Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/16971
How Long Does It Really Take a Plastic Grocery Bag to Degrade? From the Editors of Environmental Magazine I’ve heard conflicting reports regarding how long it really takes for a plastic grocery bag to decompose. Can you set the record straight? — Martha Blount, San Diego, CA Researchers fear that such ubiquitous bags may never fully de- compose; instead they gradually just turn into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic. The most common type of plastic shopping bag is made of polyethylene, a petroleum-derived polymer that micro- organisms don’t recognize as food and as such cannot technically “biodegrade.” The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines biodegradation as “a process by which microbial organisms trans- form or alter (through metabolic or enzymatic action) the structure of chemicals introduced into the environment.” In “respirometry” tests, whereby experimenters put solid waste in a container with microbe-rich compost and then add air to promote biodegradation, newspapers and banana peels decompose in days or weeks, while plastic shopping bags are not affected. An anti-plastic bag activist makes a point in Austin, Texas. Image by “Ret0dd, courtesy Flickr.” can biodegrade in a matter of weeks, and can also go into compost or yard waste piles or the recycling bin. Of course, plastic bags can be recycled also, but as just explained the process is inefficient. According to the nonprofit Worldwatch Institute, Americans only recycle 0.6 percent of the 100 billion plastic bags they take home from stores every year; the rest end up in landfills or as litter. Another option which some stores are embracing — es- pecially in places like San Francisco where traditional plastic shopping bags are now banned in chain supermarkets and pharmacies — are so-called compostable plastic bags, which are derived from agricultural waste and formed into a fully biodegradable faux-plastic with a consistency similar to the polyethylene bags we are so used to. BioBag is the leader in this field, but other companies are making inroads into this promising new green-friendly market. San Francisco’s pioneering effort to get rid of polyethylene bags is a positive Even though polyethylene can’t biodegrade, it does break down when subject to ultraviolet radiation from the sun, a process known as photodegradation. When ex- posed to sunshine, polyethylene’s polymer chains become brittle and crack, eventually turning what was a plastic bag into microscopic synthetic granules. Scientists aren’t sure whether these granules ever decompose fully, and fear that their buildup in ma- rine and terrestrial environments — and in the stomachs of wildlife — portend a bleak future compromised by plastic particles infiltrating every step in the food chain. A plas- tic bag might be gone in anywhere from 10 to 100 years (estimates vary) if exposed to the sun, but its environmental legacy may last forever. The best solution to plastic bag waste is to stop using disposable plastic bags al- together. You could invest a few bucks in reusable canvas totes — most supermarket chains now offer them — or bring your own reusable bags or backpacks with you to the store. If you have to choose between paper and plastic, opt for paper. Paper bags step, but environmentalists are pushing for such bans more widely. A California effort to ban plastic bags failed again recently, but will likely eventually succeed. Washington, Florida, New Jersey and North Carolina are watching closely and con- sidering similar laws depending on what happens in the Golden State. Worldwatch reports that taxes on plastic bags in South Africa and Ireland have been effective at reducing their use by upwards of 90 percent; Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan and the UK are also planning to ban or tax plastic bags to help stem the tide of plastic waste. CONTACTS: Worldwatch, www.worldwatch.org; BioBag, www.biobagusa.com. SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E – The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@ emagazine.com. E is a nonprofit publication. Bad News on the Jobless Front by JOHN HOOD I am, by nature, an optimistic fellow. Despite North Carolina’s summer dry spell, for example, I haven’t given up on my lawn. I still get out the mower each weekend, check the gas and oil, crank up an audiobook, and spend exactly five minutes trimming the patch of crabgrass that is the only green and growing part of my front yard. And as a kid, I rooted for the Cincinnati Bengals, usually to no avail. So I don’t approach the subject of North Carolina’s economic woes with apathy or pessimism. I want my home state to prosper. I want to see signs that our business climate is markedly improving, and that our policy-makers have set the stage for a strong recovery from the worst recession in decades. But so far, the data don’t bear out such optimism. You might have read something different a few days ago, when the latest unemployment numbers came out. For the month of August, North Carolina posted a 9.7 percent jobless rate — well below the 11 percent level we saw earlier this year. The state’s jobless rate is now close to the national average, after having compared unfavorably to the rest of the nation for two years. Is the recent decline in North Carolina’s rate a sign that we’re fi- nally closing the gap? Unfortunately, no. If you look more closely at the statistics, the good news is scant. There has been some hiring in some months in some economic sectors, though most of it has been in government jobs. What’s really going on, however, is that an increasing number of North Carolinians are dropping out of the labor force. They’re discouraged, not reemployed. Other states have posted increases in their unemployment rates over the summer. In many cases, that’s because they have seen some previously discouraged workers reentering the labor market to look for jobs. North Carolina leaders have some hard work to do to lower the unem- ployment rate. It sounds paradoxical but it’s true: we’ll know that a recovery is truly picking up steam in North Carolina when some of our discour- aged workers restart their job search, driving up the jobless rate in the short term. Here’s a simple way to think about the longer-term trend. At the beginning of 2008, there were about 4.3 million workers employed in North Carolina, out of a labor force of nearly 4.6 million. Our jobless rate was just under 5 percent. Then the recession hit. North Carolina got hit earlier than most states, and the consequences were worse than average here. Since the beginning of 2008, employment has dropped by about 275,000. The labor force has shrunk, too. It will likely take years for North Carolina to erase these losses. I may not read the state’s recent unemployment trends as op- timistically as some — particularly incumbent politicians — have chosen to read them. But I remain hopeful that North Carolina can restore its economic competitiveness. We won’t get there through happy talk and wishful thinking, however. There is some hard work to do, and difficult decisions to make. North Carolina’s assets include a strong work ethic, a pleasant quality of life, recent improvements in our physical-cap- ital stock, and a right-to-work law that keeps labor unions from forcing wages above the productivity of labor. Our liabilities include mediocre educational attainment and higher marginal tax Remember that the unemployment rate is the result of dividing the number of job- less people actively looking for work by the number of people in the civilian labor force. Two different trends will drive that rate down — more people finding jobs and more people ending their search for jobs. In reality, there is been no net job growth in North Carolina since March. The number of North Carolinians classified as unemployed has dropped by about 70,000, but so has the number of people in the workforce. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM rates and regulatory burdens than most of our competitors. To get back into the game, North Carolina policymakers will need to refocus government on its core responsibilities and reduce its cost. I remain optimistic that the job can be done, if they have the will. JOHN HOOD, Columnist COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com SEPTEMBER 29 - OCTOBER 5, 2010 UCW 17