Deadly Doubled Bags

Volume 2, Issue 40- October 7-14, 2011

International Tribune

After living in Paris for the last one year, I have gotten accustomed to bringing my own eco-friendly reusable shopping bag to the grocery store.   Bringing your own reusable bags is just the norm in Paris and, for that matter, throughout Europe.  To my delight, I was happy to discover that my mother has her own eco-friendly reusable bag.  And that every grocery and clothing stores are now selling one at an affordable price.   This gives me the impression that Americans are now steering away from plastic shopping bags that are polluting the planet.  This is great.  Go New York!  

Why am I writing about this and you are probably wondering why I am beginning to sound like a blog?  After my two-week vacation in the Tri-State Area to visit my family, I was shocked!  The reusable shopping bags that one can find in every aisle do not serve their purpose.  So here I am, back in Paris after my recent sojourn in the United States, I thought this would be a good topic for my next article.  To my surprise, my city is not as environmentally conscious as it appears to be.  On my third day, I decided to go to the grocery store to do some shopping and cook dinner for my brother’s family.  Since I am in the US, I know that I am not going to be charged by using a plastic bag and this is free unlike in France- so I went to the shop without bringing my own.  Oh the generosity of American grocery chain, I was given free plastic bags, and not just one but two for each item I bought.  My purchases were loaded in double bags.  And each double-layered plastic bags, they would put one or two items and then start afresh with the next one.   I walked out with a total of ten plastic bags for five items.  This is unbelievable. 

I decided to do some investigative journalism by testing the field and bravely bringing my own reusable eco-friendly shopping bags in different types of stores within the Tri-State area.  I wanted to observe the action and reaction of the people around me.  And equally important, I wanted to see how my purchases would be packaged.  So here are my findings.

In the big chains of Chinese grocery stores in Queens, I was happy to see that they only use one big plastic bag and not double. This is a good start.   At eco-friendly and organic-haven Whole Foods in Manhattan, to my dismay, they were doubling their recycled paper bags for each customer.  Keep in mind, recycled papers are more expensive to produce- which probably explains why Whole Foods products are priced higher.  And then it gets worse, when I crossed the Hudson River to New Jersey where my brother lives, not only do they double their bags, but they also add a third layer of paper bags at Shop Rite in Carteret.   Quelle horreur!  Moreover, when I brought my own reusable eco-friendly shopping bags, each sales agent I encountered looked at me as if I came from a different planet bagging my purchase, in my own bag.  I even heard some laughter from the other customers behind me.  

Map provided by The Pacific Trash Vortex website.

Let us briefly talk about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or otherwise known as the ‘trash vortex’, a huge mass of floating debris that is almost the size of the continental USA circumnavigating the pacific.  This is a gyre of marine litter that has been collected overtime in the Pacific Ocean and it mainly consists of plastic goods and other non-biodegradable materials.  The trash vortex is not only toxic, it causes a great deal of disturbance to the marine habitat.  The floating debris can absorb different types of organic pollutants from seawater including PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyls used in car transformers) and DDTs 

(also known as pesticides).   Some of the plastic wastes end up in the stomachs, wings, mouth or beaks of marine life preventing their free movement from their own ecosystem.  You may ask how does this affect us in our everyday lives?  Many of the fish we consume from the Pacific have a great probability that they have ingested the toxic chemicals produced by the garbage patch.  Overall, the trash vortex is bad news.   And unfortunately not one government wants to take complete responsibility for the clean-up because whose fault it is really?  This is a gargantuan and expensive project.   Thanks to environmental groups such as the Environmental Cleanup Coalition (ECC) and Project Kaisei, they are doing something about the mess. And I wish them the best of luck.

Photo from The Pacific Trash Vortex website.

Back to plastic bags and New York City, the "Big Apple" is the home of hundreds of environmental associations and advocacy groups- big and small.  From Environmental Defense Fund, Earth Day New York, from Friends of the Great Swamp and the socially-active Time’s Up, green campaigners are all over the city. Is there something wrong with this picture?  With all this advocates of how to be green, why are we not environmentally conscious and up to par with our European neighbors.  If the very expensive Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik shoes can be trendy, so can the affordable reusable shopping bags.  So what are we missing?  

The trash vortex is just one of the environmental degradations I have mentioned.  I have not touched upon the topic of the “dishwasher versus hand-washing” dilemma, and how most Americans tend to keep their parked cars running while waiting.  And then we complain about expensive gas.  Let us save that for another article.  

New York City is the cultural hub of the world where it prides itself of openness and daring innovation.  If gay marriage can start in the "Big Apple", New Yorkers can start the trend of reusable shopping bags for the rest of the country.  After all, there is a good chance that Americans are probably responsible for a good portion of the trash in the Pacific.