Editor’s note: This commentary is by Chuck Mercier of South Burlington, who is a physician at the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital and a graduate student in the Master’s of Public Health program at the University of Vermont.
[V]ermont Senate Bill 113 would prohibit businesses from providing single-use plastic bags, polystyrene food service containers, and plastic straws (except on request). A few weeks ago, New Hampshire passed similar legislation. Change is never easy. Eliminating the convenience of plastic bags may well jump-start rethinking our plastics lifestyle. It’s high time to do so.
The lifespan of a single-use plastic bag is reportedly about 12 minutes: 500 billion are estimated in use annually. In March, a 500 kilogram Cuvier’s beaked whale washed ashore in the Philippines. Necropsy found 40 kilograms of plastic in its digestive tract: plastic grocery bags were on the menu.
The move to ban single-use bags in Vermont comes on the heels of Town Meeting Day when voters in Manchester, Middlebury and Burlington supported advisories to regulate them. A ban in Brattleboro has been in effect for a year; adaptation went smoothly, once the word got out. The Legislature seems to get the message.
Like New Hampshire, Vermont will move to limit plastic straws. The idea to ban straws started eight years ago with the “Be Straw Free” campaign of 9-year-old Milo Cress. His campaign burgeoned to a worldwide movement, despite no well-founded research on the environmental burden of plastic straws. Challenges for those with disabilities notwithstanding, multiple restaurants and cities are going straw-free. Feb. 22 was National Skip the Straw Day. The celebration in 2020 will likely include Vermont.
Polystyrene containers are also included in the Vermont ban. Ubiquitous as an environmental pollutant, McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts, San Francisco and New York are among business and cities initiating bans of these containers. Maryland may become the first state to ban them completely. A recent scientific finding may ultimately offer still another approach. Mealworms, larvae of the common American beetle, have a digestive microbiome capable of breaking down polystyrene to biodegradable organics. Still, there are plenty of biodegradable food container alternatives, and plenty of other plastic waste for happy mealworms.
Will the Vermont ban make a difference, or is it simply inconvenient? Opponents of the single-use plastic “hoopla” say the focus is misplaced. They point out that the environmental impact of producing one plastic single-use bag is low: it’s the single use that’s the problem. True, replacing the single-use plastic bag with a cotton tote has an incredibly high environmental cost; nearly 10 times the impact when product lifecycle analysis is studied. A cotton tote needs 173 uses to break even with single-use plastic. Still, cotton biodegrades, even in water, while plastic just breaks apart to smaller pieces. A different menu for the whale.
So what about the plastic litter already out there? Well, picking it up and posting your before-after work on the internet is harnessing social media action. And this Lenten season, some Christians are giving up single-use plastics, even going plastic free for 46 days. Indeed, #plasticfreechallenge offers opportunity to post creative solutions to daily life without single-use plastic.
Rethinking your plastic lifestyle? Vermont Green Up Day is May 4. What will you be posting?
