Personal Respoasibility to use 10% Less Plastic

Collectively: we are all polluting and consuming energy at a level that is very dangerous for the planet. It’s easy to blame energy companies, the ones who find, produce and sell things like coal, oil and gas, but we are the ones who want to buy and use these energy sources.

It’s really hard to avoid using plastics these days. It would be almost impossible to live a life with no plastics at all. But it is really obvious that using less plastic would be a good thing. Even it this only reduces some of the pressure on sea birds and general pollution, it would be worth doing. I’m trying to use 10% less plastic in my life this year, and then I’ll try to reduce that by another 10% next year. If everyone did this, it would be great step forward for the world.

1.     Stop using plastic straws - If a straw is a must, purchase a reusable stainless steel or glass straw
2.    A single plastic bag can take 1,000 years to degrade. use reusable produce bag and be sure to wash them often! 
3.    You are chewing Plastic - Give up gum. Gum is made of a synthetic rubber, aka plastic. 
4.    Purchase food, like cereal, pasta, and rice from bulk bins and fill a reusable bag or container.
5.    Reuse containers for storing leftovers or shopping in bulk.
6.    Use a reusable bottle or mug for your beverages, even when ordering from a to-go shop
7.    Bring your own container for take-out or your restaurant doggy-bag since many restaurants use styrofoam. 
8.    Avoid buying frozen foods because their packaging is mostly plastic. (cardboard coated in a thin layer of plastic).
9.    Make my own cleaning products that are less toxic and eliminate the need for multiple plastic bottles of cleaner.
10.  Use a razor with replaceable blades instead of a disposable razor

What 10% could you live without?

Light weight packaging including plastic bags is the biggest fraction of waste stream being generated within communities leading to huge amounts of them entrying the environment, oceans and food chain, thereby contaminating their mediums and causing big health problems and damages to ecosystems. Therefore, education and incentives to create awareness and encourage people to adapt to reusable bags may contribute greatly in solving the problem. Also, bringing in incentives to reduce the price of reusable bags and motivate people to use them will encourage many people in the society to switch to them that will yield good results. Behavior changes can be driven by ethics, which will bring good results because it will establish a habit in societies triggered by social norm rather than using price strategies (laziness or other type of markets for it may exist, making the strategy not effective and not bringing good results, especially in countries with weak legal systems). That is, if people ethically understand the consequences of plastic bags on the environment and the opportunity cost of maintaining the environment and ecosystems due to damages caused from plastics as well as the health risks (willing to accept/pay for the damages), thereby leading to increases in taxes (due to increase in environmental taxes), then it will create a signal and social norm in the society, which even if the plastics bags in the supermarkets are giving for free (zero price), nobody will take them because everyone will be the watch dog for the other in the society for transferable liability, taxation and sanctions (fines for not respecting social norms). I think, many environmental strategies or measures are not achieved (especially in countries with weak legal systems) because the regulators are usually going in for price/montary/taxation measures than bringing in self regulatory instruments based on ethics that are driven by social norms.

The goal of a 10 cent fee is to encourage shoppers to bring their own reusable bags and reduce plastic pollution. Unfortunately, numerous stores have figured out a way to continue their polluting habits within the bounds of this policy.

In California, where there is a statewide plastic bag ban (upheld by voters), large chain stores have removed thin plastic film bags and replaced them with a thicker plastic bag. These thicker bags can be labeled as "reusable" and are "sold" to customers for 10 cents each.

This essentially circumvents the main point of the policy, which is to reduce the use of plastic bags. Instead, customers are still able to choose plastic bags- and the bags are thicker than ever! To this end, a 10 cent fee is insufficient to remind customers to bring their own truly reusable shopping bags.

No - the price of a plastic bag must be sufficient to make citizens want to consider an alternative. Perhaps a US$1.00 per bag might be enough to make citizens decide against using plastic bags and instead bring their own reusable bags to the supermarket.

My supermarket gave a rebate of 5 cents for each reusable bag brought by the customer and used instead of a plastic bag. I thought that approach was more positive than the European method of charging for each bag. It seemed to work fine, but after 5 years the practice was discontinued, I would encourage municipalities to do the same-also to cut down on the windblown bags that litter the landscape and wind up in waterways.

Plastics leakage into the land and oceans is most prevalent in developing countries (see this UN Environment infographic: https://twitter.com/UNEnvironment/status/1003820147176599553). In those locations, a price for a bag might do some good and would not need to be very high to give the bags sufficient value to keep them off the streets. In the rest of the world, it would make more sense to encourage people to make fewer trips to the store. A single 5-mile car trip to the store has more environmental impact than 200 plastic bags. Another great place to put our efforts (especially where people already walk or ride their bikes to the store) would be reducing food waste.

Yes it works. From personal experience we have reduced consumption of single use plastic bags by about 90%. So single use bags probably cost us about £5/ year = £0.10p per week and Bags for Life and average of about £0.20p/week (say 20 -25 bags per year (at.35p to.60p each).A total spend on all plastic bags of about  £0.30 a week is insignificant to the average weekly spend on goods and food.  Even if the single use bags were banned I believe that about 3 out of 4  of the reusable plastic bags will be thrown away over a 12 month period having only been used may once or twice This could be 15 to 20 bags dumped household (many more with a large family), if like me you keep forgetting to put then in the car.

Here is a well documented account of Ireland's attempt to tax bags: http://www.allaboutbags.ca/irelandandlitter.html. Unfortunately, it caused the purchase of trash can liners to increase. Since trash can liners are thicker than bags, the amount of plastic in the waste stream also increased.

I think we need to look more systemically at the problem of plastics leakage. Dr. Fongwa's suggestion to work toward changes in social norms is a more systematic approach and will help with some of the problem, particularly if people are made aware that bags alone aren't the problem. Ocean-degradable plastics could be another solution. Unfortunately, the extent of the damage from each kilogram of leaked plastic isn't well understood yet, so it's hard to consider potential tradeoffs.

My first experience with reusable bags was while working in Germany in 2004. At the time I thought the concept was interesting and wondered why we didn't adopt in the States. Five years ago, while living in NY, the grocery stores wanted to reduce plastic bags usage and rewarded good behavior by giving a rebate of 5 cents for each reusable bag brought in by the customer and used instead of a plastic bag. The rebate program went on for approximately 3 years. I thought this effort had a more positive effect on behavior (i.e. consumers were rewarded for good behavior). My personal experience was that I significantly reduced the number of plastic bags in my household as my behavior was modified and I have my reusable bags with me at all times.

Now living in California, it has been a year since California imposed a 10 cent charge (penalized for bad behavior) on each plastic bag used, and like others have commented I don't see the behavior changing, specifically I don't see the behavior changing as fast as it did in NY. I see many more individuals in California grocery stores purchasing the bags versus bringing in the reusable bags. My personal observations is that the customers in NY were quicker to adopt the use of reusable bags with a small reward.

During an official visit to South Africa earlier this year, i was at checkers supermarket in Sandton Mandela Square. After doing my shopping i was asked by the cashier of how many bags i wanted. This was a surprise to me as i think i should be given the number of plastic bags that will contained the items i bought. I asked the lady why she asked this question, her response for it was that i will need to pay for the plastic bag. I was taken aback as i never imagined paying for plastic bags at a shopping mall. Invariably this force me to do with one bag as cost is attached.
I believe the aspect of paying for plastic shopping bags which is priced sufficiently will invigorate the behavior of recycling in shoppers to reuse plastics bags over times as no one usually like to pay more for what they should have for free.

“The big challenge with plastic is not technology, its human behaviour”

It is an environmental catastrophe and a human one, too, as some people in parts of the developing world live ankle -deep in filthy non-biodegrading plastic trash. The long-term health implications for all of us remain uncertain, as ingested plastic works its way up the food chain.

The Dark secret that no one talks about is that in the richer nations the plastic problem starts with many people simply not caring that one discarded, plastic bag or bottle is essentially worthless. It’s cheaper to start anew.

You can argue the rights and wrongs of deriving materials from fossil fuels, but its this throwing away that gets the most attention, and the fact that it is not disposed of correctly that makes this bad news. What is required is to give waste plastic a value (WEEE Recycling- It’s a little known fact, that since January 2007, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) was introduced into UK law to encourage the recycling and reuse of electrical waste, making it illegal to send it to landfill).

I am interested to hear the panels view on:
1.    Cutting out single-use-plastic

• The tipping point when a stainless steel water bottle out weighs a plastic one
• A Cotton tote-bag used 131 times better than one plastic bag

2.    Reducing the packaging you use

• Buy in bulk and switch at home to smaller daily jars (lighter footprint)

3.    Buying concentrated forms of products

• E.g. detergents less packaging and better for the environment (Have you considered the use of basic ingredients like vinegar or bi-carb)

4.    Boycotting mixed packaging

• How many times have you really read the discard information, many companies not truly using 100% recycled PET

5.    Taking responsibility of recyclable home – waste

• In the UK, kerbside recycling is much cheaper for local authorities, but if you tip it into a public bin, its unlikely that anyone will take the time to separate it out for recycling

“I think the technology will eventually come to maturity. But the big challenge will always be all of us”