“Paper or plastic?” 

Sound familiar? If you’ve ever gone grocery shopping, it should. We’ve all been guilty of choosing the often simpler, easier to carry, easier to dispose of, plastic bag. 

But as wonderful as these bags are in terms of convenience, they are unfortunately awful for the environment. Of the 380 billion disposable plastic bags used each year in the United States, only one percent is recycled. The rest go from the trashcan to a landfill, where they take ages to decompose. Under perfect conditions a bag takes a thousand years to biodegrade, and in a landfill, plastic bags decompose even slower. If these bags are buried, they block the flow of oxygen and water through the soil. If they are burned, they release dangerous toxins and carcinogens into the air. When the bags end up in the ocean, the damage is even more immediately tragic – thousands of sea turtles and whales mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and die after eating them.  

It is in recognition of the environmental hazards posed by plastic bags that I have filed legislation that aims gently to persuade consumers not to choose the “plastic” option by introducing a small fee on plastic bags at the checkout of large retail establishments. Customers would be exempt from the fee if they brought their own bag, didn’t use a bag, requested a paper bag or used a compostable bag provided by the store.  

The fee is based on the cost to the state of disposing of a plastic bag and is similar to the “Plastax” instituted in Ireland in 2002 – a fee on plastic bags that effected a 90 percent drop in their consumption. Similar fees at the IKEA chain store elicited a similar drop in consumption. This fee would increase every year until reaching $0.15 per bag in 2014. This is not a revenue bill, but an environmental bill that offers incentives. Half of the money received would go back to the store, while the other half would go towards municipal recycling. 

I like to say that I’m married to the recycling queen, as my wife has been using cloth diapers (for five children!) and picking paper over plastic since long before it was hip to “be green.” But the truth is that we all sometimes slip and take the more convenient option, even when we know better. My bill is intended to give people a financial motivation to protect the environment – in addition to the apparently strong moral and ecological ones. 

Plastic bags are made from polyethylene, a compound derived from crude oil and natural gas. I recently found out that fourteen plastic bags contain enough oil to drive a car a mile! Households all over the country have made enormous steps such as using low-energy light bulbs and driving hybrid cars in order to cut oil consumption, but such efforts are devalued if two or three plastic bags are used to carry home every purchase. These bags consume a limited resource and exacerbate the United States’ dependence on oil. 

Paper bags may seem on the surface to be the perfect solution because they are made from a renewable resource and biodegrade faster. But they can be awkward to carry and are more likely to tear when wet. And paper bags are made from wood, which does mean that they come from a renewable resource, but it also mean that their production worsens global warming by removing greenhouse-gas-consuming trees from the environment. 

I believe that this initiative will help cut needless consumption of plastic bags, provide funds for more environmentally responsible initiatives and increase general awareness on the environmental hazards of plastic. Next time you find yourself before a cashier who ask you “paper or plastic?” I hope you’ll agree and answer “neither”.