Fantastic plastic

I like paper bags. I’ve used them all – lunch, bread and grocery – and when they’re empty I fold them up and put them in a drawer until their next assignment. 

When they tear or break I use them to start the fireplace or crumple them up for packing material at Christmas and on special occasions.

The reasons for my paper preference are partly environmental and partly practical but there is a large nostalgia component driving my choice.  It dates back to my childhood when Aunty Lena would drop by with a paper shopping bag full of knitting, some knick knacks and, usually, some cookies with bright orange sugar on top for us kids.  That shopping bag was always good news.

Like many aging baby boomers I often think about the way things used to be and wonder if maybe we’ve lost our way. Paper used to rule. Groceries were skillfully packed in paper bags and cardboard boxes.  Bread was wrapped and kept fresh with wax paper.  Even those “drippy slabs of meat” were carefully packaged in butcher paper and usually didn’t leak until suppertime.

Then along came Swedish engineer Sven Gustaf Thulin who invented those ubiquitous plastic shopping bags we love so much. 

They were patented by Celloplast in 1965 and they grew in popularity for 50 years or so until now when they clog our oceans and landfills and deliver a slow, painful death to many unsuspecting animals. Suddenly these bags have become the convenience we love to hate.

Plastic in general and shopping bags in particular have been getting a lot of bad press. In this country it came to a head recently when Toronto city council passed a city-wide ban on those pesky petroleum carry-alls. It is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2013.

If the ban goes ahead Toronto will become the first major city in Canada to jump on the bandwagon.  Other smaller Canadian cities were already there including, believe it or not, Fort McMurray, Alta.

Good for them. There is nothing worse than plastic bags floating on the surface of an oil spill or blowing through the air on a wave of sour gas.

When he first invented these simple, strong bags with the impressive carrying capacity, Mr. Thulin had no way of knowing what would happen next. 

It was seen as a feat of engineering genius at the time that would free the planet from the environmental cost of paper production.

But now these indestructible little sacks are the leading cause of death for sea turtles. There is a blob of plastic bags bigger than the state of Texas bobbing up and down in the Pacific Ocean.  At this rate it could one day reach continent status. 

Sea turtles are bunged up and our sewers are getting clogged with plastic.

It is estimated that we each use 350 of those bags every year for 20 minutes each and then we throw them away.

That’s about a million a minute worldwide which adds up to about a trillion per year blowing and floating around the planet. 

It’s been going on since 1965 and they are all still around in one form or another. They last for 400 years.  The year 2412 should be relatively bag free.

But in spite of it all those darn things are very handy. They are useful for carrying anything around, even second hand, which is why they were first invented. 

If Aunty Lena were here today she would probably keep her knitting and cookies in a plastic shopping bag.

Pet owners love them for carrying poop. Unfortunately the poop biodegrades but the bag hangs around for centuries. They are also good for sloppy garbage, although they are prone to leaking.  They have many other uses. 

But with apologies to Gustaf Thulin, it looks like they’ll have to go.  It was a good run but we can’t afford the environmental costs.  We have to get off oil and oil-based bags.

I can remember, as a boy, walking home from the corner store with an armload of groceries carefully packed in a paper bag. 

The bread was usually on top and I caught a whiff of a fresh, crusty loaf with every step. 

That was the charm of the paper bag and that memory still brings a smile.

However, in my most nostalgic dreams I never thought I’d see the day when the practical paper bag would return to rescue us from all that fantastic plastic.