Plastic and proud: Big corps say plastic doesn’t pollute, people do | green LA girl
The latest fashionista bag’s a (semi) eco-friendly, “I’m not a plastic bag” tote designed by Anya Hindmarch, proudly showcased on the arms of Jessica Biel, Keira Knightley, and Reese Witherspoon — despite the fact that these bags’ve been shipped from far far away, are not fair trade, and are often sold encased in multiple plastic bags.
The ironies, however, haven’t quelled the fears of the plastic industry. In fact, the plastic industry’s created its attempt at a satire bag — a plastic bag emblazoned with the slogan “I AM a Plastic Bag AND I’m 100% Recyclable.” (via Treehugger)
Yep — This new plastic attempt at preserving business as usual comes from the Progressive Bag Alliance — whose members are leading plastic bag manufacturers.
On the one hand, you gotta give old-school big corp polluters props for their stab at creativity. Not only are they making an attempt at post-modern re-appropriation of popular slogans, they’re using newish media, auctioning off these plastic bags on eBay.
On the other hand, Progressive Bag Alliance’s greenwashing attempt’s one of the oldest tricks in the bag. What corporate polluters know v. well now is that it’s a helluva lot easier to displace responsibility for pollution on the public than it is to clean up the mess of pollution they’ve created.
Take Keep America Beautiful, for ex. Created by the soft drink industry, KAB was a v. successful greenwashing attempt to help engineer the conversion from a reuse culture to a one-use culture. There was more profit to be made in one-use packaging, after all, since it forced consumers to buy the packaging with every drink, instead of simply returning a bottle for a refund.
To keep the packaging money rolling in, the soda industry created KAB — with the message that the problem lies not with the corporations churning out tons and tons of one-use packaging, but with the consumer who fails to dispose of that packaging properly.
The same argument’s being made in the efforts of grassroots activists to ban styrofoam from their communities. Despite the fact that this largely non-recyclable plastic foam won’t biodegrade, pollutes our oceans, and kills marine life, businesses argue against a styrofoam ban saying that the problem’s not the styrofoam, but individuals who litter.
Luckily, at least in Santa Monica, a styrofoam ban passed — as it has in a few other progressive cities (a similar ban’s being considered in LA). Yet what we see is large corps producing pollution continuously attempting to displace their grossness on the individual consumer.
Why? Well, for one, if corps admit they’re creating pollution, they may be pushed to clean it up — and that could get expensive for them.
But more importantly, admitting to pollution guilt would mean that corps’d be forced to, you know, stop hawking plastic bags.
Now I know most people think of plastic bags as a “free” commodity — but really, we only think that because it doesn’t hit us as a line item on our grocery store receipts. Obviously, stores have to BUY plastic bags — and that cost’s gonna be passed on to the consumer, usually as higher prices on the goods we buy.
If plastic bags appeared on our grocery bill — even as a teensy 1 - 5 cent item — it’d get the public thinking ’bout their choices. That’s certainly what’s happened in California, with our CRV laws for bottles and cans. The receipt for the Trader Joe’s “Banilla” smoothie I drank yesterday has a second line — “CRV 0.05″ — letting me know that I’m down an extra 5 cents unless I recycle the bottle to get that nickel back.
In most states however, there’s still no monetary disincentive for buying one-use bottles and cans, and no incentive for recycling — which is why our recycling rate’s just 23% nationwide (much higher for California). Even in Cali though, we’ve got no incentive to bring our own bags — or to recycle the plastic bags we already use — even if LA-area stores’ll be required to offer plastic bag recycling centers soon.
So — Don’t be fooled by KAB or “Progressive Bag Alliance” or the like. Support REAL reuse and recyling programs. And in the meantime, bring your own sexy shopping bag!
[Tote bag image from yamakazz; plastic bag image from eBay; crossposted on BlogHer]
Update, 7/23/08: A roundup of all the state, county, and city level stuff happening to reduce styrofoam and plastic bag use in the LA area.
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