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| Grace Presbyterian Church’s Bag Mat Ministry created its own unconventional recycling method by crocheting plastic bags into 6-foot-by-3-foot sleeping mats for the homeless. |
Cheap and convenient, plastic grocery bags are becoming an ecological threat to our oceans and waterways.
By Elizabeth Rose
Photos by Elizabeth Rose
July 11, 2012
An empty plastic bag left over from the grocery store sits in the back of a truck and flies out of the bed while driving down Johnston Street. It floats across the road for a few hours, and then an unavoidable summer downpour rolls through and the bag floats into a storm drain, where it travels to the Vermilion River. Eventually, it’s dumped into Vermilion Bay, where it drifts out into the Gulf of Mexico.
Eighty-six percent of ocean debris is plastic, and almost 80 percent of the plastic in the ocean comes from land sources. In fact, Lafayette trash is more likely to land in an ocean because of its proximity to the Gulf, says UL Lafayette environmental toxicology professor Paul Klerks. “People don’t realize that if it ends up in the ditch here, especially close to the ocean, it can land in the ocean quite easily.” According to Greenpeace, plastic bags compose the majority of seabed contamination. The same plastics that are designed to resist wear and tear from everyday usage fail to break down after they are discarded.
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| UL Lafayette environmental toxicology professor Paul Klerks in his lab at the university |
Once the plastic enters a waterway, it never decomposes but instead breaks up into tiny pieces that fish, seals or turtles often mistake for jellyfish snacks, or birds mistake for fish eggs floating near the water surface and end up with a stomach full of plastic pieces. Once plastic enters the digestive system, it does not break down and clogs the animal’s intestines. Some animals may also feel symptoms similar to a stomach flu and then refuse to eat, resulting in death from starvation. For endangered species, especially turtles, plastic-induced deaths can make a large impact on already dwindling populations. “Any additional deaths that occur due to plastics, even if it’s only 10 percent of the deaths, it can still make a big difference on whether that species can survive,” says Klerks. “For those species, any extra insult they get can push them over the edge and plastic bags can potentially do that.”
Even for those animals that don’t ingest the plastic bags, they run the risk of becoming entangled in them. Seals and sea lions are especially susceptible to entanglement, and the errant bags or fishing nets and line can constrict blood flow to organs in the animals or physically restrict them from swimming, making them easier prey. “The plastic can cause drowning, starvation or just keep them from being able to swim,” says Klerks. “The pollutants that accumulate in plastics, if they are ingested, there is the possibility that they can become exposed to pollutants through that. That’s still being investigated.” If animals on the lower end of the food chain consume those contaminants, then larger predators could consume them. Those contaminants would then creep into the seafood in restaurants and grocery stores — which shoppers will take home in plastic bags.
UL environmental and sustainable resources professor Durga Poudel says plastic bags that remain on land don’t offer a better outlook. Plastics that make their way into soil alter the hydrology and water flow and disrupt the microbial population.
“Our [national] waste rate is 1,500 tons per capita,” says Harold Shoeffler, chair of the local Sierra Club in Lafayette. “Look at how many times we package things. A box of cereal is wrapped three times: a plastic bag inside a box inside a plastic [grocery] bag. How necessary is that multiple protection for an edible product?” Shoeffler asserts that plastic bags are a “poor second” to making paper bags from trees, but consumption habits wouldn’t be so detrimental if they matched recycling habits. “Look at where it’s landing — on the shores of our beaches, lakes and rivers.”
Often, shoppers are encouraged to bring reusable bags to the store instead of using disposable plastic bags. Los Angeles recently became the largest city in the country to ban plastic bags; Hawaii is the only state to have banned them outright. Louisiana’s ban is unlikely, considering plastic bags require crude oil and natural gas as raw materials. Lafayette’s Recycling Foundation doesn’t accept plastic bags because it requires 40,000 pounds of bags to make recycling cost-effective, nor are the machines equipped to sort them out without becoming clogged, according to the foundation.
However, Walmart, Albertsons, Super 1 Foods and Target all recycle plastic bags (if they are returned to the store), and many grocery stores offer small rebates — less than 10 cents — for bringing your own bags. The Internet holds countless lists of ways to reuse plastic bags for household chores, but Grace Presbyterian Church’s Bag Mat Ministry has created its own unconventional recycling method: crocheting them into 6-foot-by-3-foot sleeping mats for the homeless. “Each mat takes 500 to 700 bags,” says Linda Wamsley, who was directing 20 volunteers recently to flatten the donated bags, cut them into “plarn” (plastic yarn) cross-sections and crochet them.
So, the question changes: paper, plastic or reusable?
MAY 23 Here's a story in the Picayune about some statistics that must come as a blow to folks who believe that any private school can do a better job of educating kids than any public school: Danielle Dreilinger reports that only 30 percent of the voucher kids are passing. That's less than half of the state wide average, she says. It's an interesting statistic because most of the schools (if not all) taking voucher kids have never had their students' standardized test scores released to the public before.
MAY 23 Stephen Sabludowsky blogs on Bayou Buzz about auditor requests here. Recently the state GOP started crowing about a request from the Legislative Auditor, claiming they were being targeted because of their anti-tax stance. (Uh, your what?) Denial and hyperbole aside, the state Democratic party blew holes in that theory with an email announcing they'd received the same request, Sabludowsky writes here.
MAY 23 Jim Brown blogs about the senate race in this post. He says that, given Bobby Jindal's "lack of traction" on the national stage, it might make more sense for the governor to consider running against Mary Landrieu for the senate seat. Since Tim Teeple left the Cassidy team, it makes sense he might land on a Jindal for Senate team, Brown opines.
MAY 23 In this Louisiana Voice post, blogger Tom Aswell writes of rumors that his nemesis, state Superintendent of Education John White, may be soon departing Louisiana for a federal post. It's hard to believe, given his performance, Aswell says, but stranger things have happened. An anti-White BESE member says that, if true, White is quitting before he can be fired.
MAY 23 In this post on American Zombie, blogger Jason Berry writes about the Mother's Day shooting. Mayor Landrieu said that "this is not who we are," but the fact is, this is New Orleans, Berry writes. The violence infused in the city is the result of a culture created by "sins of omission or sins of commission," Berry writes. It's not a problem that can be solved by legislating, policing, praying or publicizing, he says: Someone's got to understand what's happening first.
MAY 23 This post in the Westside Journal tells us what Port Allen Mayor Deedy has been up to lately: vetoing ordinances, apparently. This story is most interesting, however, when it delves into a petition that has been circulating around the city lately. It accuses the former mayor of a lot of nasty things; the former mayor says it is full of lies and "broken syntax" which may be a larger offense in his eyes.
MAY 23 This editorial posted in The Advocate is a bit confusing. The writing is poor - definitely not up to the usual editorial writing standard there - and the point is hard to grasp. Apparently, the writer is saying that privatization of state efforts is OK, as long as there is oversight and transparency, but Jindal's not good at that, and the legislature shouldn't over-react. Okey Dokey. Can't they get one of them Pulitzer-winning people to write an editorial?
MAY 23 This post on The Lens gives you links to a new Google Earth tool that allows you to see any spot on earth transform over the past 30 years. Bob Marshall, who covers the coast for the paper, says that in the case of Louisiana's coastline, it's possibly something you don't want to see, because it's not a pretty picture. There are several clips here, showing critical areas erode away. For Marshall, it was vindication for all those times he was met with eye-rolling when he talked about erosion.
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