I’ve been saving this up for a special occasion, and since it’s Friday I figured I may as well let loose with a wicked rant.
Toronto’s plastic bag ban is (supposedly) great for the environment, but it’s getting out of control.
Isn’t it?
When I was in grade four, we were first presented with the term “environment,” and all of a sudden it was this huge issue that everybody needed to be aware of. We spent half the year learning about the ozone layer, CFC’s, acid rain, recycling, and lots of other fun stuff that stimulates the mind of nine-year-olds…
The pinnacle of this fantastic exploration of knowledge came when my friends and I wrote a song called “Bad Pollution” based on Jon Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine.” I’m pretty sure my teacher wanted our autographs because she assumed we were going to be rock stars.
In 2010, I think we all know that we’re slowly killing our planet with our mere inhabitance, but we’ve also seen enough science-fiction movies to know that mankind is essentially a disease that is going to kill the planet at one pace or another, no matter how much we “slow it down.”
The ban on plastic bags in Toronto is an idea with good intentions, but I believe somebody, somewhere, at some point said, “The road to hell was paved with good intentions.”
Rather than launch into my thoughts about the plastic bag by-law, I’d rather tell a couple of stories to put things into perspective…
Last week, I went up to the cashier at Pharma Plus and unloaded a bunch of items on the counter. I had five tubes of toothpaste, three sticks of deodorant, three containers of hair paste, and a wicked bag of sunflower seeds which was on sale.
I was somewhat preoccupied with my Blackberry, and having never felt the need to supervise the cashier at a store before, I simply went about my business until the cashier gave me my total. “That’s $26.48,” she said, at which point I handed over my credit card and she gave me a slip to sign.
After she handed me the receipt, I stood there waiting for something….a train, maybe. She smiled, with all my items sitting on the counter, and said, “Have a good day.”
Utterly confused, I asked, “Ummm…can I get a bag, please?”
She responded, “Oh, you didn’t say you wanted a bag.”
Trying not be rude, I merely thought to myself, “Am I really supposed to carry all this out in my arms?” There were about fifteen items sitting on the counter, and I just assumed it would be easier to put them in a bag than to stuff items in every pocket and inside every inch of my wasteband!
The cashier said, “Bags are five cents,” so I handed her my credit card.
“I can’t put five cents on a credit card,” she said, as if I was the one being ridiculous.
“I have no cash on me, and I want a plastic bag. Please put $0.05 on my Visa.”
“Well you should have told me you wanted a plastic bag with the purchase of your items when you first approached the counter!”
The stand-off lasted a few more minutes until she finally “caved” and said, “You know what, here is a plastic bag, free of charge.”
And THAT was clearly the greatest moment of my life…
The next day, I found myself in Subway Sandwiches ordering a sweet-onion chicken-teriyaki even though I said I would stop blowing money on ten-dollar sandwiches, and when I approached the counter to pay for my lunch, I was asked, “Would you like a bag?”
Mildly perturbed at this point, I said, “No, I’ll just carry this out with my bare hands and hope that it doesn’t open up and spill onto the sidewalk.”
I just paid ten bucks for a glorified piece of bread with some vegtables, and it was wrapped up in a thin piece of paper that makes the term “paper-thick” sound like Alan Thicke.
There was no tape, no rubber band, and no bag to keep my sandwich safe and nestled within it’s paper sheath, so I wondered why it was even a question of whether or not I wanted to be evil and purchase a freaking bag.
But the absolute height of insanity came last Sunday when I was at Sobey’s on Front Street.
Let me preface this story by saying that I am a very busy guy: I work 70-80 hours per week and I work seven days out of seven. Sometimes I run errands when I have ten minutes here or there, and on Sunday I pulled my car up to the curb on Front Street and ran in to Sobey’s to buy a few things.
I approached the counter with my bounty of groceries, and said, “I’ll need a few plastic bags for these, thanks,” having learned my lesson from previous outings.
Overhearing this was the girl in line behind me, who let out a loud and intentional “SIGH” as she was clearly displeased with my use of plastic.
The cashier tried to fit two bottles of Fruitopia and a 3-pack bag of milk in the same bag, subsequently ripping it, so she said, “I’ll double bag this for you, sir.” That prompted the girl in line behind me to mutter “Greeeeeat” under her breath.
I could tell this girl was one of those know-it-all’s just from looking at her. You know the type?
She then stated, “I won’t be needing any plastic bags for my groceries,” thanks, as she proudly displayed her enviro-bags on the conveyor belt, overlapping some of my items in the process.
But then something incredible happened – I swear, this actually did happen. Having obtained my receipt and picking up my bags of groceries, the girl leaned over to me and said, “You know, there are people DYING in Haiti, and you’re using eight plastic bags for thirty bucks worth of groceries!”
Yeaaaaaah.
Alright, sure. That makes sense.
Teacher? A question, please: what does one thing have to do with the other?
I leaned in to her and said, “A train went through a tunnel, and I like red jellybeans,” since those two statements had equally as much to do with eachother as Haiti and plastic bags did.
Are all bad things automatically linked together?
There’s genocide in Africa AND a little girl in Sioux Falls dropped her lollipop on the ground!
How can you compare the earthquake in Haiti with my use of plastic bags? Is this not the most magnificent guilt trip ever? Now I’m made to feel somewhat responsible for the death of thousands every time I use a plastic bag…
There are millions of issues that plague our planet and our environment, and right now people are so focused on this one issue that they can’t concentrate on anything else.
Why suddenly jump on the plastic bag bandwagon? What can we do about climate change and how can we help the G8 to understand our collective plight? What about tighter restrictions on auto-makers to create more fuel-efficient cars? Who is cracking down on the manufacturing industry to reduce pollutants? Why not ban water in plastic bottles and create a bottle made of soy, air, and good feelings?
And why stop at only things that are bad for the environment? What about things that our bad for people? Let’s get together to ban fast-food so we can avoid another generation of fat and lazy children (who probably have fat and lazy parents…). Why is Taco Bell allowed to run a TV commercial that claims a woman lost 50 pound by eating nothing but goddam tacos!!
Network television sucks right now! Can’t we all band together and bring Seinfeld back?
And I just stubbed my toe!
Okay I’ll stop now. The world has lots of problems, we get it. And they’re being solved one problem at a time, starting with…..enviro bags!
I use enviro-bags when I can; when I walk from my condo to get groceries on a weeknight, I can definitely plan ahead and bring a bag. But why should we suddenly be ostracized and chastised in public for using a bag for groceries? Or expected to carry products out of a store in our pockets like a kid stealing from a convenience store?
And what of those ever-popular enviro-bags?
As first reported by The National Post, in May of 2009, a microbiological study of the popular, eco-friendly bags uncovered some unsettling facts. Swab-testing by two independent laboratories found unacceptably high levels of bacterial, yeast, mold and coliform counts in the reusable bags.
The study found that 64% of the reusable bags tested were contaminated with some level of bacteria and close to 30% had elevated bacterial counts higher than what’s considered safe for drinking water.
Further, 40% of the bags had yeast or mold, and some of the bags had an unacceptable presence of coliforms and faecal intestinal bacteria.
Great!
I can’t wait to eat that…..mold.
Oh, and I also drink from the toilet to save drinking water!
Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’m not more pro-environment. I’m sorry that my excuse is “being a busy guy.” Everybody gives back to the world in his or her own way, and I’m no different.
But eventually, every “good idea” gets blown out of proportion.
Just think of what happened at City Hall last year when workers turned vending machines around to face the wall and taped over the dispensing devices to prohibit people from buying bottled water.
Geez. I wonder if they know that people are dying in Haiti…
Alex
at 7:49 am
I have 2 big issues with the whole reusable bag vs non reusable bag situation.
1. Customer service. I find that 9 times out of 10 when I bring my fancy pants reusable bag, the cashier doesn’t bag my stuff. I’ve always assumed that this “service” was built into the markups of items, and food hasn’t gotten cheaper since June.
2. The reusable bags are crap. I’ve gone through 2 $3 reusable bags in the last 6 months, that’s the equivalent of 120 $0.05 plastic bags. I definetly didn’t get that many uses out of them.
Just bogus.
LC
at 8:17 am
Ahh plastic shopping bags….I now ask for them all the time as I have nothing else to bag my garbage with. Or, I just do my shopping outside the City of Toronto border where I can get them for free.
But getting to the point here, this whole “Ban Plastic Shopping Bags” movement is nonsense. I wish the short-term thinkers at City Hall would look to a rather large Italian company (I can’t do all the research for them) to see how they actually collect these bags from garbage sites and in a brilliant process, reduce the bags down to their petroleum base to extract (in a completely filtered/non-exhaust method) fuel from them. Imagine that! A free source of fuel you can find literally anywhere.
Unfortunately, being innovative is too much to ask for from the City of Toronto. It’s so much easier to just ban something!
earth mother
at 9:35 am
Even more infuriating is when I pay for a bag for my gum & I get the mini-size! so now I always ask for the largest size, at least I can use it for my garbage….
McBloggert
at 1:55 pm
Come on people, we are talking about $0.05 here, a nickel. As a function of your total grocery spend it doesn’t even register, but where does it have an impact? Attitudes.
The city of Toronto is not using the $0.05 as a sneaky tax grab to pay for sleeping TTC token collectors, that comes from your property and land transfer tax. The desired outcome of charging such a nominal amount for a grocery bag is to get people thinking about their consumption habits.
Often, I forget to bring my reusable bags and when it comes time to check out, I pay $0.20 and am reminded that I had the option to supply my own. Further, I get a shallow satisfaction that I am in some way doing something positive for the environment (when I bring the bags).
Now you may look at this as a short-term policy move by City Hall, as per LC’s comments. However, one of the greatest challenges faced by those trying to enact polices supporting environmental conservancy/protection, is changing the culture. How to you get people to drive less, consume less and think greener?
One of the ways to change a culture is to bring about incremental change. Sure it’s a pain to shell out a nickel for a bag, or bring your own from home, but perhaps it will encourage you to think about packaging and waste. I think the impact of 3+ million people actively thinking about environmental issues, isn’t a short-term fix, rather a cheap and sustainable one.
A couple last observations about other comments:
-Are people really going to drive OUT OF TOWN, so they can get free $0.05 bags?
-You can buy household garbage bags that are bio-degradable for a few bucks
-The Italian petroleum bag recycle plants thing – I would venture a guess that if the bankrupt City paid tens of millions for a recycling plant like this there would be an outcry over raised taxes, misuse of public funds etc, when there was a zero cost option available. Further, if there is a FREE source of energy (it’s not free, infrastructure, operating expenses etc) industry will finance it and PAY the City for the rights to its plastic bags.
Andrew
at 2:17 pm
@alex
Sobeys named theirs “Bag for Life” because if they ever wear out, you can get a replacement for free.
Also, the ‘enviro-bags’ can all be washed. That’s the point. If you use anything a few times to carry raw meat, chicken, veggies, dusty cans, etc— you will find critters. You have to wash them every now and then.
Cheers!
WEB
at 6:10 pm
All I can say is if that girl said those things to me I would have unleashed a verbal fury on her that would have made her afraid of saying anything in public for the rest of her life.
I sometimes get bags to use for my garbage. Otherwise, I use the plastic bins when I do my weekly shopping.
dogbiskit
at 10:58 pm
That twit at sobey’s who felt it necessary to verbally express judgement no doubt considered you to be self-centered. What she doesn’t realize is that sanctimony can be just as egocentric. Next time just turn and stare em down in silence for a few moments. Silence is amazingly unnerving to the receiving party. It’s hard to do but give it a try!
LC
at 11:37 pm
@McBloggert
While I live downtown, I work outside the city limits and as such have access to stores where they don’t ask me if I want a plastic bag and provide me one automatically instead. I don’t have a problem paying for $0.05 a bag, just the assumption that banning plastic bags will save the planet. IF we really want to save the planet, plastic bags would probably be the least of our problems.
The “zero cost option” you refer to is neither zero cost, nor an option. Remember how the whole green bin program turned into a fiasco? All garbage, “green” or not, was going to the same dump. The City was asleep at the wheel and the public paid for it. Twice, infact. The Italian example is simply that, an example of what’s possible if cities actually thought long-term on how to solve these issues instead of doing the absolute bare minimum possible for the sake of appearing to be doing something. Gotta love marketing departments.
For the record, I’m well versed in LEED certification, and I understand and appreciate the intention behind green initiatives….but until you equate being “green” with “business as usual”, it’s a losing battle. If cities/countries/organizations started offering positive solutions/options instead of all this negative banning/taxing you’d probably find a more cooperative public. I know because I see it everyday in the buildings I build…..people love to know that they can’t tell the difference between a “green” product and a “non-green” product, especially if there is no price difference. Give people REAL options to go green, and they will follow.
Geoff
at 10:26 am
I think it’s actually a good thing to charge for bags, but the cashiers should everytime if you need them, and to put up a sign reminding customers if they don’t have one. It has definitely changed my attitude towards bags and I use my re-useable bags much more often as a result.
Patrick
at 3:47 pm
What I find amazing is how people make such a fuss about plastic bags, all the while carrying their venti or grande Starbucks cup along for the stroll to the grocery store…
One Starbucks lid has the same amount of plastic as 4 or 5 of those grocery bags (which are now so thin you can see through them). And as mentioned above, you can re-use grocery bags for your kitchen trash bin, whereas coffee cups go straight to the dump.
Have you ever seen the number of garbage bags outside a Starbucks store at the end of each day? Each one is filled with ~200 empty cups and lids. It’s ridiculous.
Don’t even tell me they recycle them, because they don’t.
Why don’t we focus on THAT for shifting urban culture instead?
Andy
at 6:17 pm
Actually, the bag tax is a great idea.
OK, let me here start with an assumption: let us assume that the City of Toronto needs $1billion annually exactly, and the only thing it can control is how exactly it raises the said money and what exactly it spends on the money – not the amount.
Then, by taxing bags, it’s killing two birds with one stone: less garbage to collect (and, let’s face it, an ocassional plastic bag stuck in a tree after being carried by the wind can be quite hard to remove) and less money needed to be raised from another sources.
The fact that the person at Drug Mart was not competent (all my grocery stores ask me if I need a bag), that Subway is a cheapass that don’t want to absorb costs on their side (most of the takeout places actually do) or that some people are assholes has nothing to do with plastic bags.
I had to spend ten minutes at Sobeys because whoever entered the price for peaches put price per kilo into a price per pound field. Are the peaches to blame?
David Fleming
at 12:07 am
@ Patrick
I love it! Great comparison – the coffee lids at Starbucks.
Imagine a ban on plastic lids at Starbucks and Tim Horton’s.
“Here is your mocha-frappa-latte,” says the barista as she hands you a flaming hot cup of liquid with no top! “It’s hot, don’t spill it!”
Imagine slowly raising that cup to your lips and trying to sip from the edge without burning your face! Don’t attempt to do this in a crowd – one nudge from a passer-byer could leave you in the hospital!
“Would you like a lid,” asks the barista. “They’re five cents each.”
Meany
at 10:39 pm
Since I live in a tiny tiny condo and hate the smell of garbage, I throw out small amounts of garbage very frequently. I used to use the bags for garbage. Those old style, thin grocery bags were prefect.
NOW I need to BUY bags. Thick, big, fat, white bags. They cost money, AND use 5x more plastic each. Sorry, Earth. Blame Comrade Miller.
Don
at 5:29 pm
. . . safe and nestled within it’s paper sheath, . . .
ITS paper sheath.