Plastic grocery bags' convenience trumps environmental factor

Petroleum-based sacks like those used in Iowa are banned elsewhere, but big change is unlikely here.

Shoppers like their plastic grocery bags and still continue to choose them overwhelmingly over more environmentally friendly paper bags.

"Consumers like the reusability of plastic sacks and the convenience of being able to grab several at a time," said Fred Greiner, president of Boone-based Fareway Stores Inc., which has been using plastic grocery bags since 1988. The company's 93 stores use in excess of 1 million plastic bags a week.

But if a movement on the West Coast creeps its way to the Midwest, grocers will be looking for alternatives to the plastic bags. San Francisco has banned the use of petroleum-based grocery bags at larger supermarkets and drugstore chains. Officials in Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, Calif., and Austin, Texas, are considering similar bans.

Several foreign cities including Paris and nations including South Africa, Bangladesh and Taiwan also ban the bags or plan to.

The majority of bags used at Iowa grocery stores are made with petroleum products. And it looks as though it may stay that way for now.

"Groceries have to be bagged up. And the vast majority of bags used are plastic," said Jerry Fleagle, president of the Iowa Grocery Industry Association. "Most consumers prefer plastic."

Hy-Vee uses about 5.4 million plastic bags a week and fewer than 350,000 paper bags in its 220 stores in seven Midwestern states. The company has created incentives over the years to reduce reliance on plastic bags and encourage recycling, such as offering a 5-cent-a-bag refund for customers bringing in used plastic grocery bags and selling reasonably priced, reusable canvas shopping totes.

But the plastic bags almost always seem to win out.

"They are reusable and waterproof," Greiner said. And they cost less for stores to buy than paper, he said.

But along with taking a long time to break down in landfills, the bags often end up as debris, strewn across fields and clumped in ditches, he said.

Susan Sanford of Urbandale said she prefers paper grocery bags because she can collect her other recyclables in them. She would like to see some restrictions put on plastic bag usage in grocery stores, but doubts grocers will do it on their own.

"I would like to see it done voluntarily, but whatever is the cheapest route, that's what the grocery store is going to use," she said.

A more environmentally friendly plastic bag is being researched, but so far a usable product hasn't made its way to stores, said Larry Johnson, director of the Center for Crop Utilization Research at Iowa State University.

Several years ago, a cornstarch-based plastic was created for use in making grocery bags. The bags were not as strong as their petroleum counterparts and did not degrade fast enough in composts and landfills.

"They never met consumer expectations," Johnson said.

Scientists continue to work on other alternatives.

"Finding a polymer derived from a renewable source is being investigated, but it's not going to happen overnight," Johnson said. On top of that, consumers are not willing to pay very much for a green product, he said.

So while the world waits for a better plastic bag, stores will look for ways to better use the bags they have now, Fleagle said.

Some companies, like Hy-Vee, Wal-Mart and Fareway, provide large barrels at store entrances so shoppers can drop off used bags.

It's a successful program at the Hy-Vee on South 51st Street in West Des Moines. About 90 percent of the bags that leave the store are plastic, and at least some of them come back to the recycling bin, said store director Mark Luke.

"I have to empty the barrel every two or three days," Luke said. "I ship them to the warehouse where they recycle them."

Consumers also need to take a look at how they are using plastic bags, Fleagle said. They can be reused or recycled, he said.

Amy Horst, communications specialist with the Metro Waste Authority in Des Moines, said plastic shopping bags aren't currently included in curbside recycling services. Concerns about the weightless bags flying out of recycling bins or drifting around landfills have yet to be addressed, she said.

"We are actively looking at it," she said.

Reference: http://desmoinesregister.com