26 | M | La vida

A plague
of plastic
The use of ‘free’ plastic bags is not as
easy to curb as lawmakers had hoped. By
Stefana Serafina. Photo by Lee Woolcock.

The average ‘useful’ life of
a plastic bag is 15 minutes,
but it will take centuries to
decompose.
W
eekends are when people tend to
do the most shopping, so it may
come as no surprise that those
days are when a lot of plastic bags get used.
What is surprising, however, is just how
many plastic bags that turns out to be: four
million on a busy weekend in Barcelona,
according to Ajuntament figures, and 14
million over that same weekend for all of
Catalunya.
Created only three decades ago, the plas-
tic shopping bag has spread around the
planet with the speed of an epidemic. Like
cars, buildings and asphalt, it has become
an intrinsic element of modern living. De-
fying geographical frontiers, plastic bags
have inundated urban and country land-
scapes alike, colonising big cities in the
developed world, rural areas in Africa and
indigenous communities in the heart of the
Amazon jungle.
How did this happen? An invention of
industrial society, plastic bags are virtually
free. They are so cheap and easy to produce,
and so infinitely available in all forms, col-
ours and sizes that shoppers around the
world just keep reaching for them—one for
the tomatoes, another for the mushrooms,
yet another for the oranges. Between 500

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billion and a trillion plastic bags are con-
sumed worldwide each year, according to
various estimates.
Prompted by a grim environmental prog-
nosis, however, consumers have begun to
reconsider the real price of the ‘free’ plastic
bag. It is estimated that each bag has an av-
erage utilitarian life of 15 minutes (from a
shop to a flat, say), but may take hundreds
or even thousands of years to decompose. So
what happens to the millions that are being
disposed of every minute? Besides adorning
the landscape—branches of trees, roadsides,
fields and pavements—they are often found
in the bodies of whales, fish and seabirds that
have died as a result of swallowing them.
British marine biologists have recorded plas-
tic bags as far as 120 miles from shore in wa-
ters as deep as 4,000 metres. Startling imag-
es have appeared in the media: cows in India
chewing on bags (hundreds of cows in India
are said to die each year choking on plastic
bags), pink flamingos strangling themselves
on bags impossible to untangle or pelicans
dead after diving for a prey that turns to be a
plastic bag. Last year, Whitey, a 10-foot long
crocodile that was part of the Australian
government’s wildlife tracking programme
died unexpectedly and 25 garbage and shop-
ping bags were found in his body.
Shopping bags made of plastic can lit-
ter areas far removed from urban reality.
Because they are completely unequipped to
deal with the created waste, the stark plastic
flags can be seen flapping along the shores
of the grand Amazon tributaries. Landfills
around the world are cluttered with single-
use plastic bags, adding to the ever-growing
mountains of waste. In Catalunya for exam-
ple, plastic bags constitute 22 percent of the
landfill waste.
Understanding that the environmental
price of the ‘free’ plastic bag has proved
higher than humanity can afford, govern-
ments around the world have initiated meas-
ures to curb their use. Bangladesh was the
first state to ban plastic bags in 2002, and
Ireland followed by introducing a substantial
tax on plastics that reportedly reduced the
use of the notorious bags by 90 percent. In
Bhutan, plastic bags are officially considered
‘to make the country less happy’, and there-
fore their use is not allowed. China has also
prohibited the ultra-thin bags; in France and
Italy bans are expected to go into effect in
2010. At the same time, people have realised
26-27. plastic bags-REPDF.indd 35
that paper bags are not a better alternative,
as they consume much more energy to pro-
duce and recycle, and they often end up in
the landfills instead of being recycled, which
increases their environmental footprint.
Late last year, the Generalitat announced
that starting in January 2009, there would be
a ban on the free distribution of plastic bags,
making Catalunya the first Spanish autono-
mous community to do so. The new legisla-
tion was going to require that supermarkets
and shops charge for the bags, deciding on
their own how much that extra charge would
be. The proposal, however, sparked heated
debates in the Catalan Parliament, and was
criticised by both commercial organisations
and green activists for its hastiness, and for
setting up inequalities and confusion among
customers.
Between 500 billion
and a trillion plastic
bags are consumed
worldwide each year...
The controversy was sidestepped just mo-
ments before the proposal was made into
law. Instead, in the first part of this year a
newly-created commission has been working
on an effective system to replace the plastic
bags, looking at voluntary agreements with
merchants and supermarkets to stop their
free distribution. Despite the late legislative
change-of-heart, Día supermarkets is con-
tinuing with its policy of charging customers
for plastic bags, and Bonpreu supermarkets
are doing the same.
“I always try to bring my own bags made
of fabric or to carry things in my hands when
I can,” said Anna Ametller, a native Catalan
and a Barcelona resident of many years. An
artist, who often uses recycled materials in
her work, Ametller fully supports a plastic
bag-free city. “I think non-degradable bags
should be completely eliminated. We can
make bags better with eco-materials and a
design that makes them more versatile, with
a longer life and not for a single use only.”
Although this vision may take a while
to manifest as reality, it is clearly one that
La vida | M | 27
Barcelona’s Ajuntament is eager to encour-
age. In December, the city made 30,000 cot-
ton bags available for free at its Punts Verds
(recycling points around the city) as a way to
promote a more sustainable shopping bag al-
ternative. Reducing the city’s waste and fos-
tering a culture of re-use and recycling is one
of the main targets in Barcelona’s Agenda 21,
a programme aimed at minimising the city’s
environmental impact, conserving natural
resources and developing renewable assets.
“I know biodegradable plastic bags ex-
ist, but I have yet to see them here in Bar-
celona,” said Diana Martinez, a San Diego
native who recently moved here. She said
that she always brings a mesh bag for her
shopping and that she’s been getting better
at telling shop cashiers that she doesn’t need
a plastic one. “We need alternatives that are
better environmentally, but if the means to
be greener aren’t available or convenient,
most people will not go out of their way to
change, unfortunately. If bio-plastic was
sold here, I would use it, and try even harder
to not bring any bags home.”
With the Spanish government expected to
impose a nationwide ban on non-degradable
bags in 2010, the prospects are hopeful that
we are witnessing the beginning of the end
of the plastic bag era. Catalunya is aiming
to reduce the use of the bags by 30 percent
this year and by 50 percent in 2012. Yet, no
one underestimates the fact that the will-
ingness of Barcelona’s residents to be part
of the change is the most crucial step along
the way. As the city’s Agenda 21 recognises,
sustainable and environmentally-sound liv-
ing requires not only better socio-economic
organisation and more efficient technologies,
but “also and especially, changes in civic at-
titudes.”
For real change to take place, the first
thing that needs recycling is the consumer’s
mind.
More info:
Fundació Catalana per a la Prevenció de Residus i
Consum Responsable—local organisation seeking a
‘plastic bag-free Catalunya’: www.residusiconsum.
org/catlliurebosses
To find stylish bags to replace the plastic ones:
www.reusablebags.com
Article—The great plastic bag plague:
www.alternet.org/environment/61607/
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