Worldwide, more than 500 billion plastic shopping bags are used each year. That’s 500 billion.
They end up swirling in oceans, clogging sewers and filling up landfills, where they can take up to 1,000 years to degrade.
It’s no wonder that the ubiquitous bag increasingly has become the topic of environmental efforts, including here in Denver in recent weeks.
A proposal kicking around city hall would require Denver grocery stores to charge shoppers 10 cents for every bag they get.
While we understand the sentiment behind the proposal, we think it would be wiser for the city to first launch a voluntary program, as other countries and states have done, in an effort to reduce bag use.
A well-planned and publicized reduction campaign would educate people about the problems caused by plastic bags and give them a chance to support the effort without a mandate.
Businesses that use plastic bags, such as the newspaper industry, ought to take part in coming up with ways of not just encouraging reuse, but overall reduction.
Time and again, Denverites have proven they’re an environmentally conscious bunch. A good example can be found in how residents have taken to the voluntary curbside recycling program with gusto.
Denver should model a program after other places that have instituted voluntary efforts, such as Australia, instead of jumping straight to a per-bag charge.
In Australia, 90 percent of grocery retailers signed up to participate in the government’s voluntary program to reduce bag consumption. Bag use went down 45 percent between 2002 and 2005.
It was a good first step. Australians got used to the idea, and now there is considerable public support for a full ban on the plastic sacks that are clogging their rivers and oceans and threatening marine life.
It is far from the only effort on the bag front. Last month, the Chinese government decided to ban free plastic bags due to environmental concerns. Measures discouraging plastic bag use have been passed in Taiwan and parts of South Africa. Ireland’s bag use went down 90 percent after the country instituted a 20-cent charge for each bag. Bangladesh bans them, as do 30 remote Alaskan villages. Last year, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban them.
Along with choking waterways and harming wildlife, plastic bags are made of petroleum, a precious commodity in these days of $3 a gallon gasoline.
There are many reasons to support measures reducing the use of plastic bags. But just as important as the legislation itself is the effort spent building a community consensus.
We encourage interested community groups and politicians to come up with a sound plan, reduction targets and an outreach effort. It would be the correct first step toward an important goal.
