So, last week because I have a personal interest in the cause, I went to Keen''s Headquarters in downtown Portland for a presentation (lecture sounds so academic and not fun) by two members of the Alagalita Marine Foundation's Anna Cummins and Dr. Marcus Eriksen, who formed JUNKride. JUNKride is a 2,000 mile bike ride from Vancouver, BC to Tijuana Mexico where along the way, they are stopping to educate and inform organizations and legislators about the evils of plastic in our oceans and the danger it presents for all of us. Anna had written the highly informative article in Wend Magazine highlighting the North Pacific Gyre ..aka... the floating trash pile the size of Texas, and on hand there were also talks by the chair of the local Surfrider chapter as well as Portland Mayor Sam Adams and Jessica Hamilton from the Governor’s office.
Probably the biggest emphasis of their whole talk was not that there is a massive amount of plastic in our ocean, but that the harmful chemicals in these plastics are slowly working their way into our human food consumption.
“Plastics are a medium for other pollutants to get into food webs,” said Dr. Eriksen. Toxins like Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and other pesticides in our watersheds are liphophilic compounds. This means that although they don’t mix with water, they do stick to plastic particles, and in turn migrate into the tissue of animals ingesting plastic in polluted waters. ...When the Algalita Marine Research Foundation traveled to the North Pacific Gyre last year they found plastic particles in over a third of the lantern fish that they collected for research, showing that marine and human health are equally dependent on solving the problem of plastic pollution. “We know that the situation is getting significantly worse. On our last voyage we found that the density of plastic particles had double in just 10 years. That, coupled with the fact that we found plastic particles in the fish we brought back, is enough to tell us we have to make some drastic changes,” said Cummins.
As part of their JUNKride duties, Cummins and Eriksen presented Portland Mayor Sam Adams with an actual sample of soupy plastic and sea water from the NPG. Initially, Mayor Adams was worried about tackling the issue of a "bag ban" in a down economy, but after hearing public support for it, Sam was willing to help.
What surprised me greatly about what Mayor Sam Adams had to say as he accepted the bottle filled with sludge, was about the strong opposition and lobbying he was going to face by supporting the bag ban. Apparently, one of the biggest Lobbying groups in opposition to the ban is the American Chemical Council. Now, maybe I'm blindsided by doing the right thing, things that are good for the environment... and I know that perhaps American jobs may be at stake by a downturn in plastic bag production (?)... but the thought that people would actually put money into seeing these bills defeated boggles my mind. The main bend for the ACC is that the bags should not be banned, they should be recycled. Keith Christman, senior director of the ACC, who worked with his organization to prevent Seattle from enacting it's fee, states that “Plastic bags are an environmentally responsible choice. They dramatically reduce energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and are recyclable.”
But we all know, that even all those bags that are sent out into the world with good intentions of being recycled, some times it's easier said than done. As well, time and time again we've learned that to recycle something generally takes more energy than is really worthwhile. The easiest thing is to reuse a product or reduce your consumption. As a result, the best thing is to go without.
Charlie Plybon, Oregon field coordinator for Surfrider, says plastic bags are detrimental to fish and wildlife in ways that most people can’t see. “By the time a lot of stuff makes it to the ocean, especially Portland, it’s probably broken down a little bit into smaller pieces,” he said. “Bags are easy to pick up. A bag that breaks down into 5,000 little pieces is very problematic.” When bags stay intact, he added, they look a lot like jellyfish, which causes many animals to prey on them. “Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not a problem,” he said. “There are places in the ocean where plastic outnumbers plankton 6-to-1.”
The ACC also is afraid that if plastic bans pass, then stores will remove their containers for plastic bag recycling and there will all those excess plastic bags go? To me the logic is a little skewed, but I'd rather see a plastic bag recycled than end up in a in a tree somewhere. As a result, the ACC and it's allies put together this little website to let you know where you can recycle plastic bags near where you live. And, if you don't live near anywhere near a place where you can drop off your remnant plastic bags that you can't reuse, you can always do what Real Simple Magazine did, turn them into plastic knee pads for the garden and other smart and innovative ideas.
Well, you can guarantee that just like stainless steel water bottles became the trendy and fashionable item of 2008, reusable shopping bags are going to the clutch item to have in 2009 and hopefully beyond. Already, the internets and the shopping aisles are filling with cool, smart, fashionable and creative bags like these.
Don't forget though, that you don't have to buy a reusable grocery bag to be cool. Look around and grab any old bag you see. Take a few and keep them in your car or stuff them into your bookbag or purse for that next impromptu trip to the store. And, if you see any cool reusable bags out there that are worth note, yes.. even free ones from Target count, feel free to let me know.
(originally posted April 29, 2009)
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