I just saw on my Facebook feed yesterday, that a friend had posted about how annoying it is that you can’t get a plastic bag anywhere in Austin. I couldn’t help but cringe. Did you know that every plastic bag ever created still exists and will continue to exist for decades after your death? Plastic does not biodegrade, and thus lives on for hundreds of years. Plastic has even been found in human DNA. (Check out this frightening article to find out more.) Plastic clogs up our creeks and streams, destroying our natural water systems. Plastic bags are responsible for millions of wildlife deaths due to the animal getting caught in the bag or mistaking it for food.
So tell me again how much of an inconvenience it is to you that you must carry your own reusable bag to the grocery store. At least nine cities in Texas, Austin included, have banned plastic bags in the last few years. Many citizens are opposed to this, out of what I assume is ignorance. We all have to share this planet, and we’ve made a huge mess of it. Perhaps the majority of the public doesn’t know the effects plastic bags have on the environment, and we need to put forth more efforts to show them. Many people who oppose banning plastic bags feel that it doesn’t put a dent in the health of the environment, so why even bother with it? But I feel like that is ridiculous, and that every effort counts. Some environmentalists feel that the public should want to help the environment, and we should encourage them to make that decision instead of prohibiting plastic bags and making the call for them. What these folks fail to realize is that humans are convenience creatures who like instant gratification. It is neither convenient or an instant fix to our environment to ban plastic bags, and thus most people would never make that decision, especially if they’ve been using plastic bags all their life.
The fact of the matter is this: anything we can do to help our suffering environment needs to be done. As the health of the environment continues to decline, ours as humans will as well.
Thank you, and goodnight.
(If you want to delve more into the plastic bag argument, check out this article from Salon.)
3 comments:
In response to Lily Ray’s blog posting on July 25, 2014 titled Rant of the Day: Plastic Bag Ban found on her blog titled Texas Toast, I must respectfully disagree with her opinion that the plastic bag ban in Austin is a good thing. As a resident of Hutto/Round Rock where there is not a plastic bag ban, I have found myself carrying my groceries out of an Austin HEB in a donated cardboard box due to me not having any reusable bags in my possession and forgetting about the Austin bag ban until it is too late. Is it inconvenient? Absolutely, but that is not what I am going to base my argument on. Life is full of inconveniences, and I can live with that.
Lily’s blog mentions how plastic bags clog up creeks and cause millions of wildlife deaths. In my opinion, the blame does not lie in the bag. The blame lies with the person that threw it on the ground…..littering. I don’t throw my bags on the ground. I reuse them over and over again as lunch bags. When I have an overabundance of bags, I take them to the store and recycle them. They do not go in the landfill, and they do not go around an innocent duck’s neck.
We, meaning society, cannot do away with everything that causes harm or is not handled responsibly. Let’s take offshore oil drilling as an example. Wildlife, tourism, and the fishing industry all suffered tremendously when the BP oil spill of 2010 dumped 4.9 million of barrels into the ocean. Have we stopped offshore drilling? No. I realize this comparison is on a much larger scale, but my point is that when people act irresponsibility, you do not have to do away with the item in question.
In summary, I disagree with the ban bag and believe that education in the form of littering campaigns, organized cleanups, and the addition of more recycling centers would be a better solution. Elimination is not the only means of keeping the environment healthy.
I agree with Lily’s views on the plastic bag ban in Austin. The environment is in danger due to pollution, overpopulation, and resource exhaustion. So, every chance we get to make a difference we should take it. Especially considering our landfills are overflowing into environments. Lily makes many valid points, one being how plastic bags are getting into water sources and leading to the death of fish, birds, and many other animals who rely on the water sources for survival. Once the plastic bags and other articles of trash get into their environment, many times the animals think that it is something they can eat. This happens a lot in the ocean, when animals see the trash floating from below and think it is a dead fish or another form of food. After they try to eat the trash, it gets lodged in their intestines or stuck in their throat often leading to a long, and painful death. Eliminating the use of plastic bags eliminates any chance of them getting into the environment and causing damage. So I think Austin’s ban is a very good idea and a very good big step towards ending pollution. We should be taking every chance we have to improve the condition of our Earth, and make sure that we don’t cause any further damage to our atmosphere and ecosystem.
After reading Rant of the Day: Plastic Bag Ban, I understood a little more about the negative effects of plastic bags. In the blog I gathered that Lily's argument was that plastic bags are a large factor in our deteriorating environment. I somewhat agree with her statement especially after reading the effects it has on our ecosystems and human lives. She gives great evidence to support her argument.
In the second paragraph there is a transition to human use and bag bans in Austin. There are two main assumptions that I do not agree with. For example, "Citizens are opposed to the bag ban because of ignorance." As a manager for HEB, I listen to people from out of town and Austin residents complain about how much of an inconvenience it is to bring your bag. HEB has an emergency bags option that for a $1 you can use as many older plastic bags as you need for your order. Many customers have picked up on this option and will forget their bags on purpose. Not just because they want to be ignorant, but because they reuse these bags for other things. Honestly I believe majority of the time us as humans are lazy and forgetful. There was minimal evidence showing whether or not bag bans are successful. The credibility would have made the argument a lot stronger.
Secondly, I do believe to a sense that humans crave instant gratification. Although, I do not believe it was used in the right context. It takes away from the argument and changes the direction in which it was developing.
Overall Lily does a great job targeting the more liberal audience she is writing for. As a conservative the argument and evidence does not persuade me to reduce my use of plastic.
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