Plastic Is The New Tobacco
In 2016, California became the first state in the country to ban single-use plastic bags, after a years-long battle that eventually created the gold standard for plastic bag pollution reduction. The number of plastic bags provided by stores in our state is down by 85 percent. Unfortunately, the plastics industry hasn’t given up, and has recently decided to use the COVID-19 crisis as its latest vehicle to roll back the progress on reducing plastic pollution which devastates our beaches, parks, and neighborhoods with garbage all over again. In April, Governor Newsom announced a 60-day suspension of the bag ban, over concerns that COVID-19 could be transmitted through reusable grocery bags.
While these concerns have been generally debunked, there are simple measures shoppers can take to address this issue – bagging groceries themselves, washing reusable cloth bags, and wiping down hard surfaces at home. But the plastics industry is lobbying aggressively to delay or roll back bans on plastic bags, spreading unfounded fear about infection at a time when every trip to the grocery store has already become a point of worry.
The plastics industry did its best to use the Latino community as a bludgeon in its fight against the bag ban when the issue went to ballot referendum in November 2016, claiming that it would hurt workers in Latino-heavy industries by raising costs, and Latino consumers and businesses by hiking prices. None of this has turned out to be true and, in fact, some manufacturers have specifically cited the ban as the dominant factor for hiring new employees. Moreover, pro single-use plastic rhetoric ignores the value that Latino communities place on reducing plastic pollution.
Plastic bag bans play a critical role in pollution reduction; rolling back the progress we’ve already achieved through these measures is a dangerous mistake. Still, it’s a single tactic which reduces one source of pollution, and others must be considered. Shoppers should be able to choose from more sustainable options that should be available on grocery store shelves, at reasonable prices. And as the COVID-19 crisis has made food shopping, either in-person or online, a focal point for all of our lives, we should take this moment to consider the impact of these choices.
In any random supermarket aisle, shoppers are confronted by a tsunami of unsustainably packaged choices, whether plastic wrapped or sold in plastic-lined cartons. Both brands and retailers owe shoppers better options; either by providing innovative new packaging solutions or by making positive changes immediately by switching to sustainable materials already available, cost-effective, and recyclable.
Canned water offerings are now competing with water sold in plastic bottles; Americans throw away 35 billion plastic water bottles every year, and progress here is desperately needed. Only 12 percent of these get recycled and don’t usually get made into new plastic water bottles, but are instead downcycled, becoming insulation, carpeting, and other varied items which eventually go to the landfill. Metal cans, by contrast, are endlessly recyclable, becoming new cans over and over without deteriorating at all. Recycled cans can be back on the shelf in as little as 60 days. Yet items once sold exclusively in cans, like chicken and beef broth, are now being offered in plastic-lined paper cartons, which are difficult to recycle and often go straight to the landfill. 5 Gyres has partnered with brands such as Liquid Death to introduce a new way of consuming water from cans as opposed to problematic plastic bottles and plastic lined cartons. As Liquid Death’s CEO and Co-Founder, Mike Cessario says, “Aluminum cans are infinitely recyclable and plastic is like the new tobacco. Everybody's trying to get rid of plastic bottles.”
For the Latino community, progress on plastic pollution is doubly important. One media report – Rivers of Trash: How Plastic Pollution is Making Central American Communities Uninhabitable – found that countries like Guatemala are literally being buried in plastic, destroying towns, cities, and fisheries alike. While some have pursued plastic bag bans and other source-reduction initiatives, more needs to be done to provide sustainable, truly recyclable alternatives before consumers purchase them. This would immediately benefit Latino communities in the United States, and in Latin America, by reducing plastic pollution and immediately mitigating its impacts on neighborhoods, beaches, and fisheries alike.
The current COVID-19 crisis should not be used as an excuse to walk back progress on pollution. Governor Newsom’s executive order on plastic bag use, which also allowed grocery stores to temporarily stop accepting bottles and cans for bottle deposit return and recycling, could further unnecessarily exacerbate our pollution problem. We can prioritize our own health and safety, and that of frontline workers, while still working to reduce environmental and neighborhood pollution and push companies to be more responsible by offering truly sustainable options for their customers.