Turn the tides in your house

In April 2002, Martin Cullen, then Ireland's Minister for the Environment, saw a need to curb litter. A tax on plastic bags in the Republic of Ireland has since cut their use by more than 90 percent and raised millions of euros in revenue for large environmental clean-up projects. In relatively small areas such as Ireland, plastic garbage is much more in everyone's face. Here in Alaska, our throw-away attitude toward plastics may not have caused quite as visible a change to the environment; trashed beaches do exist, but most of them are remote, largely out of sight and out of mind.

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The garbage that washes up on Alaska beaches is not just our garbage, but Pacific Rim garbage, and if we look beyond our doorstep, we realize that part of our trash ends up being Hawaii's trash. According to U.S. government reports, over the past 10 years, 550 tons of plastic debris have been removed from Midway Atoll, and in the coming years an estimated 50 tons of plastic trash will wash up annually. The federal government is concerned, and President Bush declared the whole chain of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands the Papah_naumoku_kea Marine National Monument. He even banned fishing there, but he can't keep the plastic out. Guess what? We can!

Plastic bags do not simply vanish; some float in the ocean and eventually break up into smaller particles which are then eaten by fish and birds. Others slowly sink to the bottom of the ocean, wreaking havoc in the ecosystem by choking life underneath them.

I visit my family in Britain once a year. While I was there in November 2007, all 33 London Councils made the decision to ban plastic bags. In addition, 80 villages, towns and cities, including Brighton and Bath, have introduced or are considering such bans, since stores in the Devon market town of Modbury (www.plasticbagfree.com) took it upon themselves to go "plastic bag free." In a nutshell, the people of Britain are putting pressure on the legislature to prevent stores in the capital city from handing out free plastic bags. Right now, Westminster Council, which presides over London, will present a bill to the House of Commons, which would apply to every London store from the smallest news-stand to Harrods. Customers will be asked to use sturdy, reusable plastic "bags for life" or cotton or string hold-alls. Britain is coming to realize that as a nation it needs to stop further damage done by plastic bags, which use enormous amounts of oil and landfill space and kill marine wildlife indiscriminately.

In Hawaii, a bill to ban plastic bags has just been introduced to the legislature. Here in Juneau, two bills calling for a fee on bags have been introduced - very similar to the highly successful bill passed in Ireland and the bill to be presented in Britain. I strongly urge you to write to your senator and representative and support Senate Bill 118 and House Bill 230. Opposition to these companion bills of course comes from the plastic manufacturers, as well as some store-owners who don't want the "hassle" of working out the extra fee. Imagine the hassle of waking up one morning to find all the world's oceans irreversibly polluted, all their wildlife extinct, and all the other species on the planet rapidly following suit. But you saved a couple of bucks for yourself or your business, so it all works out.

Then there are the melancholic few who are reflexively hostile to anything with the word "environment" in it, believing such concerns to be "liberal", and therefore not worthy of their support, indeed, even their consideration. Fortunately, that mindset is on an accelerating journey to oblivion, as even big multinational corporations are beginning to turn their attention to environmental concerns that will affect us all. I am happy to say that Costco, Fred Meyer, Rainbow Foods, Safeway, Super Bear, Wal-Mart and many other large retail chains all have alternatives in place so that no one ever needs to use plastic bags again.

We the people hold the purse strings and make the decisions about our environment. Please support House Bill 230 and Senate Bill 118 and continue to avoid using plastic bags. Talk to store managers, business people, legislators, friends and family - encourage them to support you in your quest to cut the use plastic bags.

Visit our Web site for information on how to support the bills effectively.

• Melissa McCormack is a council member of Turning the Tides, a Juneau grass-roots nonprofit working to promote environmentally friendly living and alternatives to plastics. To contact the group, call 907-789-0449 or visit www.turningthetides.org.