By MARK DEVOLDER
Los Alamos

Reference: US Environmental Protection Agency (link).

I am trying to determine if plastic bags and containers are friend or foe.

When I was growing up, my lunch sandwiches were typically wrapped in waxed paper. Sometimes the bread dried out. However, even a dried-out sandwich was a treat for a hungry kid like me. Image the thrill when plastic sandwich bags came on the market and my sandwiches stayed nice and fresh.

As time went on, plastic containers and bags supplanted metal, glass and paper containers. I thought this was an improvement because metal containers got dented and glass containers broke. (Note: These days, I tend to put discarded glass jars inside of an empty metal can to protect the glass from impact damage.)

Historically, milk was provided in glass bottles and waxed paperboard containers. I didn’t have much trouble adapting to the low-density polyethylene (LDPE) milk containers. I liked the threaded caps on the plastic milk bottles and other plastic containers because they were convenient.

This morning, I began thinking about plastic bags and bottles. While I was driving in the Jemez Mountains today, I saw a sign which stated, “Do Not Litter.” This prompted me to do a little bit of research on waste items because I don’t enjoy finding discarded plastic items (for example, beverage containers) in the environment.

I found some interesting information in the reference.

The total generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2018 [in the United States) was 292.4 million tons (U.S. short tons, unless specified) or 4.9 pounds per person per day [1788.5 pounds per year or nearly a ton per year]. Of the MSW generated, approximately 69 million tons were recycled and 25 million tons were composted. Together, almost 94 million tons of MSW were recycled and composted, equivalent to a 32.1 percent recycling and composting rate. An additional 17.7 million tons of food were managed by other methods. In addition, nearly 35 million tons of MSW (11.8 percent) were combusted with energy recovery and more than 146 million tons of MSW (50 percent) were landfilled.

The projected 2024 population in the United States is 336 million people. Therefore, the estimate of an individual producing approximately 1 ton per year of waste looks like it is accurate. The average weight of an automobile is 2 tons. Over a lifetime, that amounts to a 35-automobile equivalent of trash. That’s some legacy!

Typical items packaged in plastic bags include the following: 1) grocery bags, 2) woven plastic bags (used for kitty litter), 3) food packages (used for frozen vegetables, snack foods, candy, etc.), and 4) a huge number of consumer items packaged in clear plastic bags. Packages of clear plastic bags are also for sale (that is, 1-gallon food storage bags and sandwich bags). Plastic bags and bubble pack bags are used to ship items via the US Post Office. Air pillows (that is, plastic bags filled with air) are also used for shipping items.

If you shop at Smith’s grocery store, you will notice that the manual and automated check-out areas are provided with racks of brown plastic bags. You will also notice that there is a recycle bin for plastic bags as you leave the store. The bin is often overflowing. I like to reuse the brown plastic bags when I go grocery shopping. Sometimes I will use plastic fusion welds or recovered packing tape to repair the bags that are ripped or have a hole in them. The bags are also useful for disposing of wet sanitary garbage (for example, soiled paper towels, contaminated food packages, end cuttings from food packages, etc.).

Where I begin to run into problems with the brown grocery bags is at the automated check-out area. It takes some extra effort to unfold the bags, set them on the automated check-out platform and fill the bags with individual purchases. If there are folks waiting in line to purchase their groceries, they may become annoyed if I am fidgeting around trying to reuse the plastic bags. This is less of a problem in the manual check-out lines.

I have come to dislike plastic bags woven from strips of plastic as well as other woven plastic items such as blue tarpaulins. Woven plastic materials do not stand up to sunlight and weather very well. I find quite a bit of the shredded woven material in the environment and I do not care for that.

I find endless uses for clear (transparent) or mostly clear plastic bags (for example, bread bags, saltine cracker bags, and deflated air pillow bags). Plastic bags have the advantage of taking up less space than rigid plastic containers. An item can be placed in a plastic bag, provided with a label / note about the item and closed with a twist tie. Packaging items in plastic bags protects the items from dirt, dust, moisture and spilled substances such as chemicals, paint and foodstuffs. If an item breaks (for example, a ceramic item or a toy), the item and the broken part can be placed in a plastic bag so the item can be repaired at some convenient time in the future. The bag prevents the loss of the loose pieces – particularly small pieces and fasteners such as screws, bolts, washers, etc.

I have many uses for plastic mailers which come to me from the US Post Office (that is, bags and bubble pack items). The bags and mailers are provided with a strip of adhesive. I never rip open the bags or mailers. Instead, I use a heat gun (hair dryer) to permit separation of the adhesive from the plastic surface on the mailers. Then I take a piece of recycled aluminum foil and put it on the adhesive strip. The heat gun can be used later to detach the aluminum foil so that the mailer can be sealed again.

What bothers me about discarding plastic bags is that they are heavy. If the bags are recycled, they have to be hauled off to a recycler and the combustion of fossil fuels is needed to transport the bags.

Therefore, it makes sense to use plastic bags until they are worn out prior to recycling, reuse them as garbage bags or discard them if they are soiled. I tend to wash out and air-dry plastic bags if possible so that they can be used again.

I am dismayed every time I see plastic containers filled with water. My family used to do quite a bit of traveling and camping. I got used to an evaporative water bag being hung from the front of our car and drinking water from an aluminum canteen. I don’t understand why a bottled water container cannot be refilled endlessly with tap water. Most of the time when someone offers me a container of bottled water, I politely turn it down. It makes no sense to me to pay good money for water that comes in a bottle and not from a water pipe / faucet. I want the water. However, I don’t want the plastic bottle for sake of convenience.

The thoughts I have provided are consistent with the long-term sustainability philosophy of reduce, reuse and recycle.