customers starting July 1, 2022.

“Plastic bags litter our waterways and our beaches,” says Del. Brooke Leirman (D-District 46), the bill’s sponsor in the House. “It’s almost impossible to escape the sight of plastic bags in my district (Baltimore). And most of the plastic was created in the last decade.”

During the 2020 session, the bill saw two major amendments—removing the requirement to charge for other carryout bags and dropping a work group focused on reducing plastic and single-use container waste.

The hope is that the amended bill will be brought to the floor for a vote before the General Assembly wraps its current session on April 12.

“We need to pass this bill to allow people time to get ready for July 2022,” says Sen. Malcolm L. Augustine (D-District 47), the bill’s sponsor in the Senate.

The bill was heard in the Senate Finance and House Environment and Transportation committees last week, and a vote from both committees is expected soon.

“Coastal tourism depends on a healthy Bay,” says Jacob Ross, Mid-Atlantic Campaign Organizer for Oceana, the world’s largest non-profit focused on ocean conservation. “A healthy Bay supports 96,000 jobs and $6 billion in GDP.”

Plastic bags are among the most common entangling animals in the Chesapeake.

“A plastic bag was found in a dead minke whale on Virginia’s Eastern Shore,” Ross says. “We cannot recycle our way out of this mess. Passing policies reducing plastic production is critical.”

COVID-19 has impacted the plastic bag situation in the Bay.

“The pandemic has made this issue more critical,” says Del. Leirman. “The use of single-use plastic bags has increased with carryout.”

But the pandemic also creates challenges for businesses to comply with the bill if it passes.

Jared Littmann, owner of K&B True Value in Annapolis and a member of Annapolis Green—a local nonprofit advocating for a healthy community and planet—made the switch from plastic bags to paper in early 2020.

“The response from our customers was very positive,” Littman says. “No complaints, if we used paper bags with handles, which are much more expensive than bags without handles. The paper bags without handles weren’t as popular.”

But the pandemic put a wrinkle in Littman’s plans.

“We had switched from plastic to paper before the pandemic, but when we closed to the curbside and everything needed a bag, sales were down, and costs were up, so we switched back to plastic temporarily,” Littman says.

The paper bags with handles cost Littman 600 percent more than plastic bags. He worries that business owners may struggle with the cost.

“The best answer is probably the education piece that government can provide to encourage customers to bring reusable bags so that we don’t have the paper bag expense,” Littman says.

Advocates for the bill attended a virtual rally, calling upon the 120-plus attendees to reach out to their legislatures in support of the bill.

“In Anne Arundel County, we have 530 miles of coast and we have a lot of trash,” says Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman.

Source: https://chesapeakebaymagazine.com/md-statewide-plastic-bag-ban-looks-for-support-on-bay/

A study showed that both “Compostable-plastic” and Paper bags require more materials and greater energy, per bag, in the manufacturing process than standard plastic bags.

Starting in 2002 in Ireland, a plastic bag costs 15 cents. The plastic bags given out by stores immediately decreased 93.5%.

The vast majority of plastic bags end up in landfills.
Isn’t that the ultimate in CARBON SEQUESTRATION vs chopping down trees for paper bags? — reducing the number of trees taking carbon out of the air?

The Standard PLASTIC bag:

• Has significantly lower environmental impacts than a 30%-recycled-content-paper-bag
• Manufactures with :
  3.4 times less energy than a Paper bag and
  1.8 times less energy than the Compostable bag.
• Produces:
  1/6th  the SOLID WASTE ( by weight) of Paper bags and
  less than one-half that of Compostable!
• Emits:
  half the Global Warming potential (CO2 equivalent) of Paper bags and
  1/7th   that of Compostable
  ( because it does not decompose like Paper & Compostable and Compostable emits 5 x more Carbon in production )
• In manufacturing it uses:
  1/25th WATER than Paper and
  1/17th of Compostable!

ENGLAND 2015: Just 8 cents (5p) on a plastic bag reduced use by 85% (7 billion were used the previous year)
IRELAND: with a tax of 15c per bag, the amount is given out in stores is reduced by 93.5% – folks won’t be littering with them at that price — just putting wet trash in them — for the garbage and landfill. ( the tax is now 31c).
Carrying them became socially unacceptable — on a par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after one’s dog.
The impact of Plastic bags on litter, the latest figures, 2013, suggests there has been a 20-fold decrease since the levy was introduced in 2002.

If someone’s going to buy a bag — better it is the more environmentally friendly plastic than paper.
In the US we clearly need to tax ALL bags equally — at over 15c and ban none.  Better yet, go with a Beyond Green Bag that’s a win-win all the way across!

Source: the PLASTIC BAG MYTH

Plastic pollution has worsened during the pandemic, divers in the Philippines say

The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the plague of plastic in the world’s oceans. Divers in the Philippines say that after returning to coral reefs when a national lockdown was lifted, they were dismayed to find more plastic in the sea than they had ever seen before, including numerous surgical masks, the BBC reports. One dive professional says that in the first 10 minutes of a dive at a coral reef in Batangas, southeast of Manila, he collected at least a dozen masks from the reef, some of which were covered in algae and had clearly been there for months.

Source: Divers Find Reef Covered in Masks

Some governments have ordered the use of disposable bags in stores around their states, as a way to tamp down the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

And the Minnesota Grocers Association has developed flyers for its stores to display at checkout lanes, saying reusable bags couldbe a carrier of the virus. The group cites a recent study that found the novel coronavirus can live on hard surfaces like plastic or stainless steel for up to 72 hours, and on cardboard for up to 24 hours.

But the study did not specifically look at reusable bags — leaving shoppers with the question: What to do?

As it turns out: It depends on which researcher you talk to.

“I think, generally, the science doesn’t support a need to ban the bags,” said Pete Raynor, an environmental health scientist at the University of Minnesota who studies airborne viruses.

He said viruses are less likely to survive for long periods of time on porous surfaces, like fabrics, than on hard surfaces.

“So if you’re not making daily trips to the grocery store,” he said, “I think the science suggests that you’re not going to have an infectious virus on the bag.”

Raynor recommends shoppers wash their hands when they get home from the store — and he added that the COVID-19 outbreak has not changed his own family’s shopping-bag habits.

“We’re still using them, and I think it’s the right decision,” he said. “I don’t have any qualms about us taking groceries in reusable bags.”

Experts agree that the main mode of transmission for the coronavirus is through the air, from someone nearby coughing or sneezing.

They say that touching an object that has the virus on it, and then touching your face, could be a secondary way the virus is spread.

So many won’t rule out the possibility that shoppers could pick up the virus from a reusable bag that’s touched a surface that has the virus on it.

A few years ago, researchers in California conducted a study in which they sprayed reusable bags with a kind of virus that doesn’t infect people, before customers entered a grocery store. Then they followed shoppers through the store to see where the virus spread.

They found that the virus spread to shopping carts, and all over the checkout lanes — and to store employees’ hands.

“So there’s the idea that you could bring [the virus] in [to the store], which is what we were testing,” said Ryan Sinclair, an environmental microbiology professor at Loma Linda University who led the study.

“But … as I’ve been thinking about this since the coronavirus, it’s also about bringing things out of the store,” he said. “Even if you have a clean, reusable grocery bag, I think anything that you’re touching on those surfaces in the grocery store can also bring things out.”

Sinclair said he supports broader efforts to encourage the use of reusable bags, including California’s law that bans the use of single-use plastic bags. But he said right now, he feels it’s safer for his family to use disposable ones.

Most experts, though, say reusable bags are not going to be a major vehicle of spread for the coronavirus.

Source: States and stores are banning reusable bags during COVID-19 pandemic. Is it safe to use them? | MPR News

Coles supermarket has announced that it will no longer sell single-use plastic tableware in all stores.

From July 21, 2021, the retail giant will withdraw all disposable cups, plates, bowls, straws and cutlery from sale at Coles supermarkets, Coles Express outlets and Coles Liquor stores.

It’s believed the move will divert 1.5 million kilograms worth of single-use plastic from landfill each year.

permarket says it will divert more than 1.5 million kilograms of plastic from landfill each year.

Coles CEO Steven Cain said the supermarket is committed to environmental leadership.

“Ensuring the sustainability of our business is essential to our future success,” Cain said.

“As a company, we already divert 79 per cent of our waste from landfill and have recycled more than 1 billion pieces of flexible plastic with the support of REDcycle and our customers, since 2011.”

Coles said the change has been overwhelmingly supported among customers, with a recent Coles survey showing 65 per cent of customers are concerned about the environmental impacts of single-use plastic tableware and prefer sustainable alternatives.

Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management Trevor Evans MP supported the move.

“The Morrison Government is on a mission to reduce waste going to landfill in Australia, and we applaud Coles’ initiative to stop selling single-use plastic tableware products,” Evans said.

“Every company that takes action to reduce problematic or unnecessary plastics, takes us one step closer towards a more sustainable Australia and is a win for our environment.”

Supermarket changes

It follows similar moves by ALDI and Woolworths aimed at reducing plastic waste.

In 2020 ALDI stopped selling single-use plastic tableware from all stores, while Woolworths stopped selling plastic straws in 2018.

Woolworths is also working to replace disposable plastic tableware with a range of sustainable alternatives.

*The phase-out across Coles Group outlets will be completed by 1 July 2021, with stores in South Australia phasing out the legislated single-use plastic tableware by 1 March 2021, in line with South Australian law.

“This important initiative will not only divert more than 1.5 million kilograms of plastic from landfill each year, it will also help our customers who are telling us they want to make more sustainable choices.

Source: Coles supermarket will no longer sell single-use plastic tableware in all stores | 7NEWS.com.au

Although more environmentally friendly than traditional single-use plastic bags, reusable bags, depending on what they are made out of, are more energy-intensive to produce, distribute, and recycle.

To be clear, plastic bags are rightly thought of as a menace that’s hazardous to human health. According to the National Resources Defense Council, over a decade ago, the average American family took home almost 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year, clogging our cabinets, kitchen drawers, and landfills. Today the numbers are slightly better: According to National Geographic, as of 2018, shoppers in the United States use almost one plastic bag per resident per day. (Compare that to the fact that shoppers in Denmark use an average of four plastic bags a year.) But this is not a story on the evil of plastics, despite these 50 facts that will make you think twice about using plastic again.

This is a story on whether the reusable bag can justify its existence.

According to a report by the United Nations Environment Program, “depending on their composition, reusable bags might have to be deconstructed in a costly recycling process to separate the different materials. Consequently, in many cases, reusable bags are not recycled.” That means despite the best intentions, millions of reusable bags designed to replace the need for conventional plastic shopping bags, will also end up in landfills.

Another point to consider, not all reusable bags are equal in terms of their recyclability.

There are a wide range of reusable bag options on the market, from the popular Baggu bags that fold up to the size of a handkerchief, to the thicker plastic totes often made from recycled water bottles, constructed to have a longer life. Generally speaking, reusable bags tend to be made of more than one material to give the bag added reinforcement and added street appeal. On a life cycle basis, stronger, heavier bags—no matter what material they are made from, although cotton is the worst culprit—will have a more substantial environmental impact. That’s because heavier bags use more resources to create as well as distribute.

Although reusable bags are still the lesser of evils, here are three things you need to consider before you grab that tote.

Reusable bags, depending on what they are made out of, are more energy-intensive to produce, distribute, and recycle.

Too much of a good thing?

Part of the problem with tote bags is that they are irresistible and insidious in equal measure. Just like plastic bags, reusable bags multiply, but unlike plastic bags, there is no formal recycling designation for tote bags. Used for promotional purposes and marketing of all kinds, tote bags’ swelling popularity, according to the Atlantic, means bags that have been used very little (or not at all) can be found piled on curbs, tossed in trashcans in city parks, in dumpsters, and basically everywhere. Ubiquity breeds contempt—consumers have come to see them as disposable, defeating their very purpose.

Put the use in re-use

To legitimize the extra effort and energy consumption that producing tote bags requires, consumers need to use their reusable bags—a lot. One study out of the United Kingdom found that you’d have to reuse a cotton tote 327 times to achieve the same carbon-usage ratio as using a paper bag seven times, or plastic bag used twice. As strange as it sounds, plastic bags have the lightest per-use impact of the various bags the study examined. Cotton totes, on the other hand, in terms of production and distribution, actually have according to the Atlantic, “the highest and most severe global-warming potential by far.”

Tote tip: Whatever type of bag is used, the key to reducing its environmental impact is to reuse it as many times as possible. If you leave your reusable bag in your car the next time you’re at the grocery store, go back and get it.

Beware of bacteria magnets

Sad but true—your tote bags, if you have been using them diligently, are probably filthy. Especially when totes are used for groceries, the bags can be breeding grounds for food-borne bacteria. If the bags are used to carry meat, fish or fruits and vegetables, chances of bacterial contamination are especially high. According to the Cleveland Clinic, cross-contamination can occur when meat, produce, and pre-cooked foods are placed in the same bag. Don’t be shocked; these 15 everyday items are also germier than a toilet seat.

Research out of the University of Arizona found that half the bags they sampled had coliform bacteria including E. coli. Worse, of those interviewed, 97 percent admitted they had never washed their reusable bags.

Source: Cons of Reusable Bags More People Need to Think About | Reader’s Digest