Oh, to be a plastic bag. Helpful, ubiquitous and ever useful. Carefree, wafting on the wind – and alive for a thousand years. On the other hand, you are cheap and trashy. Discarded, your presence mars beautiful landscapes. You and your trillions of clones clog sewers, accumulate in the world’s oceans and entangle and choke wildlife and sea creatures. California banned your flimsy presence in the Golden State, consigning you to an environmentally sensitive death by recycling. But, as shoppers know all too well, getting rid of plastic bags isn’t that easy.
By now, the “paper or plastic?” checkout query was supposed to be a relic of our unenlightened past. After reviewing the scientific evidence of persistent environmental harm, California legislators in 2014 banned thin plastic carryout bags, authorizing stores to charge customers 10 cents for heavier-duty plastic sacks or paper bags.
But the ban inflamed the nation’s bag makers, who intervened before the law could take effect. They wielded two ballot measures to poke a stick in the eye of the Legislature and the grocery industry, whom they haven’t forgiven for switching sides to support the ban after the Legislature allowed grocers to keep the 10-cent fee.
So, in the sometimes confounding manner of direct democracy, California voters in November will ponder two opposing initiatives, each sponsored by the plastic bag industry – which has spent more than $6 million to put them both on the ballot.
One, Proposition 67, is a referendum – an attempt to block the bag ban by asking voters whether they agree with the new law. The plastic bag industry is hoping to persuade enough Californians to vote no, thereby pre-empting the ban. Another, Proposition 65, would redirect the 10-cent bag fee consumers pay, so that rather than stores reaping the benefit, it would instead go to an environmental fund administered by the state Wildlife Conservation Board. The plastics industry is backing this one, a smackdown to the grocery industry.
If the bag ban survives at the polls, Californians would say goodbye to one of the world’s most utilitarian products. Thus would the plastic bag, a humble object engineered to be of long and useful service, become undone by its very design.
It already has been exiled from 150 cities and counties, primarily along the Pacific Coast. “We believe the environmental facts have been misconstrued,” said Phil Rozenski, policy chair of the American Progressive Bag Alliance, and a senior director at Novolex. Its subsidiary, HilexPoly Co., has contributed to the ballot propositions. “This is all about politics and emotional debate. Science left the building years ago.”
Because of plastic’s durability, even when exposed to constant wave action and degraded by a relentless sun, it doesn’t disappear. Instead, it breaks down into tiny particles called microplastics.
To read the full story, visit http://www.ocregister.com/articles/plastic-733045-bags-bag.html.