plastic, reimagined

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than 380 billion plastic bags are used in the United States every year. Plastic Bag Bans will help reduce this amount but perhaps not the effects of grocery bags on the environment. Flickr User: Andrew Bain

In January 1, 2012, the plastic bag ban in Los Angeles County went into effect, leading to the withdrawal of plastic shopping bags in about 664 grocery stores throughout the area. Over the past years, more and more cities have decided to adopt similar bans, taxes or restrictions on plastic bags. In some cases, this international green movement has led to the promotion of brown paper bags. If they are considered as a greener and better alternative to plastic bags, paper grocery bags also carry their own environmental problems. Here is what you should know about the environmental footprint of paper bags:

Thanks to plastic bag bans and restrictions, plastic shopping bags are progressively disappearing from grocery stores; however they are often being replaced by brown paper bags that are not necessarily better for the environment. The paper industry has an enormous environmental footprint. According to a 2007 study by Boustead Consulting & Associates, it takes almost four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as a plastic bag. An average paper bag takes 2511 BTUs to manufacture, while an average plastic bag takes only 591 BTUs. Moreover, most paper comes from trees, a precious resource for our planet.  A 2008 article from the National Cooperative Grocers Association states that each year the United States consumes 10 billion paper grocery bags, requiring 14 million trees — trees that are cut down to produce a paper shopping bag that you may only use a single time.

Similarly, the manufacture of paper bags uses 20 times more water than the manufacture of plastic bags, and requires the use of toxic chemicals that contribute to both water and air pollution. In fact, manufacturing paper bags produces as many greenhouses gases as plastic bags production. Moreover, paper requires more energy to be recycled. Studies indicate it takes 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper. But, according to the Wall Street Journal, more than eighty-five per cent of paper bags are not recycled and end up in landfills where their chance to biodegrade will vary.

"Faced with the question of paper or plastic, the answer should always be neither," says Reuseit.com. Flickr User: Sarahnphilipps

Therefore, both plastic and paper bag production has an impact on the environment, requiring earth resources and contributing to global warming in their manufacturing process, transportation, and disposal. If neither plastic shopping bags nor brown paper bags are sustainable solutions, how do you get your groceries home in the most earth friendly manner?

Reusable canvas bags are the most earth friendly but compostable bioplastic bags are a good option for single-use disposable bags in places such as San Francisco and Italy where there is a composting infrastructure. Certified compostable bioplastic bags will break down in 180 days or less in an industrial composting facility, and are often made from renewable resources such as corn, tapioca and potato industrial (non-food grade) starches. Today, instead of “Plastic or Paper,” many are choosing “Bioplastics” for their grocery bags.

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Detroit decline has also sparked remarkable creativity in its residents that is noticeable in the garden movement. Flickr User: ThunderKiss Photography

The time when Detroit flourished as the capital of the American car industry is no more than a distant memory. In a steady decline since the 1960s, Detroit’s economic collapse has been accelerated by the 2008 financial crisis. Full of abandoned buildings and car factories, much of the city looks like a hopeless ruin, yet a growing green movement is bringing new life and hope to Detroit by transforming the city through urban agriculture. Here is how urban gardening is renovating Motown and providing its residents with inexpensive fresh vegetables and fruits.

The Motor City has, perhaps, been hit harder than any other in the United States by poor urban planning, racial segregation, population loss and devalued property. In 1950, the population of Detroit peaked at 1.8 million, whereas today it only stands at 900,000, leaving hundreds of thousands of houses empty. Between 1970 and 2000, Jeff Byles reported in his essay Disappeared Detroit, which was published in Lost Magazine, “More than 161,000 dwellings were demolished in Detroit, amounting to almost one-third of the city’s occupied housing stock. That’s more than the total number of occupied dwellings today in the entire city of Cincinnati.” With a current unemployment rate of 15.5 percent, more than 50 percent higher than the national average, and the title of the most dangerous city in the US, the former “Capital of the car industry” no longer attracts new residents or developers.

For those who stay in the city, it is nearly impossible to find fresh vegetables and fruits as all supermarket chains in the area closed, making Detroit a food desert. A study from Yale’s Rudd Center recently found that Detroit residents are “statistically more likely to suffer or die prematurely from a diet-related disease, holding other key factors constant,” due to the severely limited access to healthy food.

The city of Detroit is considered one of the worst "food deserts" in the country. More than half a million city dwellers live in areas where it's easier to find a fast-food restaurant than it is to find a grocery store selling fresh produce. Flickr User: Ario_

Researchers from the C.S. Mott Group reckon that there are 44,000 vacant publicly-owned land parcels, representing nearly 5,000 acres around the city. These vacant lands gave Detroit citizens the inspiration to create their own urban gardens, providing them with the necessary amount of fresh food produce they need. More and more urban farms and kitchen gardens have been sprouting up throughout the whole city since 1980. According to the association The Greening of Detroit, in partnership with The Garden Resource Program, Detroit has more than 15,000 urban gardeners of all ages and 1200 registered vegetable gardens.

This green initiative of urban agriculture plays an important role in Detroit; it provides fresh vegetables and fruits to Detroit citizens on the cheap, while improving the quality of life for the local communities and the city with the conversion of vacant lots into urban gardens. However, a main obstacle remains against the expansion of urban agriculture in Motown: legally, farming can’t be the principal use of city land. Therefore all urban gardeners’ activities are currently considered illegal by the City Council.  But this is changing thanks to the close collaboration between the Detroit Food Policy Council and the City of Detroit that has recently committed to support sustainable food systems that provide people easy access to fresh food produce. Therefore, it’s now easier for Detroit urban gardeners to sell their locally grown food at farmers’ markets, directly from to other urban dwellers.

The Motts Group researchers have shown that a mere 570 acres can produce 70 percent of the vegetables consumed in Detroit and 40 percent of the fruit. Thus if the Garden movement is still growing, the city will one day able to be self-sufficient. Flickr User: Jessicareeder

Urban gardening has a huge potential in Detroit and has already had an impact on the life and environmental quality of the urban dwellers. Thanks to this green initiative, the urban gardeners participate in the green revival of the City. The future of Motown is full of promises toward a new green model. Over the next several years, let’s hope Detroit will get the new nickname of Growtown because of its thousands of urban farms.

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