Daniel A. Harris, Princeton
For their collaboration to achieve voluntary reduction (alas, not elimination!) of single-use plastic bags, I commend the Princeton Merchants Association, McCaffrey’s, Whole Earth, Craft Cleaners, Sustainable Princeton, and Princeton Municipality. Everyone must commit to reducing fossil-fuel consumption.
The good news: inclusion of all plastic films for recycling, plus 10 collection bins ordered from TREX, a former Mobil subsidiary; Mayor Lempert’s announcement of three additional recycling centers; and the intent “[t]o encourage at-home recycling” (the PMA states), as “McCaffrey’s will soon be selling BagSavR receptacles, which shoppers can use to collect plastics to bring back to any local collection container. Shoppers at McCaffrey’s can save $2 on a BagSavR when they bring in two full ‘bags of bags’ back for recycling.”
Voluntary initiatives, however, cannot achieve elimination. Hundreds of nations, states, counties, and municipalities, worldwide, already know:
Eliminating plastic dependency happens by law and ordinance, not education alone. When the world’s nations meet shortly in Paris to retard climate change, they will sign a treaty — no time left for “voluntary measures.”
I am dismayed that supposedly progressive Princeton welcomes user-friendly education alone and that “recycling” is fallaciously construed as elimination.
Voluntary programs deal only with post-production consequences (minimal reduction of bag use; reduced landfill, gas costs and labor to reach a landfill), killing of marine and wildlife species, poisoning of waters and the human endocrine system itself. Recycling of plastic film (bags) accounts for only 6.1 percent of newly manufactured plastic bags per year (EPA report, 2009: 53). This means: new production continues unabated.
Pre-production costs of bags include: oil extraction, carbon emissions, water and air pollution, melted glaciers, desertification, flooding, starvation. Costs of actually producing a plastic bag include similar horrific emissions.
Voluntary programs aimed simply at recycling, like Princeton’s, obscure such costs.
PMA’s voluntary initiative does not provide for measurement: no accountability. It does not cover single-use paper bags, much less Styrofoam and plastic bottles.
It does not provide economically challenged families with already-recycled bags. The regressive “BagSavR” program costs someone something to “recycle better” (for a $2 rebate). What shall the less advantaged in our golden ghetto do? The ordinance drafted by Bainy Suri, Stephanie Chorney, and me (unanimously endorsed by the Environmental Commission) includes a social justice provision absent from the present initiative.
PMA, allies: you have begun well — but not well enough: you mean to let your children and the next generations suffer more. Learn more: contact TerraCycle.
Revise your program. Also: 1) PMA: market this program throughout Mercer County and beyond; 2) Jim McCaffrey: implement this program in all your stores; 3) Sustainable Princeton: promote the program to other municipalities and all environmentalist groups, statewide (ANJEC, NJPIRG, NJEL, etc.). Your coalition must pressure the New Jersey Legislature to pass a statewide ban on single-use plastic and paper bags.
I cannot think we have yet done a proper job. The draft ordinance covers all; it should be adopted, with collaborative education, including the salutary measures just announced.
Daniel A. Harris
Princeton
