The Boston City Council wants to follow San Francisco's footsteps and ban plastic bags from the city. Robert Consalvo (Hyde Park / Roslindale / Mattapan) is pushing the measure, and nine of twelve city councilors have offered their support.
We're all for protecting the environment, but the way Robert Consalvo describes those bags, you'd think we were being attacked by plastic bags: "They blow in trees, they're floating in Boston Harbor . . . They're an environmental nightmare. We need to rid our city of these plastic bags."
Do you see that many plastic bags? The blight Consalvo mentions seems to be caused by sloppy people who litter. The bags don't breed like rabbits overnight.
Consalvo's hyperbole aside, plastic bags are bad news for the environment, which is why San Francisco banned them in the first place. The EPA notes that it takes 1,000 years for a plastic bag to decompose. But the EPA also notes that making paper bags kills trees, so you're better off buying a fabric bag and taking it to the store.
Some people get more than one use out of their plastic bags, especially if they have dogs and use the bags to pick up after their pets. Some stores also accept the bags for recycling, but how many of us are going to remember to take the bag back to the store?
Those who actually recycle the bags might be a small minority: "In 2005, 5.2 percent of plastic bags and sacks were recycled, compared with 21 percent of paper bags and sacks, according to the Environmental Protection Agency." What do you think? Is this genuine or hysterical trend-spotting?
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