We all know Ireland is green. Last week, thanks to diligent New York Times reporters, we learned that Ireland is also "green," as in, environmentally responsible.
The Times got only two things wrong; the cost of the bags and the rate of decline. Everyone seems to have ignored the fact that, demographically, Ireland is two countries, partitioned in 1921 into the Republic of Ireland (the official Ireland) and N. Ireland, a part of the UK.
The advanced greening of this little shamrock-studded nation started back in 2002, first with an advertising campaign detailing the horrors of plastic bags, and then with a tax. The tax was far from usurious – 33 euros (about 30 cents in 2002 dollars) per bag, marginally affordable even to first-year wage earners making about $14,000 a year in 2002 wages. Rents were high (2002 was the end of an inflationary cycle in Ireland), as were transportation and beer, but food costs were only nominally higher. One could buy a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk at a large supermarket for $1.50 and $1 respectively. Asking people to pay for a plastic shopping bag wouldn't have broken the bank or the economy.
Yet an August, 2002, a scarce three months after the tax was instituted, plastic bag use had dropped 90 percent according to the Belfast Telegraph. It was a phenomenal achievement, and would have been inspirational if anyone had been paying attention. Sadly, Ireland only falls under international scrutiny when internecine conflict leads to bombs and blood.
When first introduced, the tax generated approximately 1.16 million euros per month. By the end of three months, only 23 million bags had been sold, as compared to 300 million bags during the same three-month period a year earlier. Gone were the days of 1.2 billion plastic bags per year choking sewers, flying into yards and collecting in alleys like the skins of strange animals. Today, the Irish make do with 120 million plastic bags a year, and shame on you if you are actually caught carrying one. Of course, the Irish have an advantage; there are no plastic bag manufacturers in Ireland.
The tax raised 10 million euros (about $9 million), and the suddenly flush government formed a new agency – the Office for Environmental Enforcement – dedicated to improved waste management (initially the disposal of used refrigerators and freezers). The tax also raised hope that this small and inauspicious island nation could beat back that other traveling island of trash in the Pacific known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," which now covers an area twice the size of the continental U.S.
One year later, news leaked out that Ireland's efforts to reduce bag use were being undermined by the export of plastic bags from N. Ireland, which had not instituted the tax. Bags, priced at a mere one or two pence, were finding their way south and being sold to customers for 15 times their value, with nothing going toward taxes, creating yet another source of contention between the two regions, who find cause to squabble at the drop of a hat. In 2004, The South called on the North to recognize its culpability and institute its own tax. The UK is said to be considering the measure, though officials said the tax would not solve the 13-billion bags per year waste problem.
Sainsbury, the biggest UK retailer, announced it would start handing out durable, 100-percent recycled bags, intended to be used about 20 times before being discarded. The move was that very pale shade of green known as greenwashing (a plastic bag by any other name is still a plastic bag). It was intended to forestall government action, with Sainsbury insisting the measure would prevent at least 180 million additional plastic bags entering circulation. Other retailers in the UK also promised to reduce bag use 25 percent by the end of 2008. The UK's Tesco and Co-op have since introduced biodegradable bags, but these give off methane when decomposing, which is even more harmful than carbon dioxide. Better to be Irish and poor than live within range of that smell.
France and Italy currently have bag laws and will ban plastic bags entirely after 2010, though some EU members have questioned the legality of a country-by-country ban. China, in a surprise move in January, followed the Shenzen protocol by forbidding shops from giving out free plastic bags; Chinese shoppers will have to pay, though how much appears to be up to retailers.
Meanwhile, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch continues to expand, smothering everything in its path. The U.S. as a whole hasn't even addressed the issue of plastic bags, though San Francisco has outlawed them. Of course, San Francisco isn't really a part of the U.S., but an independent nation that should, by rights, be connected to the European side of the Atlantic (in presumably the same latitude as France). Elsewhere in California (another foreign country), Los Angeles county supervisors recently backed off a proposed plastic bag ban in response to the lobbying efforts of the California Grocers Association, which represents 500 retailers in California and Nevada.
When the two shades of green (environmentalism and money) collide, "true green" almost always loses, at least in this country.
Disclosure: I don't own stock in any plastic's manufacturing company.
Photo:Strudel Monkey, Creative Commons, Flickr