Ephemerica

One thing that you can’t help but notice about Latin America is the overabundance of plastic shopping bags. Not only at the supermarket—where the checkers refuse to put more than three items in a single bag—but covering the entire landscape as well. Even this writer from the NY Times describing Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina (which we will be visiting soon) felt compelled to mention the trash in the first sentence of her article. We have been guilty of using too many plastic bags as well. We bought a shopping bag in Mexico, but we sometimes forget to take it with us, or we just buy too many groceries to fit in the bag. Did you know that there is a giant trash vortex in the North Pacific Ocean?

Well, in Ireland, they decided to try to do something about the problem. In 2002, they instituted a tax on plastic shopping bags. And it actually worked, to the tune of reducing plastic bag usage by a whopping 94%. What if a giant country like the U.S. reduced it’s plastic bag waste by that much? Would the trash vortex be only the size of Washington instead of Texas?

Speaking of WA, there is a bill in the state legislature to ban non-recyclable plastic bags. Personally, I think I prefer the taxation solution to a ban-&-fine system, but it may work just as well.

Posted by Matthew on February 5th, 2008 | Filed under: General