Every Bag Counts

By Ashley Brown

Plastic. In these petroleum-based times,you can’t live with it, and you can’t live without it. Since this magical substance, with its plethora of manifestations,controls our city-dwelling lives to such a massive degree, it pays to sit back and remember our day-to-day environmental responsibilities in regard to it. I’m sure you’re now thinking,“I’ve heard this all before; get off my back,you tree-hugging hippie.” But what are you doing about it? Let me give you a handful of examples that have grabbed my attention of late. The number one example is the fairly newly-evolved trend of chain restaurants like McDonalds, KFC and coffee franchises putting take-away drinks in their own separate plastic bags. Personally, I couldn’t believe it when I first started seeing this. I was honestly stumped. Even now, months later, I stare incredulously at people now carrying their coffees in yet even more plastic. More bewilderingly, why are you accepting these utterly redundant bags so unthinkingly? Can you not carry a cup? Have your arms devolved to the point that you can only carry something in brand-adorned carry bags?

Another example is when someone uses a bag for one or two bananas. I mean, come on—nature has already given you a bag! Why do you need another one? (I think similar thoughts whenever I see a watermelon being squeezed into a bag). Also, the amount of packaging that many products come with should simply be criminal—from totally unnecessary plastic trays in bags of nuts or dried fruits, to the garbage-congesting piles of presentation-oriented plastic left behind after buying something as innocuous as a shaving kit. Am I the only person who would be happy to have a less attractive product in exchange for a better planet?

Here are some facts to shock you into action—not one bit of commercial or industrial plastic ever produced has ever safely biodegraded. Broken down, yes; disappeared without releasing toxic chemicals, no. Every bag or its toxic ghost is still here. Massive areas of the world’s oceans, like the area now called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, are now vast fl oating garbage tips that we have all contributed to. Search online for photos of it,and you might just say no the next time someone asks, “Would you like a bag for that?”

Plastic is a part of our lives now, from childhood (Happy Meal toys in McDonalds)to teenagehood (iPads with the latest versions of Angry Birds or Plants vs Zombies),to maturity (phones, cars, furniture, homes),to old age (walking sticks and laminated pensioner cards)—not to mention the individually wrapped snack foods we’re offered all our lives, and all the stuff from corporate culprits that we’re surrounded by, like plastic-armored bus stop commercials, and the oceans of LEDs that sparkle on the fringes of the vast neon sunrise that engulfs our cities every evening. But, with all this omnipresence, surely plastic comes with a realization—that we need to be more responsible with this material that Mother Nature views as an alien.

Many people reading this article will already be aware of this stuff. If you agree with any point that I’ve made, then it’s your responsibility to spread the word to everyone who may not know these things. So next time you see someone with a coffee slung in a patently superfluous plastic bag, simply ask them—“do you really need that bag?”Because, like it or not, the old greenie cliché is still true—every bag does count.