In the back of one of my closets hangs an expandable blue fishnet sack. It folds up into almost nothing, has been gathering dust for three decades and was given to me by an English relative when we were shopping in London ages ago.
Plastic bags had not yet become part of England's everyday life, and so people took their little string bags to the market to hold their produce. This sounds archaic but it may be futuristic, for while reusable shopping bags have been out of vogue for years, they may soon be making a comeback.
What Americans and much of the world are discovering is that billions of plastic bags are creating so many negative problems that it is time to find ways to limit their use and disposal. Cheap little plastic bags are actually costly.
When they first became part of our everyday life, plastic bags seemed ideal. They were inexpensive, lightweight and extremely practical. Americans and much of the world have grown so used to them that it is difficult to separate millions of people from their billions of plastic bags.
According to a nytimes.com report, close to 42 billion plastics bags were used around the world in January this year, and reusablebags.com says that their usage increases by more than a "half a million bags every minute."
One doesn't have to be a treehugger to recognize that these bags, which are usually not biodegradable, end up as litter or in landfills. They also have been known to strangle wildlife and marine animals. A CNN report in November stated that most bags are made of polyethylene and "rival a cockroach for indestructibility." Additionally, plastic bags, made from petrochemicals, consume resources with better uses.
Many countries recognize the plastic bag problem and are taking action. Ireland passed a plastic bag tax in 2002; if customers want bags at check-out, they can pay about 33 cents for each one. If they don't like that, they can reuse old sturdy bags or buy the lightweight reusable cloth bags that are sold in the store.
According to an nytimes.com article by Elisabeth Rosenthal, following the new charge for the lightweight plastic bags, usage decreased by 94 percent and most people bought cloth bags by the end of the year.
In addition to Ireland, Australia, Bangladesh, China, France, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Taiwan and others are developing plans to decrease the usage of these bags. In the United States, San Francisco and New York are ahead of most metropolitan areas in limiting plastic bag usage, and small and large cities realize that while plastic bags fly away quickly in the wind, the problems they generate do not.
West Virginia is starting to face this problem. In the 2008 legislative session, a House bill was introduced that addressed the use of plastic bags in retail establishments.
Change will not come easily. People who are comfortable with lightweight plastic bags may not want to give them up or pay for them. And industries that produce these bags have no desire to see any restriction on their usage.
But the figures speak for themselves. There is a need to shrink the overabundance of plastic bags floating around our world. Small fees on bags, better recycling programs and introduction of alternatives to lightweight plastic bags are some of the means that could decrease plastic bag usage. Some of us might even find ourselves blowing off the dust on an old string sack.
Diane W. Mufson is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Huntington. She is a former citizen member of The Herald-Dispatch editorial board and is a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page. Her e-mail is dwmufson@comcast.net.
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