Environmental Responsibility News: grocery bag

Showing posts with label grocery bag. Show all posts

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Is Local Food More Equally Friendly?

Story first reported from USA Today

Which is better for the environment and the economy — a tomato grown nearby or one from the supermarket?

Local food, hip among urbanites and touted at the White House, is stirring more debate as new research suggests its benefits have been oversold.

"I like the food," says Joseph Conklin, a customer at the Local Market, a store in Falls Church, Va., that sells products made within 100 miles. He says he wants to support local businesses: "You get a better feeling shopping here" than at a national chain.

Such stores are popping up nationwide, and more farmers markets are open year-round. First lady Michelle Obama has added to momentum with her well-publicized backyard garden.

Two new books, however, say local food isn't necessarily more eco-friendly, even though it travels fewer miles. They cite research showing long-distance transportation accounts for only about 4% of the greenhouse gas emissions in food production; most occur at the farm itself through the use of tractors and other equipment and materials.

So if you want to buy local food for its freshness or to support area farmers, fine, but don't do it to save the planet, conclude researchers from the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group. Their two-year study, "Cooler Smarter," was published this spring.

Another book goes even further in debunking local-food "myths." Its title, The Locavore's Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000-mile Diet, plays off Michael Pollan's best seller, The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Co-author Pierre Desrochers, a geography professor at the University of Toronto-Mississuga, says large farms growing crops suited to their region are better for the environment because they use less energy per item and grow more food on less land. He says they offer economic benefits, too: lower prices.

Desrochers, who says he has received no funding from agri-business, has no problem with hobby farmers but doesn't want government supporting local food (or, for that matter, ethanol and sugar). Though kids may learn from community gardens, he says, they're better off learning computer and job skills.

"He's advocating a contrarian stance to sell books," says Chris Hunt of Sustainable Table, a non-profit advocate for healthy, eco-friendly food. Hunt says local food may not have a smaller carbon footprint but argues small local farms are more likely to avoid synthetic hormones, fertilizers or other chemicals that can damage the environment and harm human health.

He agrees it's not feasible to rely entirely on local food but adds, "no one's proposing that."
Erin Barnett, director of Local Harvest, a directory of farms and farmers markets, says local food encourages people to eat fresher, seasonal food and offers an easier way to track safety problems.
As part of its "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture offers grants to boost local food systems.

"Some of this is schmaltzy," says David Swenson, a regional economics researcher at Iowa State University. "How about your mechanic?" He agrees there's more economic benefit in growing large quantities of food where the climate is best: "That's why Iowa is so good at growing corn and Montana (stinks) at it."

Yet local food is about more than numbers, says Sarah Rich in Urban Farms, out in June. She toured 16 nationwide, including a one-acre rooftop garden in Queens, N.Y., and found that they anchor communities, beautify blighted areas and create havens for children. "Urban farming … can simultaneously reshape places we live and the way we eat."

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Thursday, May 31, 2012

Plastic Bags Go The Way of The Dinosaur

Story first appeared in USA Today.

Ah, the little plastic grocery bag, we hardly got to know you.

Although it seems as if the single-use grocery bag, as it's formally known, has been around forever, it wasn't until 1977 that it was introduced to U.S. supermarkets, a move that prompted perhaps the most asked question of the following decade: "Paper or plastic?"

As the years went by and plastic won, people began to find myriad other makeshift uses for the little bags with the briefcase-like handles. You could line small trash cans with them, use one to scoop up dog waste and another to carry wet towels home from the beach. You could even use them to take pictures in the rain and not destroy your camera.

The discarded bags, though, had a nasty habit of washing up on beaches by the thousands, clogging storm drains and getting tangled in all sorts of stuff. That raised the ire of environmentalists, who have been on a ban-the-bag quest for years.

Now, with the city of Los Angeles taking the first step toward joining nearly four dozen other California municipalities in outlawing them, the humble little polyethylene bag may be headed for the trash heap of history.

San Francisco already bans the bag. So do San Jose, Long Beach, Berkeley and Malibu.

But L.A., with nearly 4 million residents, goes through an estimated 2.7 billion plastic grocery bags a year, according to city officials, and environmentalists believe a ban here will have a huge impact and could even influence the rest of the country to follow suit.

This is a gateway for sustainability. This is meant to change consumer behavior and expand consumer consciousness.

So, using those handy little bags with the tie-shut handles for cleaning up after your dog or cat? Forget about it.

In Santa Monica, many people say they already have.

Santa Monica banned the use of plastic grocery bags more than a year ago, as did Los Angeles County for its unincorporated areas, which is where Artress lives. And although she misses her free bags, she figures it's a small sacrifice to make for the environment.

Plastic has done a lot of good things, we absolutely need it just to pick up our dog poop.

Indeed, every dog walker, jogger or bicyclist who stopped to talk about plastic bags on a recent sunny afternoon in the park that overlooks the Pacific Ocean agreed wholeheartedly with her.

Oh sure, most of them admitted, they've forgotten their reusable bag. They've had to fumble with paper ones, which cost them a dime apiece. Some even precariously juggled their purchases free hand on the way back to the car.

But the tradeoff, they say, was worth it.

The plastic bags have also been known to be handy for carrying baby bottles and for stashing dirty diapers until you find a trash can. But residents have found freezer bags serve the same purpose and don't seem to blow away in the wind, get tangled in trees or power lines or stuck in storm drains like grocery bags do. The biggest thing now is remembering to bring those reusable cloth bags to the grocery store.

Under the proposal the City Council approved last week, Los Angeles will conduct an environmental impact study to see just what effect banning plastic grocery bags might have.

Then it will look at adopting a ban similar to Santa Monica's, which would allow people who forget to bring their reusable bags to the store to buy paper ones for 10 cents apiece.

No time frame for all that was given, prompting industry officials who oppose the ban to note it's still a long way from happening, and that they will argue that it would be a job killer for California while not significantly cleaning the environment.

Meanwhile, bans have begun to be adopted elsewhere. Every county in Hawaii has now banned plastic grocery bags, although all the bans won't fully take effect across the state until 2015. The bags have also been banned in Portland, Ore, and in the Outer Banks region of North Carolina, although there is an effort under way in that state to repeal the ban.

In L.A., the proposed ban wouldn't completely eliminate plastic bags.

People who feel they just can't survive without having a plastic grocery bag to entertain a cat with or slide over a broken parking meter could still obtain one by going to a takeout restaurant.

Unless, that is, they live in Malibu.

The bags have been banned from restaurants there too.