Comments

Tundrasea- Thats interesting that you say your an environmentalist. It doesn't seem to fit with your argument that the "price system" is better at making decisions about resource allocation. That sounds an awful lot like letting the "free market" decide. America has anything but a free market system, and we clearly have different ideas about what superior resource allocation means. I would say the price system has done an absolutely abysmal job at allocating resources, purely based on the impacts from mines, clearcuts, over fishing, monocultures, etc. Cost benefit analysis is great if it includes accurate accounting of the costs of both intended and unintended consequences. But companies rarely make decisions that are based on thorough C/B analysis, let alone including environmental or social costs. These externalized costs are considered unimportant to business because they have only a responsibility to profit, growth, and their shareholders. It seems like your saying that if we can't put a price on externalities that we should just let them slide. Let the consumer make the decision. Thats a nice idea, but it isn't very reflective of the market in which consumers make decisions. If your argument is more based on the failings of government's command and control style of regulation, I couldn't agree more. Laws that try to control the market too much and set pollution limits with fines for exceeding the limits, end up being repressive. We must find better ways to provide incentives and disincentives for businesses that do not include subsidies and lawsuits. There is a way to craft laws that encourage businesses to act responsibly, but it will take representatives that are not beholden to corporate interests. But this is a circular argument. We need more participation in government to change laws to reflect the needs of communities. We need better sources of information so people can be inspired to participate. We need a wide variety of independent and reliable news sources to get better information. We need corporations to act responsibly. We need laws to inspire corporations to act responsibly...but I repeat myself. Until there is more participation in government, there will never be any laws that attempt anything more than quick fixes.....in a time when we direly need fundamental solutions. I'll leave you with this quote to think about: "it takes the same energy to say why something can't be done as to figure out how to do it" Jaime Lerner - Mayor of Curitiba Not to say that all things are worth doing, but just imagine all the energy you've expended saying why this and other things wont work instead of spending that energy building something that will work?

To Tundrasea: You've said quite a few things in your posts that amount to unsubstantiated claims. You really should do some research.... Annual use of polyethylene bags in world is estimated at 500 billion to 1 trillion based on extrapolation from EPA statistics. Seattle's share is about 360 million annually according to Seattle Public Utilities numbers. If the US of A is only recycling 2% of plastic bags, and 60-70% are making it to landfills (to sit in sealed containers not designed to degrade anything let alone plastic). That means on the low end 28% of the 92 billion bags (25.76 billion) are left to photo-degrade into smaller and smaller bits of plastic. That takes anywhere between 20-1000 years. You seem to think every plastic bag will take 20 years. The thing is, we have not had plastic bags for 60 years let alone 1,000. I'm not really excited to find out which end of the scale its on if billions upon billions of them are being thrown away each year. Maybe that sounds like a good idea to you, but how about you keep the pollution from the plastic you use to yourself? Everything toxic that results from your actions will just end up in the land that you and your family live on, polluting your water and your food. Oh wait, you can't do that. The whole world is one system. What YOU DO affects everything and everyone else. Once you wait up from the myopic world view that what you do is all that matters, and begin to understand the interconnectedness of all things this will make more sense to you. The root of the problem is the very concept of waste, and a linear system of resource use. The idea that the a grocery bag is the market's most effect solution assumes that the market accurately prices the bag. When the production of something results in pollution that is not accounted for in the price its called an externality. These externalized costs are paid by society (see asthma, cancer rates etc.) and more directly by the environment. The whole system is designed around the conversion of raw materials in to products to be consumed and disposed of. That may sound like heaven to you, but I don't want to live your or anyone else's garbage heap. Taxes and bans are not the answer. They are quick fixes that fail to address the real problem: we live in a corporate run democracy. We are awash in advertising for the next big something to be consumed. Until the people have a government represents the interests of the people, and makes decisions that place a higher value on community than money than even the best intentioned law is doomed to fail. Use this as an opportunity to resist the government taking away your choice by taking your own bag. Foil those government and corporate plans to get your money and keep on reusing it over and over. How about you buy less too, that will keep them from controlling you through your purchases. The thing is if your worried about your liberties being infringed you should look to D.C.... a bag tax should be the least of your concerns. You mention that the picture is a form of propaganda. You are in a way right, it is purely used for effect. But the conclusion that you draw is disturbing, you accept the ridiculous waste that disposing those 63% of bags represent and then explain away the others as simply going to photo-degrade in 20 years or less. So say that only a couple percent of those 500 billion bags a year make it to the ocean. If you haven't read, we've pretty much effed the oceans straight up....we don't need to added another thing to worry about. Ohh wait. Ever heard of the the North Pacific Gyre (1000 miles off California) aka the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Plastic soup, the Eastern Garbage Patch, and the Pacific Trash Vortex. (see the link below if you think its propaganda) Check out the book The World Without Us or Cradle to Cradle.....maybe you might rethink p.s. "Once in a landfill, the carbon used to make the bags is sequestered for a considerably long time -- thus removing a potential greenhouse gas" What? You mean the carbon released in the mining of oil and natural gas, shipping that oil and gas, refining it, manufacturing it into bags, and transporting those bags that actually does contribute to the greenhouse effect, is somehow sequestered when a bag is put in a landfill. How is putting a bag in a landfill going to have any effect on future greenhouse gas emissions. That would only make sense if you were talking about the GHG from the oil if it were used in some other way. The oil used for plastic bags is a drop in the bucket compared to worldwide use. Sequestering the carbon from the oil used to make the bag, instead of burning it for fuel is a fools dream. How about we leave the oil in the ground and just take our bike and our own bags. Or is that too hard for you. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0902_030902_plasticbags.html http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23923334/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_shopping_bag http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch