Letter to the Editor: Keep plastic bags in Los Alamos

Today I sent in a letter to the editor of the Los Alamos Daily Post.  I have no idea if she will publish it, so I am going to share it here.

I encourage everyone to write in to the editor, with their thoughts on plastic bag bans.

You can email the editor of the LADP by sending an email to Carol Clark: caclark {at} ladailypost {dot} com

You can also write the editor of the Los Alamos Monitor by emailing lacommunity {at} lamonitor {dot} com and ask that the letter be forwarded to the editor, Mike Cote. 

Jody Benson, a member of the Sierra Club, who wrote the letters to the LADP, has also had the same letters published in the Monitor.

My letter is here:

In the last month there have been two very emotionally charged letters to the editor, written by Jody Benson, a member of the Sierra Club, demanding a ban on plastic shopping bags in Los Alamos County.  Understandably this topic is going to generate a lot of discussion because it concerns how people choose to shop and live their lives.

 Before we ban plastic bags and allow needleless government intrusion into a private transaction let’s look at some facts regarding plastic shopping bags.

·         Plastic bags are made of #2 (high-density polyethelyne, HDPE) or #4 (low-density polyethelyne, LDPE), both of which are 100% recyclable through the “Bag-2-Bag” program Smith’s participates in.

·         Smith’s also recycles its own cardboard and other waste, thus not impacting the County’s solid waste system.

·         90% of plastic shopping bags are reused in households.  The most common reuse is to line trash cans, and to dispose of pet waste.

·         Recycling efforts are on the rise and increase every year. From 2006 to 2011 recovery of HDPE and LDPE increased 55%.  As time passes public awareness of recycling has grown, in addition to this, access to recycling facilities is becoming more widespread and available to individuals and municipalities.  Los Alamos County has a dynamic recycling program in place and is proactive in improving its efforts in recycling.

·         Plastic bags make up less than .5% of the municipal waste stream in this country.  Look around your house and note all of the things that go into your trash can – both the green barrel and the blue barrel.  A plastic shopping bag is one of the smallest things in the there. 

·         Bans really do not solve the issue of litter, or reduce what goes into a landfill.  Again, look around your house and take an inventory of what you are throwing away.  Plastic bags are not the problem.  Banning them is a “feel good fix” with little impact on the real issue of how to reuse and recycle plastics.

·         Where bans are in place the use of alternative plastic bags rises.  People buy their own trash can liners and pet waste bags to replace the plastic bags they no longer get from the store.  These replacement bags are heavier weight plastic and will end up in a landfill.  It’s better to reuse the lighter weight bags from the store, and recycle them when they no longer are needed.

·         Plastic bags are more sanitary and help to prevent the spread of food borne illness.  Unless you are washing your cloth bags after each use, you run the risk of cross contamination from things like salmonella and E.coli.  If you leave your bags in the car, as most people do, these bacteria grow even faster, and will make people even sicker.  In cities where bag bans are in place there has been an increase in the reported cases of food borne illness, especially among grocery store employees. 

In addition to these facts there is the issue of personal choice, which for me is the most important part of this debate.  When I go into the store and shop, it is a private transaction between me and Smith’s.  I do not want the government, at the behest of the Sierra Club, stepping in telling me how to carry home my groceries.  What will the Sierra Club want to ban next? Plastic shampoo bottles or milk cartons?  How about cereal boxes and margarine tubs?  Where does it stop?  Everything we use and consume has an impact.  Instead of banning things, let’s be smarter about what we are using, and practice good stewardship of our resources. 

As has been mentioned, plastic bags are 100% recyclable.  If you’re not going to reuse them, drop them in the barrel at Smith’s.  As individuals and communities look for solutions to solid waste, the market, through innovation, will provide the solutions. If we start banning things, there is no reason to innovate and to be proactive with how we deal with our garbage.  We are not solving anything with a ban on plastic bags.

If you stand at the exit of Smith’s, you will also observe many people walking out with their own bags, which is great.  We are already governing ourselves when it comes to using and reusing plastic bags.  Why does the government need to solve a problem that does not exist?  Why do some people feel the need to force others to adopt their lifestyle choices too?  If an individual wants to use cloth bags, they should.  If someone wants to use plastic bags, that should be an option as well.  One of the best things about living in Los Alamos is that we are very happy to let each other live our lives as we please, free of guilt and judgment.  There is very little pressure to conform to a certain way of life, or to keep up appearances here.  We need to keep that civic mentality alive, because it makes this town a nice place to live. 

I have started a group called “Save the Bag: Los Alamos” on facebook (see the link here: Save the Bag: Los Alamos)  and a blog, found at Save the Bag: Los Alamos.  My goal is to provide as much information to people, free of emotion and hyperbole, on the subject of plastic bags, so that people of Los Alamos can make their own informed and reasonable decision on this issue.  I hope that people will take the time to come and see what we have to say, and consider that banning plastic bags is not the solution to garbage in this town.

 

Sincerely,

Joyce Anderson

Founder, Save the Bag: Los Alamos

 

Take the Survey!

There is a survey today in the Los Alamos Daily Post regarding banning plastic bags in Los Alamos County.

Take the survey and encourage your friends in Los Alamos to do the same.  We need to get our voices out there.  The County Government needs to know that most of us do not want the Sierra Club dictating public policy and laws in our town.

See the survey here Plastic Bag Ban Survey from the Los Alamos Daily Post dated 2/26/2015

Plastic bag recycling

Here in Los Alamos, our grocery store, Smith's, participates in the Bag 2 Bag program.  When bags are dropped in the recycle bins located in the lobby of the store they are taken away to a plastic recycling plant in Indiana and remade into new plastic bags.

Here are two videos on the topic.  Please watch and then share them with your friends. 

In order to preserve the plastic bag option we need to get as much information out to people as possible.  Plastic bags are 100% recyclable, we just have to make the effort to drop our bags in the bins.  It's easy enough.  Drop bags that will not be reused into the bins every time you go grocery shopping.  You don't even have to make a separate trip.  It's so easy!

Plastic bag recycling part 1

Plastic bag recycling part 2

No Such Thing As A Free Lunch: Or How You're Already Being Charged for Plastic Bags

To continue off of the subject of my previous post and regressive taxes visa-vie charges for paper or plastic shopping bags, I came across another interesting story on this.

The City of Princeton, New Jersey is debating a regressive plastic bag tax right now. (See the story HERE). The activists pushing this want a 10-cent per bag fee assessed for each plastic bag a store gives to a customer. I've seen many comments to the effect that stores should not be handing out "free" bags, because if things are "free" people will not change their behavior.

But are those plastic and paper bags really free? No they are not.

 

I remember the first day of my high school economics class the teacher had an acronym on the board:

TINSTAAFL

He challenged us to come up with the meaning of this acronym. There were some pretty funny responses, if I remember correctly, but no one got it right.

TINSTAAFL means, "There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". He went on to explain how everything has a price. Everything costs something, and that cost did not necessarily mean money. Someone had to pay for the food, the venue, and the service at the so called "free lunch". Usually when things are advertised as free, the business or person sponsoring the event gives away "free" stuff to lure you in, with the expectation that you will spend more money than they did to feed you. That's why there are sample carts at Costco on Saturdays. For the prices of a few boxes of chicken nuggets or taquitos they expect that they will sell many more boxes of the item, thus making a profit. Eventually the price of the free lunch will be turned back on to the customer in higher prices.

How does this relate to plastic bags and you shopping? The store has already calculated the cost of the plastic bags into the costs of running the store. The cost of running the store is the janitorial services, the utilities, the rent, wages of employees, health benefits, and uniforms for the employees. All of this is factored into the cost of running the store, and we pay for every last bit of it. The twenty or so plastic bags I take home every week are pennies compared to the amount of money I spend in a week on groceries, but they are still factored into the prices I pay for my food. I am already being charged for the bags I take home, the store just chooses not to itemize that charge on my receipt. When people see an itemized charge for a bag they will be upset. And in Los Alamos, where we love to nit-pick about everything, this is going to make some people VERY upset. (Can you picture the volley of letters to the editor of the Daily Post on this?)  Because a 10-cent per bag fee is a regressive tax, it would be impacting the people that could least afford it, the very most.

Another example of TINSTAAFL is how airlines used to offer "free checked" bags, but now many asses a separate charge to check a suitcase. If you've flown and had to pay that charge, you probably have grumbled about it  -- I know I have. The airlines would do better to follow the example of the stores and just assimilate that charge back into the price of the ticket, which they did before the checked bag fee was introduced. In the end, the customer is still paying for the service, but is not reminded of it.

The activist in the story out of Princeton, claims that by requiring stores to charge for bags, it will force people to change their behavior. It might for some people, and it might not for others. But again, why are some people forcing their way of life on others? She also makes the claim that the bags end up in water ways and oceans. This might be true some of the time. But when you consider that the United States is pretty good at picking up after itself, plastic bag bans are totally unnecessary.

Case in point. A study was released this week on plastic pollution in the ocean.

(I am still trying to locate the original study, but this story from the AP quotes from it, see HERE).

According to the study:

"More than half of the plastic waste that flows into the oceans comes from just five countries: China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. The only industrialized western country on the list of top 20 plastic polluters is the United States at No. 20. The U.S. and Europe are not mismanaging their collected waste, so the plastic trash coming from those countries is due to litter, researchers said.

While China is responsible for 2.4 million tons of plastic that makes its way into the ocean, nearly 28 percent of the world total, the United States contributes just 77,000 tons, which is less than 1 percent, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Science. This is mostly because developed countries have systems to trap and collect plastic waste, Jambeck said."

Can the United States do better? Yes we can, and we should.   The solution to doing better, however, does not lie in banning things or assessing regressive taxes. It lies in more dynamic recycling programs and market based solutions to the problem. There are companies like the TREX company that buys plastic bags and other plastics for use in the manufacture of decking, benches, picnic tables and similar items. We need to come up with ways to reuse our plastics, instead of banning them. Before we infringe on people's choices and before we allow government to nose its way into a private transaction we should explore other avenues of dealing with our plastic.

Regressive Taxes & Plastic Bags

An article from the Albuquerque Journal popped up several times in my news feed this week. (See the article HERE) As many know, in 2014, the City of Santa Fe, imposed a ban on plastic shopping bags. In the original ordinance, there was a provision that required stores to charge customers 10-cents a bag, for paper shopping bags. The idea behind this was to force encourage people to start using cloth bags. As it turned out the City Attorney said that charge amounted to an illegal tax, and had to be removed. So, because of this legal technicality, Santa Fe's bag ban has been largely unsuccessful. Having shopped several times in Santa Fe during 2014 I can say that the ban is not working.

(Sidebar here: we decided to vote with our dollars when the ban went into effect in Santa Fe, because we felt it was intrusive and burdensome. For the most part we have stayed away, and have not missed it. The times when we have gone there to shop, it's been wretched. Partly because it's always wretched there, but mostly because forcing someone to shop a certain way is wrong.)
 
As I've stood near the exit doors of Target and Walmart, in Santa Fe, customer after customer has left with their purchases in paper shopping bags. Here is the thing, the people that forced this ordinance on Santa Fe were the people who were bringing their own bags in the first place. Why do the feel they need to force their economic and lifestyle choices on others? 

It's also important to note that in Santa Fe there is a real economic dichotomy. There are the wealthy, elites, who run the city. I call them "The Plaza People" because they can afford to shop and eat on, or around the Plaza area in downtown Santa Fe -- which a very expensive proposition. And then there is the rest of the city, which is made up of a considerable number of poor working class people, and Hispanic people who are immigrants of some sort who make barely enough to live on (legal or illegal is irrelevant for this discussion). Those are the people that the bag ban has hit the hardest and impacted the most.

 

Let's turn our attention back to the 10-cents per bag fee that was there and then taken away. This fee is a regressive tax. If you look on Wikipedia for a definition of regressive tax you get the following:

"A regressive tax is a tax imposed in such a manner that the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases. "Regressive" describes a distribution effect on income or expenditure, referring to the way the rate progresses from high to low, so that the average tax rate exceeds the marginal tax rate. In terms of individual income and wealth, a regressive tax imposes a greater burden (relative to resources) on the poor than on the rich — there is an inverse relationship between the tax rate and the taxpayer's ability to pay as measured by assets, consumption, or income. These taxes tend to reduce the tax incidence of people with higher ability-to-pay, as they shift the incidence disproportionately to those with lower ability-to-pay."

For those of us who do not speak tax-collector, a regressive tax is a tax which has a higher impact on people that can least afford to pay.  The less money you have to spend, the higher tax rate or assessment you will have.  This is an inverse relationship.  In other words, poor people pay more.  The 10-cent per bag fee was a regressive tax.

Activists in Santa Fe are trying to find a loop hole around the illegal tax issue for their bag ban. It will be interesting to see if they manage to think something up.

In the mean time, it's good to remember that it should be your choice how you carry your groceries home. If you want to bring a cloth bag, great! If you want to use the plastic or paper bags from the store, that's great too. Governments and special interest groups should not be manipulating behavior. I don't know about you, but just the thought of that has a very eerie, 1984 vibe to it. No thanks!

Why "Save the Bags"?

The day I started this blog, I woke up thinking I'd just do the laundry and run the kids to and from school.  A typical day for me.

Then there was an emotional letter to the editor of our local paper decrying the use of plastic shopping bags. (See the letter HERE).  A similar letter had been written a few months before as well. (see that letter HERE). I also get the email updates from the local chapter of the Sierra Club and have known this storm was brewing on the horizon.  The fight to outlaw and ban plastic shopping bags will happen in 2015.  I want to be on the front row and ready.

That being said, I do believe that communities have the right and actually obligation to set standards for themselves and to enforce those standards.  Case in point, last year Los Alamos passed a property maintenance ordinance.  It was very controversial and sparked a lot of online and in person debate.  Many people felt it was long overdue, while many felt it was trampling their rights to live as they pleased.  I think the dust is still settling from it, actually.  This fight will be a similar fight.

If my town decides to outlaw plastic shopping bags, that will be a choice we make as a community, however, I also have the right and responsibility to raise awareness among my neighbors, and to speak out.  For me this debate has always been about choice.  Again, the choice to live my life as a please.    There is a lot of information about plastic shopping bags, some good and some bad.  And I want to explore all of that information -- stripped of emotion and hyperbole -- before we hastily make a decision that will impact every one in our community. 

Those that favor plastic bag bans would have us believe they are always bad.  But are they really?  I have been collecting research on them for sometime now, and it's not all bad if you are a plastic bag, or a plastic bag proponent.  I intend to share what I've found here on this blog and in the facebook group I've created.

As I have already stated, this is about choice for me.  When I go into the store and shop, and then pay for my things, that is a private transaction between me and the store.  I don't think the government should step in the middle of that transaction.  Here in Los Alamos, Smiths Grocery has recycling barrels in the lobby for people to dispose of unwanted bags.  Those barrels are always full, which tells me people are taking advantage of recycling.  If you stand at the exit of the store and observe, about half the time, people are using their own bags.  People are taking the initiative by their own choice to use cloth bags.  When I look around town too, I don't see a blizzard of plastic bags blocking my view of the New Mexico true blue sky either -- so plastic bags as a pollution or blight issue is not an issue here either.  We are already governing ourselves, why get the county government involved?   We simply do not need to "solve a problem" that does not exist in this town.

Future blog posts will include: the unintended consequences of plastic bag bans, opportunity cost and choice, the difference between plastic, paper and cloth bags; uses for plastic bags, a review of the movie "Bag It", and more.  I hope you will check back in and join us in this effort to "Save the Bag: Los Alamos".