Bring Your Own Bag

The Palisadian-Post has partnered with locally founded environmental organization Resilient Palisades to deliver a “green tip” to our readers in each newspaper. This edition’s tip was written by Bonnie Zucker and Lisa Boyle of Resilient Palisades’ Zero Waste Team.

You may wonder how some grocery stores in California still ask “paper or plastic” after California became the first state to ban plastic bags at checkout of large retail stores in 2014.

Good question! Most grocery stores have turned to thicker plastic bags at checkout calling them reusable. These bags are supposed to be recyclable, unlike the thin bags of old that jam recycling machinery.

Favored by the plastics industry, these new thicker bags are a way to circumvent the intent of the law, which was to persuade a change in consumer behavior toward bringing our own reusable bags.

The State Attorney General’s Office is currently investigating the plastic bag industry because there is no evidence these thicker bags are recycled. They just use more plastic. Additionally, The Last Beach Cleanup, a nonprofit, has brought a lawsuit against several grocery stores.

Policy experts and advocates estimate that just 6% of plastics are recycled in the United States, with the remaining burned, trashed or littered. More plastic bags ended up in California landfills in 2021 compared with 2018, according to data from the state’s recycling department.

Why is this a problem? The plastic used to make the bags contains endocrine disrupters, leading to health issues like cancer. Plastic bags don’t biodegrade. Instead, they shred into microplastics or nanoparticles that can be even more dangerous to wildlife and human health because they are more likely to be inhaled or consumed.

Also, Americans use 100 billion plastic bags annually, which require 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture, worsening climate change and our health. Moreover, plastic bags that don’t make it to landfills can kill marine animals and wildlife.

Please bring your own bags to the market (even for produce). Resilient Palisades has distributed free canvas produce bags at our local Pacific Palisades Farmers Market, and most of us have plenty of reusable bags.

If you keep them in the trunk of your car, you will always have them with you. If you forget, you can always ask for paper, or bring your items to the car in your cart unbagged and bag them at home to bring them inside.

Living by the ocean, we have a special duty to reduce our plastic use as we enjoy our ocean resources. We are all in this together to protect our health and environment.

Resilient Palisades is sponsoring a petition to stop Gelson’s from offering plastic bags at checkout. The petition can be found at change.org by searching “Gelson’s.” Many Palisadians like shopping at Gelson’s, and if they ditch plastic bags, it will be an even better shopping experience.