A couple of years after that, sometime soon after coming to the US, I watched The Graduate in which the Dustin Hoffman character also, well, you know the story.
No, this is not about some strange young man with a mother-daughter sex triangle. Stay with me. In the highly sheltered existence of mine, those kind of things happened only in the fictional worlds, which is why they did not bother me at all. Thus, what really impressed me in that movie with the glorious Simon/Garfunkel score was the scene in which the young graduate receives that advice in one word: plastics. Not the love or the sex story.
Ah, those were simpler times. An era in which me the starving graduate student taking ziplock bags to India was a big achievement. Plastics!
A few years ago, I was pleasantly shocked to notice that the vendor who was selling mangoes off his cart in Chennai was bagging a customer's purchase in plastic bags that he had. The flower lady had plastic bags. And so did every seller, from the pavement to fancy stores. Plastics had reached India, big time.
A couple of years ago, my neighbor went to Mali to volunteer his expertise in installing expensive medical equipment. When he came back, his travel stories began with a question: "do you know what the national flower of Mali is?" I had no freaking clue, of course. "Plastic bags" he chuckled. "They are everywhere on the street, on the trees, on open grounds." He was unhappy with the littering he saw in Mali.
Meanwhile, in India, cows that looked like they had big stomachs turned out to be inflated because they had ingested a whole lot of plastic bags that were choking their stomachs. And, yes, plastic bags had replaced the lotus as the flower of the country.
But, I don't ever think that the plastic bags are the greatest environmental threat ever--there are far worse things that I want to tackle first before banning the bags. Not that I use a whole bunch of bags either--a long time ago I had switched over to reusable bags, which I regularly wash ;)
However, activism and politics are less about carefully thinking through and more about emotions and symbolic acts. This, the great state of California and environmental activists passed a statewide ban on plastic bags. Hallelujah! All environmental problems solved! Yeah, right!
It's a mildly positive step for the planet — especially if the goal is to cut down on plastic waste. But the disproportionate emphasis on plastic bags among people who care about the environment is also a bit misplaced. If you want to use your shopping choices to benefit wildlife and the environment as a whole, the type of bag you use is far less important than what you put inside it.So, how would we then approach it rationally? We would rank the practices that damage the flora and fauna by the order of their magnitude and then begin to focus on the worst ones first, right?
Not so, when it comes to activism or the politicians who are all about symbolism.
As an example, consider a vegetarian who prefers plastic bags versus a carnivore who wants to ban plastic bags. Ready?
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Isn't that picture worth a gazillion words?
These numbers can vary based on agricultural techniques, shipping methods, and other factors, but when you compare plastic bags with food, it's not even close. Yet for whatever reason, we associate plastic bags — but not food production — with environmental degradation.Many fanatical environmentalists I know, especially among the left-leaning in academe, are also big time "nonveg" people. They mouth the rhetoric, drive their expensive Prisues, travel to far away places to appreciate the natural settings there, yet, without seeing no environmental contradictions in their lives, eagerly champion banning plastic bags and plastic water bottles and ...
On top of all this, if plastic bag bans like California's end up causing people to use more paper bags — instead of bringing their reusable ones to the store — it'll certainly end up being worse for the environment. Research shows that making a paper bag consumes about four times more energy than a plastic bag, and produces about four times more waste if it's not recycled.
When it comes to both climate change and trash production, eliminating plastic bags is a symbolic move, not a substantial one.Oh well. It provided material for a commentary! ;) Maybe I should forget all about the plastic bags and, instead, watch The Graduate again.
5 comments:
Well, on the yardstick of energy efficiency you are absolutely right. Plastic bags come way down the list. Ban hamburgers instead !
But plastic bags are a major nuisance in India. In the absence of proper garbage collection and disposal systems, they land up littering everywhere, choke drains, get burned releasing all sorts of toxicity, etc etc. Therefore banning them, at least in Indian cities is not a bad step. Instead of banning, what they have sensibly done in most cities is to make retailers charge for a plastic bag - you should see the maamis tripping over themselves to reuse bags.
I reuse a jute bag - instead of a plastic one. However on the issue of frequency of washing, I take the Fifth :)
I oppose the plastic bag ban, though I do abhor the litter the users create, on the grounds of reuse potential. What percentage of the plastic bags are used one time only, to bring home one's groceries? Feel free to ban those. I use the plastic bags for many things after bringing home my purchases - lining wastebaskets, lunch bags, carrying wet swimsuits or dirty clothing, etc.
Banning the grocery store plastic bag will generate more purchases of other plastic bags so people can replicate their reuse at home. Perhaps Glad and Hefty are behind the ban, hoping to increase their profits. Will they raise prices to take advantage of the increased demand?
Imagine if we banned burgers! Think about the environmental benefits, and the awesome benefits to human health. I bet even the environmentalists will balk at that, even though the utility value of that ban will be a gazillion times the little bit we gain from banning plastic bags.
But, this is a free country. We can't ban individual preferences.
Wait, what about the individual preference for plastic bags then? ;)
I, too, always put the plastic bags to good use. Ever since the no plastic bags at stores, I have had to buy garbage bags (plastic) for the trash cans at home. And those garbage bags are expensive!
If only India and many other societies can change their bad habits of littering. The bag is not the problem but the littering is ... One of the worst ever things in Chennai when I visit--the food that is dumped by the roadsides. Awful stink, and with flies and other bugs buzzing around, a huge public health issue as well ... plastic bags are less an issue from that perspective ...
And, whoever it was who commented as Ramesh: what did you do to him? The real Ramesh would have commented only on the Harold Robbins and James Hadley Chase aspects of this post. You are an impostor!!! ;)
Who knew that plastic bags tasted so good to cows? The only important negative externality seems to be harm to wildlife. Positive environmental externalities might include reduced pressure on forests, and reduced transportation cost from lower weight of containers being transported, and lower manufacturing costs from lower energy inputs in manufacture, all of which would seem to reduce carbon emissions. Perhaps education campaigns to reduce litter, or at the most extreme a tax or deposit scheme would be better for the environment. Of course the same schemes should probably then be applied to paper bags. And in detailed analysis reusable bags may actually not fare much better. I choose option A: education to deal with this relatively minor issue. Minor unless you are a cow or a turtle.
-Wild Bill
Education, yes, at so many different levels can and will do wonders. But, unfortunately, we think that education is something that happens only within the walled classrooms and conveniently forget the day to day education even via good habits--like not littering ...
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