“Environmentalists will say anything,” Joseph claimed. “Not all of them, but many campaigners don’t feel any constraints. They make up statistics.” He also remarked that there is no support behind Save the Bay’s million bag number and that the group comes up with these statistics by pulling them out of a hat.Save the Bay got its numbers from taking a sample from the bags collected on San Francisco Bay shoreline cleanup days and then extending that number to reflect the 29,000 miles of bay shoreline. In fact, that math showed a total of nearly 2 million bags. So the 1 million estimate is a conservative estimate.
Regardless, it is easy to see that plastic bags are everywhere and because of their lightweight and flyability, they travel everywhere and are difficult to corral. We don’t need stats to tell us they are a nuisance. And most eco-friendly Bay Area residents realize they are not only a nuisance, but wasteful. The life of a plastic bag is short since most people don’t reuse them. They most often end up in the garbage and get sent to the dump, where they have to build 30ft tall fences to make sure the bags don’t fly away. Some people try to recycle them not knowing that they get clogged in the recycling machines, costing thousands of dollars a day to clean out.
Regardless, I just think it is funny that a coalition exists to save the plastic bag. Like it is an endangered species that needs saving. Why don’t the plastic bag companies evolve and start creating more sustainable versions of their own product. if the market is shifting towards paper bags, or reusable tote bags, maybe they should stop spending money on lobbyists and spend it on recreating their product.
Google “Save the Plastic Bag Coalition” if you want some interesting perspective of a lobbyist’s mentality.
Thanks to peninsulapress.com and inhabitat.com for the photo.
