Paper or plastic?
Posted by Jim on Sunday, February 17th, 2008Paper or plastic? We know what to answer of course –ANYTHING but plastic — but lately I’ve been discussing this choice w/ the cashiers who give me the option. “Geez,” I say, “those plastic bag are awful. They’re killing the earth. Why do we even have them?”
Yesterday I was in the local thrift store and the cashier — a toothless woman in her 60s — and I had this discussion. When I said “plastic bags are awful” her reply was “Why don’t we go back to paper, like we used to?”
Couldn’t argue w/ her –in fact I’d found a comrade. Of course opting for paper is its own problem, albeit not as troubling as plastic.
Target is a different story altogether. Now I haven’t tried calling corporate and demanding they switch over the paper, but somebody has, because now on their plastic bags is printed a list of things you can do “Reuse your Target Bag”
1. Tiny Trash Can Liner
2. Doggy Duty
3. Water Balloon
4. Road Trip Rubbish
5. Soggy Laundry
You get the idea. At least they’re thinking about this, but do any of these solutions do anything but DELAY the inevitable throwing away?
That rhymed, but I didn’t mean it to.
I mean, you can go to Target and walk away w/ five or ten such bags — how you gonna reuse them all?
You’re not. So why take ANY away?
That’s the best solution. Take your own cloth bag/s to Target — tell them to keep their bloody plastic to themselves.
Jim
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Tags: biome, ocean toxin, plastic
February 17th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Wax paper used to work just fine, too — like the turkey I get at the deli at the Safeway, always comes in a plastic bag with a plastic slider that will never biodegrade…. I’m going to have to start requesting butcher’s paper instead.
The more I wake up to what we’re doing, the more I realize that it’s the millions-of-actions that can be changed — meaning, the little, wasteful, stupid, needless uses of plastic could shift, with a wee push from us humans. I think of each bit of plastic ending up in that Eighth Continent of trash floating in the Pacific. …
March 7th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
The other day I was at the grocery store without my canvas sack. I asked the cashier for paper and then got distracted. When I turned back to my cart I saw that I had, indeed, been given paper bags — each one neatly inserted into a plastic bag. I said, more sharply than I intended, “I asked for PAPER! JUST paper!” The cashier - a fiftyish woman — looked confused. She said, “But… but… they’re much stronger this way!” She looked upset. I gently asked if she’d ever heard anything about these bags being an environmental problem. She said she didn’t know nothin’ about that but folks like the handles. “Easier to carry” she pointed out. I said I like not feeling guilty about plastic-choked rivers and landfills more. She looked exasperated because there were about ten impatient shoppers lined up behind me. She muttered, “So you want me to take them all out?” To my shame I said no, grabbed my evil bags and left feeling angry, mostly with myself. I should have quietly stepped out of line and removed the plastic bags myself but I didn’t think of that until later. WHY? I don’t know. Maybe because it was easier not to I guess.
This shit is depressing as hell.