[Summit] Plastic Bags

Thu Mar 29 13:37:17 UTC 2018

Hi Mikaila,

Thank you for this thorough and thoughtful point of view. Our society makes
many decisions that seem simple on the surface and are done for very good
reasons. However, the underlying problems that have been created over time
are complex and many-sided, and no one-size fits all solution can ever cover
the multitude of effects. There are obviously people for whom a plastic bag
ban will create a burden that is not shared by everyone.

An interesting sidelight to all of this is the mysterious rotary baggers now
found at every cashier line at Stop and Shop. They have taken away the space
that I previously use to bag groceries using our reusable cloth bags, making
it difficult to bag your own groceries at all. None of the cashiers like
them either, as they make their job harder, and using the plastic bags the
only option. Some corporate person who has never bagged groceries as a
cashier or a customer must have thought up this concept and had these
monstrosities installed in all their stores. What a waste of resources!

There are no easy solutions. I imagine that the people who advocated for the
new ordinance on plastic bags put a lot of thought into creating the
ordinance, and I commend their efforts. Unfortunately, I think the problem
they are trying to solve does not go away, with or without the ordinance,
and the unanticipated consequences may or may not make things worse or
better for many people. Ultimately all of our collective decisions need to
add up to respecting and keeping clean our earth, the only home we have.

Regards,
- Paul

Paul G Smith
54 Summit Ave, Providence, RI  02906
Cell: 802-343-0978 
E-mail: paul.slvrwngs at gmail.com
_____________________________________________________________________

"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens"
                        - Baha'u'llah             http://www.bahai.org
<http://www.bahai.org/> 
"Nothing is too much trouble when one loves, and there is always time."
                        - Abdu'l-Baha

-----Original Message-----
From: Summit [mailto:summit-bounces at sna.providence.ri.us] On Behalf Of
Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2018 8:10 AM
To: summit at sna.providence.ri.us
Subject: [Summit] Plastic Bags

 From reading the discussion here on plastic bags, it seems to me that very
few participants actually have a personal experience living as part of the
population most impacted by this ban. And humans, it seems, are not very
good at understanding experiences quite different from their own. So I
thought I'd share, because I actually spent six years living as a low-income
apartment resident reliant on walking and public transit for all my shopping
and commuting needs. In my typical daily schedule, I left the house in the
morning with everything I needed for a whole day of work, school, and other
obligations, and did not come home until evening after completing all my
errands. Give the books, papers, tech devices, umbrellas, lunch, and other
items I had to carry to get through my day, I really did not have room for
more than maybe one reusable bag in my piles. This meant that even though I
did own a few reusable bags that I had been gifted or obtained for free, I
could not use them for my regular shopping. I would use them when I made a
special trip to the store directly from home, but that was not how the bulk
of my shopping happened. I'd also point out that, in the small apartment I
lived in at the time, I would not have even had space to store the quantity
of reusable bags I routinely use now.

I was not in absolute poverty, so I assume I could have handled the 10 cent
fee without going bankrupt, but it would have cut into other things
eventually. But there are other cost factors you may not be thinking of. 
First of all, I reused every plastic bag I got, except the ones with giant
holes. Most frequently, I reused them in my kitchen garbage can to collect
and dispose of my trash. Buying trash bags can easily cost more than 10
cents a bag, especially for those who have transit, space, or income
limitations preventing the purchase of large quantities. If you are using
even one bag a day, which I would think is pretty typical (those caring for
kids, elderly people, or the disabled who use diapers and other similar
products may go through many, many more), that's going to cost you about $40
a year, maybe more. You may not think that is very much, but for people
living in poverty, a $40 increase in costs could affect their ability to
survive.

Second of all, the hygiene issue does mean that reusable bags need to be
laundered frequently, especially for people who buy meat and seafood. 
When you live in an apartment and are dependent on pay laundry with small
machines, extra laundry can be another really significant expense. 
It can be well over $3 per load of laundry, plus more for the dryer (if your
bags are even the type that can go in the dryer--and having to hang dry
things you wash in a laundromat is extremely difficult to manage). 
If you actually followed the recommendation to wash bags after each use,
that might add several more dollars in cost every week. It's also worth
pointing out that grocery delivery services, which are the only way I could
manage to obtain bulk or heavy items when I did not have a car, often
package items in plastic bags (and are unlikely to stop due to hygiene
reasons--the proposed ordinance did not, as someone pointed out, cover
produce bags, or for that matter any bags other than those used at
checkout).

Continuing to permit free paper bags with handles would reduce some of the
problems with the ban. Paper bags do eventually biodegrade, as I've seen
while raking up the winter's leaf piles in my own yard this March. 
They can be made of recycled paper and easily recycled themselves, and can
easily be carried. However, they are not a complete solution. First of all,
they cannot be reused as trash bags, at least in normal kitchen garbage cans
or in any circumstance where you need to tie your trash closed. Second of
all, they fall apart in the rain quite quickly, and people do still need to
shop in the rain. Finally, as someone who grocery shops by bicycle pointed
out to me, you can't hang them from your handlebars (or tie them to your
child's stroller). It seems to me in an age of forks and cups made from corn
or sugar cane that you can throw in the compost, we ought to be able to
produce an alternative to plastic bags that still fills people's needs.

If your response to this is that I just don't understand and need some
education and skill building, then you need to learn some empathy. As I
said, I owned reusable bags when did not have a car, and used them when I
could manage. What changed for me? Well, now I own a house, with enough room
for an entire hamper to store my bags. And I have a laundry machine in the
same room as that closet. And I shop via car. I bet I contributed a whole
lot less to the destruction of the earth when I shopped on foot and got
plastic bags which I reused in my trash than I do now burning gas stuck in
traffic in a city which does not provide convenient point-to-point public
transit.
--
Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur
mmlarthur at gmail.com <mailto:mmlarthur at gmail.com>

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