Attack of the Plastic Bags

You are probably looking at these photos, thinking that I must be a crazy hoarder bag lady.  I can’t deny that there isn’t a small grain of truth to this, but the bigger question is why do I have all these bags?  I’m pretty conscientious about bringing my own bag when I shop so that I don’t take one.  Sometimes it’s unavoidable - spontaneous purchases, doggie bags from restaurants, etc. The sad fact of the matter is that this collection of bags mostly came to my front door - over a year’s worth of bags from the New York Times.  Yup, every day, I get one or two bags, free with my paper.  Not that I don’t use them - I bring my lunch, I bring back the empties, and then I dispose of cat litter - a three stage life cycle before it hits the trash.  I also use them for produce in the fridge, to hold shoes when I travel, wet umbrellas, but I still can’t put a bag in the 365+ bags.  So now I have to use another big plastic bag to throw out more bags.  Now that’s crazy. 

Tuna Warning

Just as I’ve espoused my favorite tuna salad, I remembered last week’s front page article in the Times about tuna sushi. Laboratory tests indicate high levels of mercury in tuna sushi sampled from various restaurants and grocers in New York City. These levels were higher than EPA standards, a cause for concern for those with a regular diet of tuna sushi. Six pieces a week, what would normally be one meal, has an excessive amount of mercury, which should be consumed no more than once every three weeks. It has been a common warning for pregnant and nursing women to limit their tuna intake, due to a baby’s developing nervous systems. Excessive amounts of mercury has been shown to contribute to cardiological and neurological problems in adults. The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, was based in reality in that milliners used mercury for their hats, making them kind of crazy.

As I read about the shockingly high levels of mercury in one of the world’s more perfect foods, I was repulsed, ired, and then ultimately defeated. I felt completely helpless. Isn’t there anything that I, a conscientious, totebag-carrying environmentalist can do? Can’t I sign a petition? Boycott a certain company? Use less mercury?

Unfortunately, there isn’t mercury-free tuna, like dolphin-free tuna. Because tuna, as a big fish, eats little fish, which has smaller amounts of mercury. This all accumulates in their bodies, a hazard to being at the top of the food chain, which in turn gets passed on to us. The choices are few. Canned tuna has mercury, albacore can have as much as three times as much, making the cheaper chunk light, which comes from smaller tuna, a better choice. Cooking has no effect. We’re screwed.

Not that I’m giving up on tuna. As with all good things, it should be eaten in moderation. A rule of thumb for fats, sugar, and alcohol, but mercury?

The Muji bag

In my sermonizing about the evils of plastic bags, I practice what I preach by carrying my foldable Muji bag. This nylon sac expands to the size of a regualr plastic shopping bag, while when folded, is as small as a Nano. It’s big and strong enough to hold a melon, yet light enough to be unnoticeable in my purse. Made of material that is not unlike that of an umbrella, it’s waterproof and machine washable. Folding it back up into its pouch is a bit of a pain, and requires origami-like skills, but even loose, it squishes down small. It’s, quite simply, a godsend.

Burden of Modern Living

Paper or plastic? How about neither? For years, I have been consciously trying to reduce my own bag consumption by bringing my own bag. An effort in itself, as those shop clerks always want to give me one - even when I ask them not to - since it’s hard wired into their musculature to do so. I never expect anyone else to do the same, but it does only make sense considering how they pile up at home (The Littlest Kitchen doesn’t have much room for extra bags), let alone the environmental consequenses of these non-biodegradable conveniences of consumption. In the name of free, we’re choking marine life, clogging up drainage systems, and filling up our landfills.

In the past week, it has been remarkable to see governments take action with this issue. On Wednesday, China banned the production super thin plastic bags, and as of June 1, supermarkets will not be allowed to give them out for free. On Friday, New York City’s City Council voted for the recycling of plastic bags, by requiring stores that give them away to have receptacles for discarded bags. These are monumental steps in the right direction to make us more aware of the impact of our consumption. I think the most successful program is Ireland’s bag tax, which charges consumers 15 cents a bag. Usage went down a phenomenal 90%! The beauty of this program is that it provides additional revenue for the government to fund environmental projects, a whopping 3.5 million euros. And San Francisco should be commended for their effort too, which requires grocery and drug stores to use only biodegradable plastic or paper bags.

If the world’s most populous country and most populous city can be more aware of these pesky little plastic bags, so can you. Habits are hard to break, but this planet is even harder to fix.

The Lesser Evil

Attempting to stay hydrated is hard enough work, the current controversy over plastic bottles makes it even harder. A number of years ago, a friend who after taking a seminar on plastics for food packaging, told me that I should not reuse my embattled Aquafina water bottle. She said that the only bottles suitable for reuse is the hard plastic Nalgene bottles, since packaged water bottles will degrade and leach chemicals into the water over time. Sold, much to the delight of all of my friends who mocked me for hanging on to the same bottle as a part of my cheap and lazy ways. Even though the single use bottles of portable water is meant to be recycled, I never felt good about pitching the bottle after emptying it once. It’s still wasteful, especially in the big picture with how much fossil fuel it takes to manufacture, ship, and recycle bottles of water. Washing and refilling is so much more practical and environmentally sound.

Now there is concern over the possible toxicity of Nalgene bottles as expressed in Alina Tugend’s article in Saturday’s New York Times. The hard plastic that Nalgene is made of can leach bisphenal A, which has proven harmful to the endocrine systems of developing fetuses and young children. I may not be or have not one of these, but I sure don’t want that crap in me. Aren’t I supposed to be drinking water for my health? The weekend prior in the Times, there was also an article about how sporting goods stores in Canada have pulled Nalgene bottles from their shelves, until more conclusive studies later this year.

So what are the alternatives? Glass is too heavy and too fragile to carry around. Stainless steel? As long as it isn’t lined with plastic, and I swear that water tastes funny in a stainless steel vessel. And what about my Brita pitcher, where I filter out the bad stuff for my better being? I don’t even know what kind of plastic it’s made from. For now, I hesitantly still drink from my Nalgene bottle, and anxiously seek something else.