To Ban or Not to Ban Plastic Bags • That is the Question

The RUBI [Reusable Bag Initiative] Team met with activist Jordan Parker, Director of Bring Your Bag Chicago, to hear ideas about how to end plastic bag pollution -- one reusable bag at a time. Just having a sticker like this from Bring Your Bag Chicago [on the driver's side car window] could go a long way to reducing plastic bag waste in Northbrook. 

Should there be a charge every time you use a plastic or paper bag when you purchase items from the grocery or other stores? Cities are starting to do THAT. Should the USA adopt the German model that requires manufacturers to rethink every aspect of manufacturing? That includes everything from packaging to disposal -- each step of the process must be engineered with recyling in mind. The recycling responsibility is put on a product's producer, not the consumer. With German recycling at 70% versus the US at 33%, the idea is worth considering. Read about it HERE.

On the other side of the coin -- should bans on plastic bags be banned outright? Supporters of Bag the Ban, along with the rest of the enormous plastic bag industry, certainly think so. But their powerful lobbyists didn't stop Governor Quinn from vetoing an Illinois bill, funded and backed by the plastic bag industry, but opposed by environmentalists, that would have banned municipalities with less than two million people from ever banning plastic bags. It's worth noting that the well coordinated misdirection tactics and PR efforts of the plastic bag industry haven't stopped many cities from banning plastic bags outright.

Read about LA's ban on plastic bags passed in 2013 HERE. 

Northbrook is on notice. Something can be done on the local level. So GGN has started the conversation. Watch for our booth on Earth Day. Put your two cents in. To Ban or Not to Ban. 

Merilee Novinson, the meeting secretary, wrote down the 

myriad ideas presented, as fast as she could.

Kathleen Drewno, RUBI Team member, who suggested the RUBI acronym.

Jordan Parker, Director of Bring Your Bag Chicago, discusses one 

of the many problems with plastic bags.

 Lew Cohen, RUBI Team Leader, a study in concentration, 

focuses on the discussion underway.

The RUBI group with Jordan Parker on the left. Everyone in the front row is holding an example of a reusable bag -- the kind you want to have in your car when you go shopping. Burlap. Canvas. Hemp. Microfiber. There are many kinds. Doug Gerleman, GGN founder, stands in the back holding up one of the culprits -- a plastic bag that has a heavier weight and handles so it can be used more, but like the thinner, single use plastic bags, it still can't be properly recycled and presents the same problem as single use plastic bags. Don't be fooled. A plastic bag that's thicker with handles is still a plastic bag. You can't put lipstick on a pig.