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Behold the plastic bag — NOT!

Tearing down the false god of convenience
food_glenda1

My dear mom and auntie have a favourite expression: "What did we do before —?" You fill in the blank, but it almost always has something to do with convenience. Convenience and plastic.

What did we do before plastic wrap? What did we do before plastic containers? Plastic forks, cups, tablecloths?

What did we do before all this plastic that comes from crude oil, gas and coal? (It takes about a quarter litre of oil to produce a one-litre plastic water bottle.)

Right now the local Grocers Alliance, at the behest of council, is partway through its research into what the municipality did before plastic bags. Actually, that's not quite true, because the RMOW isn't nearly as old as my auntie, my mom, or even me, so it has no BPB (Before Plastic Bags) history. And to be honest, the alliance was asked to investigate "reducing single-use plastic bags usage," not eliminating the suckers altogether. So lets all get down on our knees and pray that the alliance — or someone — goes big and comes up with Plan B, or make that Plan BPB.

For one, life BPB was just fine.

The only plastic bags I can remember in our house when I was a kid came in the door protecting the odd coat or two that got dry-cleaned. Those, and a few bread bags.

Groceries and stuff came in paper bags. Garbage cans were not lined with plastic — they were metal containers that got washed when they got stinky.

People used boxes to lug things around — the whole milieu being that there wasn't that much to lug around because shopping wasn't a competitive sport or a substitute for sex. (Don't get me going on that one: scientists have proven that buying stuff releases the same chemicals in the brain that an orgasm does. Go for the sex — it's cheaper.)

"We used to jar our own fruit, we used to bring our reusable bags to the store, we got our milk delivered in glass bottles that were washed and used again. It's amazing how this whole convenience thing has gotten out of control," says Claire Ruddy, president of the Association of Whistler Area Residents for the Environment, which is working to bring in "Whistler" branded reusable bags made from clothing manufacturing waste.

"And we used to be frugal. People used to value a jar, and value their favourite bag, whereas now it's all disposable consumer goods that just get tossed." Into plastic bags.

It was AWARE that first brought a proposal forward to the RMOW to get rid of plastic bags in 2007. That year the Nobel Peace Prize went jointly to Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — which new B.C. Green MP Andrew Weaver is part of — for their work on climate change. That year NASA scientist James Hansen offered a simple rule to contain climate change: get carbon in the atmosphere down to 350 ppm (parts per million). Ergo Bill McKibben's 350.org.

Last week, some six years after the RMOW was officially asked to ban plastic bags, the world reached a scary milestone. Continuing its trajectory of human-caused increases, the atmosphere's carbon content hit 400 ppm — the highest level in three million years. That was the Pliocene, when camels lived in the Arctic. Sea levels were 25 metres higher.

But, hey, camels are kind of cute and you're into sailing, right? Besides, if we keep a few plastic bags kicking around, they get recycled, right?

Wrong. Globally, around 80 per cent of plastic bags are not recycled. On top of that, so much contamination happens in the plastic film market, it's collapsed.

"Plastic bags are the cause of the largest amount of contamination in the recycling stream," says Pat Taylor at Carney's Waste Systems, which at one point refused to accept Whistler's plastic film because it caused so many issues.

For one, when we consumers use plastic bags for garbage, we often don't sort the garbage properly. Then when we recycle recyclable plastics, there are so many different types we get it wrong. Like when a so-called "biodegradable" plastic bag gets into a recyclable plastic bag stream, it's havoc. And when those same "biodegradable" plastic bags (which really aren't biodegradable) get into the environment, the municipality's own staffers point out that they break down into tiny bits of plastic that are impossible to retrieve — way worse than a whole bag.

Pat (who uses My Sandwich reusable bags) says the plastic bag situation is so bad that China — which is the biggest user of recycled plastic because they remanufacture it — put up Operation Green Fence in February to vigorously inspect incoming loads because they were getting so much garbage with plastic.

"Basically they're saying in 10 months we are done taking everyone's garbage here, because 90 per cent of the plastic goes to China."

Already the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that West Coast communities are spending some half billion dollars a year combating marine debris and litter — before Operation Green Fence.

For all these reasons, getting rid of plastic bags, period, is the way to go. Plus it's a great first step toward better choices. You see how easy it is to do without them. Before you know it, you'll be having great sex — and bringing your own coffee mug.

Forget the "what will the guests think?" angle. Survey after survey done by AWARE, the RMOW and/or Tourism Whistler show that the vast majority of guests — in the 80+ percentile range — are fine with a plastic bag-free Whistler.

As for the argument that we can't get to BPB because garbage bag sales will increase, well, that gets blown out of the water by the great composting facilities Whistler has. That, and a rag to clean your garbage can.

Plastic represents between 60 and 80 per cent of the total marine debris in our oceans. The gyre of plastic in the middle of the Pacific now covers an area bigger than Texas. Sea turtles, fish and birds eat plastic bags. Plastic lasts longer in the environment than bronze, skyscrapers — any of our "great" monuments.

On a global scale, councillor Jayson Faulkner described the whole plastic mess as catastrophic. Worse is our collective paralysis in taking a stand.

I like what oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle has to say about the choices we face: "The next 10 years may be the most important in the next 10,000 years, because of what we do — or because of what we don't do."

Imagine a teeny jurisdiction like Whistler with big green awareness and aspirations bigger than plastic bags.

Come on, grocers — show your stuff.

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning journalist who can't stand plastic bags.