The Best New Eco-Practice of 2014 So Far....The Plastic Bag Ban

One particularly windy day on my way to drop off my son at kindergarten, I was forced to stop for several minutes in the road while an extra large dust devil, turned white plastic tornado from all the plastic bags it had caught up, passed through the residential area along South Meadows Road. The bag-nado choked a few birds on its way.

Plastic and birds do not mix as evidenced by this disturbing video about the life of Albatross way out at sea:

I live on the southwest end of town where the wind whips into a frenzy through the spring and into early summer and then again in the late fall and early winter. The result is ugly plastic bags stuck to every fence and cholla cactus within view throughout most of the year. My house borders a large empty County park so I spend a goodly amount of my outdoor time in those windy months collecting the ripped up, useless, discarded pieces of plastic bags from the edges of my yard.

The lifecycle of the plastic bag is a sorry one to be sure. Check out this 4 minute video about it - well worth the watch!

For these reasons and more I am thrilled for the best new ordinance of the new year (so far) to arrive! Have you heard? The plastic bag ban is coming to Santa Fe. I'm so excited!...to see how it all goes down really. I'm excited about the ban too of course as I believe it is good for the planet and people...any step away from our disposable culture is good in my worldview. (Paper bags will still be available as will plastic bags thicker than 2.25 mils, that's a change for another day.) But I am also excited to see how Santa Feans react to this forward thinking ordinance when it finally comes into effect in February.

Santa Fe is not the first city to ban the bag - Austin, Portland, Tuscon, even Los Angeles precede us. However, having read the comments to the SF New Mexican's online article it appears locally it may be a controversial ordinance in practice. One lady said no way to the ban in her post because she didn't want to use those dirty smelly canvas bags - how unsanitary! (Hopefully someone has since told her they that canvas is washable). Some feel that it will disproportionately affect people in the less affluent parts of town. The southside has been specifically mentioned as discount stores there claim they can't afford to upgrade their bags to thicker quality plastic as some of the downtown stores might do to skirt the ordinance and keep customers happy. Less affluent customers then will bear the burden because they can't afford to buy reusable bags. It may be a legitimate concern, but humanity is full of creative solutions when pressed. Here are a couple already in play:

Earth Care's Youth Allies are making reusable bags out of the free fabric they have collected and are distributing them to those that need them. (Kuddos to the Earth Care kids who helped pass the ban in the first place and had the foresight to do something about the potential disproportionate impact).

Natural Grocers on Cerrillos got rid of their plastic bags of their own volition years ago and employed their creativity to keep customers in food carrying containers. (Cheers to them for that BTW). They set up bins to hold different sized cardboard boxes that come in the back door as food packaging and offer those boxes to bag-less customers to take their purchases out the front door.  All stores could follow suit as there is no shortage of cardboard around town.

Since learning about the bag ban I have taken extra care to notice my bag intake. Although I carry a couple of those stuff-able reusable bags in my purse wherever I go, I still consume way more disposable plastic bags than I would like to admit. Sometimes I get a bag out of laziness or passivity. Sometimes I don't always get my reusables out in time before the cashier puts my items in the bag and hands it to me (they are so fast at it!). When I take my items out of the unwanted bag and hand it back to them they more often than not throw it in the trash rather than using it for the next customer, so I usually take the bag with me. At least I can recycle it. I still have eco-guilt every time I leave the store with one, whatever the reason.

Now I can rejoice in the knowledge that the plastic bag ban is coming. I LOVE it when the system works with me to live up to eco-habits rather than against me! It makes life so much more enjoyable and reduces my eco-anxiety (a concept for another blog post).

So SFeans, will you make "carry canvas bags with me at all times" number one on your New Year's Resolution list? Are you getting your camera ready to capture the beauty of a plastic bag-less desert landscape we haven't seen the likes of for over two decades? Leave a comment and tell me what you think about the upcoming bag ban.

For more information, check out these past articles on the plastic bag ban:
The Good, the Bag, and the Ugly, Santa Fe Reporter
Council Passes Plastic Bag Ban, Santa Fe New Mexican