Paper or Plastic? When someone sees this question they immediately think of their experiences at the checkout counter of grocery stores. Oftentimes, due to the unnecessary stress that comes from grocery shopping, people tend to choose the simplest option.
Plastic. However, the simpleness of this option in the supermarket is merely a facade of the complex issue that lurks beneath the surface. Single-use plastic bags are on of the world's leading contributors to the 5.2 trillion tons of plastic pieces floating in the oceans. This astronomical amount of plastic pollution not only creates a choking and poisoning threat for wildlife, but also it can cause plant growth to be reduced. There are also some parts of the world where areas that used to have fresh drinking water are now contaminated as a result of plastic pollution. Thankfully there recycling programs implemented
...all throughout the US and the world to attempt to battle the pollution epidemic, but they are unfortunately not succeeding in their efforts.
The current recycling rate of plastic bags is less than 15% (Scholastic INC, 2018, p. [Page 4]). A significant change in efforts is necessary. The environmental degradation caused by the mass production of single-use plastic bags needs to be addressed by local government officials by them implementing policies favoring a shift towards mainstream usage of reusable bag options.
History
Everyday hundreds of thousands of people use plastic bags. The most common and mass produced design for the single-use plastic bag was invented in 1977.
However, the main ingredient in single use plastic bags, polyethylene, was invented in the 1930s. Polyethene is a simple polymer which is found in many plastic products, and most commonly
found in plastic grocery bags. In as few as just five years after their invention, single-use plastic bags began to become mass produced by supermarkets such as Safeway and Kroger. Once they began to be mass produced their production continued to grow exponentially. Retailers and consumers alike chose to use plastic bags over paper bags because they were stronger and less bulky when compared to paper bags. Also, plastic bag production actually emits less air pollution than paper bag production.
However, the failure to dispose of them properly has made plastic bags have more significant environmental harm than paper bags. The evidence of the success of single-use plastic bags can be found today by the over $4 billion per year that is spent by retailers throughout the United states to keep their stores and restaurants having a continuous flow of readily available plastic bags (Warner, 2010, p. [Page 647]). It would be impossible to have an object as widely used as plastic bags to not have two sides of a legal debate continuously battling it out. The issue they argue over is whether or not there should be regulations or bans put on the creation and/or distribution of single-use plastic bags.
After San Francisco became the first US city to ban plastic bags, many others such as Seattle and Chicago have made efforts to follow in their footsteps. These governments have faced a significant backlash from conglomerate pro-plastic usage groups such as the American Chemistry Council (ACC). The efforts of these groups to repeal ordancines usually end up being futile but their efforts do make impressions on other governments and interest groups across the nation (Larsen, 2014).
An example of this result put into action is the Texas Supreme Court case of the Laredo Merchants Association v.
The City of Laredo. The association filed suit under the pretenses that the City of Laredo, as well as the cities of Austin, Fort Stockton, and Port Aransas, created plastic bag bans that violate a pre-existing state law concerning the regulation of solid waste disposal. However, they are merely using the physical law as a means to explain their side of the argument in a court of law. In an Amicus Curiae brief written by Edward Burbach, a member of the Texas Retailers Association, it stated the following: Inconsistent local ordinances harm the sales of affected retailers, force the layoff of employees, deprive retailers of their existing inventory of bags, and impose an expensive and complex requirement on multisite retailers to comply with varying ordinances across the state (Cobler, 2018). The district court ruled in favor of the City of Laredo, but the court of appeals overturned that decision with a 2-1 decision. The final Supreme Court hearing on this issue has yet to be completed (Cobler, 2018).
Whether or not courts rule in favor of progressive plastic bag regulations, the cases provide a means for both sides to express their opinions to the people in charge of making a legal difference. Virginia has been no exception to this national trend. Virginia, as well as all other states, also have unique histories involving legislation and case law governing plastic bag usage. Virginia has tended to lean in a conservative direction concerning both environmental issues and taxation.
Meaning that not much legislation has been passed on environmental issues, and
Virginians time and time again choose lower taxes over legislative action. However, the use of incentives has been proven to be successful with getting the general population on board with a controversial legislative act (J. Grimes, personal communication, October 21, 2018). Virginians have, however, attempted to pass legislation involving this issue before. In 2011 a statewide tax on plastic bags in the state of Virginia was proposed.
The tax would be a twenty cent tax where the retailer is allowed to keep up to 5 cents of the tax. The proposal was assigned to a subcommittee of the House Finance Committee but died there and no action has been taken since ('HB 2341,' 2011). Virginia, as well as the United States as a whole, has provided little legal action on this topic despite obvious and harmful environmental effects.
Environmental Effects
The roots for the issues that arise from plastic bags can be traced back to the initial makeup of the bags. High Density Polyethene, the plastic used for single-use plastic bags, uses both oil and natural gas.
Not only are these nonrenewable fossil fuels, but the polyethene makeup adds in to making the bags not biodegradable. When ultraviolet rays are exposed to the plastic bags, they break them down into smaller pieces over time. These pieces get exponentially smaller; small enough so that a person cannot see them. However, the toxicity never goes away, even on a microscopic scale.
Sometimes, before the bags are broken down, the lightweight design of single-use plastic bags make them highly susceptible to being carried away by wind. This can cause plastic bags to work their way into the ocean instead of in
landfills which is the more environmentally desired final resting place for non biodegradable objects (Warner, 2010, p. [Page 648]). Many people already know about the Pacific Ocean garbage patch thanks to social media and other platforms. However, what is frequently looked over in the realms of social media and news is the ever growing garbage patch in the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic garbage patch is forming similarly to that of the Pacific one.
Most of the plastic ending up in the ocean comes from runoff into stormwater drains. Overtime the plastics break down and either end up into the plastic soup of the ocean or wash up on beaches as sand sized plastic particles (J. Grimes, personal communication, October 21, 2018). Other times plastic bags do not reach the point of breaking down. The continuous movement of plastic bags in the ocean due to currents can result in the tangling and then the consequent consumption of the toxic waste by marine life.
Sea turtles get the worst effect (Warner, 2010, p. [Page 649]). Both entanglement and consumption end in serious injury or death to the endangered species. This costly affect is witnessed in Virginia Beach as there is less turtles laying eggs on our beaches and more washing up dead then in the past (J. Grimes, personal communication, October 21, 2018).
The environmental harm that is caused by plastic bags does not only occur with the ocean. Land based pollution, which includes plastic bags, is the cause for over 80% of all marine debris throughout the world. Marine debris can be any pollutants that are found in natural areas around coastlines as well as in the water themselves.
In Virginia, grocery bags were in the top 5 of most abundant pollutants. Other plastic sources in the top 5 included food wrappers and beverage bottles (Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, n.d.). These pollutants not only cause harm to the natural areas by resulting in their injuries and deaths, but seeing plastic bags blowing around in the wind and scattered across picturesque natural areas is an eyesore.
South Africa has dealt with this problem so much that they satirically deemed plastic bags their “National Flower” (Warner, 2010, p. [Page 650]). The environmental effects that result due to plastic bag pollution can be witnessed and compared on both a local and global scale.
