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 CAST'S
REUSABLE BAG CHALLENGE 09
THE FLOATING PLASTIC ISLAND
A
VISUAL LOOK AT PLASTIC BAG STATISTICS - CHRIS JORDAN
DOWNLOAD
A BAG REMINDER CARD HERE
CHECK
OUT THIS SLIDESHOW ON PLASTIC BAG CONSUMPTION - University
of Florida
Have you been to the Summit
County landfill? On any given day you can see plastic bags
lining the landfill’s fence or dancing in the branches
of surrounding aspens and forests. Not a pretty site!
It’s a shame to think that plastic bags can only be
recycled once! Most often, recycled plastic bags become
composite decking like Trex.
In the good words of County Recycling Manager, Kevin Berg,
“Plastic bags aren’t a recycling problem, they
are a consumption problem.” Do you make the connection?
The issue starts at the stores not at the recycling site.
Plastic bags are made from petroleum. So a plastic bags
lifecycle begins at the same place you fill up your car.
And we’re experiencing a gas crisis?
Americans use between 300 and 700 plastic bags in one year
and most of these end up in the landfill. Not only do they
blow out of landfills like they do here in Summit County,
but plastic bags photodegrade or break down into small toxic
pieces when exposed to sunlight. These small bits can seep
into our water and soil.
A plastic bag’s useful life may be counted in minutes
but it can take a plastic bag hundreds or even thousands
of years to completely break down in a landfill environment.
There are options for recycling plastic bags but it condones
and even encourages single use behavior. People often use
more plastic bags when they know that they can recycle them
later. Sometimes the act of recycling goes without complete
understanding for all that is involved… such as the
use of non-renewable resources in the production phase!
Why use plastic bags in the first place? We have readily
available alternatives and solutions to plastic bags - reusable
bags that you can bring to the store every time.
Remember to bring your own
bag! Each reusable bag has the potential to eliminate the
use of an average of 1000 plastic bags in its lifetime.
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.jpg) Help
Summit County kick the single-use plastic bag habit! Remember
to BYOB (Bring Your Own Bags) every time you shop. Look
for the Reusable Bag Challenge poster (shown here) at participating
stores. Your reusable bags will be tallied between March
1st and September 1st, 2009, in the Reusable Bag Challenge.
The "winner" of the challenge will receive $5,000
from Alpine Bank for a solar panel insulation for a local
school.
The High Country Conservation
Center and Summit County Towns have joined forces with the
Colorado Association of Ski Towns (CAST) in the 2009 Reusable
Bag Challenge. The purpose of the challenge is to raise
awareness regarding the environmental and social costs of
single-use plastic shopping bags and to promote the use
of reusable shopping bags through a ‘friendly competition’
between members of CAST.
Download a CAST Reusable Bag Challenge info sheet here.
For more information about the challenge, please contact
Jen Santry at jen@highcountryconservation.org.
Summit County's
Participating Stores:
BigHorn Materials, Silverthorne
City Market, Breckenridge
City Market, Dillon
Safeway, Frisco
Skee Vue Grocery and Liquors, Breckenridge
Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers, Dillon
Wal-Mart, Frisco
Twenty-six Mountain
Towns Partner to Reduce Disposable Bag Consumption
 Twenty-six
mountain towns in the Western United States are collaborating
on a voluntary initiative to reduce consumption of single-use,
disposable shopping bags. Beginning March 1st, participating
towns will compete in the 2009 Colorado Association of Ski
Towns (CAST) Reusable Bag Challenge sponsored by Alpine
Bank, a friendly competition to determine which town can
minimize their use of disposable bags the most. The competition
will end on September 1st 2009.
Participating Colorado towns are Telluride, Aspen, Mountain
Village, Snowmass, Basalt, Breckenridge, Silverthorne, Dillon,
Frisco, Steamboat Springs, Grand Lake, Granby, Winter Park,
Fraser, Estes Park, Crested Butte, Vail, Avon, Eagle, Gypsum,
and Mnt. Crested Butte. Jackson Hole, WY, Park City, UT,
Sun Valley, Ketchum, and Hailey, ID will also take part
in the 2009 CAST challenge.
Community organizers in competing towns have been working
with their municipal governments, local businesses and grocery
stores to prepare for the challenge. The list of partnering
organizers ranges from environmental and sustainability
groups like Summit County’s High Country Conservation
Center to the Carbondale Rotary Club to the Girl Scouts
troop #214. Once the competition begins, local participating
stores will be responsible for tallying the every reusable
bag used or purchased by a customer at checkout. The ‘winner’
will be determined on a per capita basis by which community
uses the most reusable bags during the six-month period.
The winning town will receive a $5,000 grant from Alpine
Bank to install a solar panel system at a public school.
Shoppers will be able to identify participating grocers
and retailers by the presence of the 2009 CAST Reusable
Bag Challenge poster, which will be hanging on the entrance.
Some info from
CAST about environmental issues associated with plastic
bags:
- Currently, the United States uses 100 billion plastics
bags per year at an estimated cost of 4 billion dollars
and 12 million barrels of oil.
- Plastic carryout bags are made in a number of different
sizes and thicknesses and are typically manufactured from
either high-density polyethylene (HDPE-recycling symbol
#2) or from low-density polyethylene (LDPE-recycling symbol
#4). The LDPE bags are thicker and are generally used
by department stores and other commercial retail outlets.
The HDPE bags are typically thinner, cheaper and are used
much more widely by supermarkets, pharmacies, and convenience
stores and restaurants. These bags are termed “single-use”
bags because they are intended for one time use for customers
to carry their purchases from the store, followed by disposal
or recycling.
- Plastic bags are recyclable, however, very few are
actually recycled. Research conducted by the County of
Los Angeles in 2007 found that this is largely due to
the logistics of sorting, high concentration rates that
reduce the quality of the recycled resin produced, the
low quality of plastic used in the bags, and the lack
of cost efficiency due to lack of a suitable market for
the recycled resin. Various estimates suggest that only
1% of plastic bags are being recycled.
- Plastic bags are a significant component of litter in
the environment primarily due to their durability and
lightweight. Even when disposed of properly, plastic bags
are often blown out of trash receptacles and are easily
carried by wind and water to become entangled in vegetation,
clog storm drains and contribute to free floating plastic
debris in the marine environment.
- We can live without plastic shopping bags in our lives.
If one person uses one reusable bag for one year, this
individual will reduce the number of plastic shopping
bags used and thrown away in this country by 500-1,000.
Of all of the lifestyle changes we will need to make to
exist in a truly self-sustaining society, this represents
a relatively easy step in the right direction.
BagIT - A documentary
about plastic bags and other plastics...
REEL Thing Productions,
a production company based out of Telluride, CO, is working
on a feature-length documentary—working title BagIT—about
plastic bags and other plastics and their effect on the
environment and on human health.
WATCH
BAGIT FILM TRAILER HERE
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There is a plastic something
growing in the Pacific. Scientists have described it as
a plastic “soup” and some even call it a plastic
"island."
It was discovered over
a decade ago as floating plastic garbage between the coasts
of California and Japan. At the time, sailors and researchers
sized the Pacific garbage patch as larger than the state
of Texas. Since then, biologists have dedicated their lives
to studying the plastic mass. A few years ago it was reported
to have grown to double the size of Texas. Now, this plastic
sea monster is double the size of the United States!
Also
known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the Pacific
Garbage Vortex, this diagram shows how trash (yellow dots)
entering the sea from land along the Pacific coast is caught
by the gyre. On its way, the trash is conentrated and eventually
ends up in one of the two shown gyres. As a consequence,
in these areas, the surface water contains six times more
plastic than plankton.
You may have seen the gloomy
photos of sea turtles gagging on plastic bags or sea birds
nesting in beach landfills. However, it is difficult to
relate to such tragedies when Summit County is over a thousand
miles away from the Pacific coast. Plastics still have a
substantial affect on our mountain community as well as
other ecosystems. In fact, the majority of the ocean’s
litter originates on land.
Yes, nearly 80 percent of the sea’s garbage started
its journey inland. Think about it. Here in Summit County,
not only do plastic bags and bits blow into our forests
and trees, they find their way into our water systems including
pristine rivers. In the city, plastics sneak into storm
drains. From Lego blocks to barbie dolls, these petroleum-based
plastics are eventually carried out to sea. So in reality,
all of us, in the mountains or on the coast are responsible.
 The
ocean is a vast being and you can start to see why some
people have got away with throwing debris, chemicals, cars,
dead bodies… into its seemingly bottomless pits. Once
garbage is dumped, the ocean gobbles it up and the garbage
magically goes away. In the past, trash would break down
in a fairly short time with the help of marine microorganisms.
Once plastics were introduced into the stream, everything
changed.
Instead, we created a massive
plastic sea monster. Once again we’ve thrown manmade
materials into nature and now have to reap the consequences.
Unfortunately, we’ve out-smarted and somewhat defeated
natural bacteria needed for biodegradation.
Plastics photodegrade or
break down with the help of sunlight into tiny toxic bits
that microorganisms refuse to digest. Even more frightening
is that these small plastic polymers are sponges for pesticides,
electronic wastes, and other pollutants. Not only has man
created indestructible plastic particles that will out-survive
even the hardiest cockroach, we have doused the particles
in dangerous toxins and pollutants. And all of this is free-floating
in our oceans?
Once these toxic plastic
fragments are released into the ecosystem, they accumulate
in underwater currents known as gyres. In this plastic garbage
whirlpool, scientists have found everything from syringes
and cigarette lighters to toothbrushes. Marine biologists
have even found natural zooplankton and other small sea
creatures mixed in with thousands of colored plastic crumbs
referred to as a “plastic-plankton soup.” Other
items such as drums full of hazardous chemicals, barnacle-covered
volleyballs, and plastic coat hangers have also been discovered
in this whirlpool waste.
Researchers have recently discovered that there are six
pounds of plastics for every pound of naturally occurring
zooplankton in the ocean. The problem is that zooplankton
and plastic bits are ingested by fish and other sea creatures.
Poisons then pass into our food web! I don’t know
about you but I rather not eat from the plastic-plankton
soup.
Now you are aware of the issue; and to some of you it may
seem like the ocean is a faraway place and somebody else’s
problem. But it is everyone’s problem! Until we stop
relying on plastics as a way of life and we change our consumption
behaviors, plastics will continue to be produced, used once
or twice, and discarded. Why risk the plastic bottle or
bag you use becoming a part of the floating plastic dump?
Become a part of the solution! Remember your reusable bags
at the store, buy foods that aren’t wrapped in plastics,
and speak out against needless plastics. Every step you
take to decrease unnecessary plastics in your life makes
a difference.
Want to know more?
The Los Angeles Times put
together an excellent online presentation called Altered
Oceans: A five-part series on the crises of the seas with
part four of the series focusing on the hazards of plastic
ocean debris. Check it out here.
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Running the Numbers looks at "contemporary
American culture through the austere lens of statistics."
Plastic Bags, 2007 (below), depicts 60,000 plastic
bags, the number used in the US every five seconds. Click
here to see Chris Jordan's entire exhibit including
his other exhibit Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American
Mass Consumption.
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