Mr. Hartmann said Toronto should simply require biodegradable bags instead of purchasing more costly hydropulpers to remove plastic. He said Toronto residents would be willing to convert to biodegradable bags if they knew it would help the environment.
Come on, does anyone not already know it helps the environment?
I've been through this before, but I'll say it again: what they really need to do is have all stores bag people's purchases in biodegradeable plastic bags instead of the regular kind. Then we will automatically have biodegradeable bags on hand to put our garbage and organics in.
Why not buy biodegradeable bags? First of all, I currently get bags for free with my purchases - buying them is additional expense and inconvenience. Secondly, they aren't readily available within my normal travels, and like hell I'm going to make a separate trip just for garbage bags.
Why not use reuseable shopping bags? Because then I'd have to plan my grocery shopping (which introduces a completely new chore to my routine) and carry big shopping bags around all day (which doubles the number of things I'm carrying - normally I just have a purse) or go home after work, pick up the bags, and go back to the grocery store (which nearly doubles my commute).
It's a completely different story for car people - they can put the reuseable bags in their trunks, and since they travel so widely normally they tend not to consider an extra stop an inconvenience. But for those of us who choose to incur greater expenses and sacrifice space and privacy for the massive convenience of living without a car and within walking distance of most amenities, having to carry extra things and buy extra things is a significant inconvenience. For a car person, it may only be a 5% inconvenience. For me, it's like a 25% inconvenience.
Having stores bag my purchases in biodegradeable bags will ensure that I never put another plastic bag down the garbage chute and that every garbage bag I use is biodegradeable. Anything else is very unlikely to work on me.
3 comments:
As a former urbanite, I know just what you mean. I can't imagine that I'd be using cloth shopping bags if I still lived in NYC and had a walking and public transit lifestyle.
I've noticed, though, that a lot of people in Toronto are car people, even though they are also urban people. So maybe there's a lot of overlap.
I don't see many car people in Toronto. But then, I don't see many cat people, or athletes, or straight men, or third+ generation Anglophones, so my experience is most likely not typical.
Well, it's a really small sample size, but most people I know who live in Toronto own a car.
Post a Comment