The Big Blue Bag

By Ede Rothaus

It was going to be a quiet April in this little corner of the Southwest Village with only me at home. I thought it could be the ideal time to test something I had been wanting to know: how much soft plastics in the form of bags, film and wrapping does one reasonably eco-conscious person generate in one month?

I started the month off – and ended – with a large blue plastic bag that had held flats of plants purchased from Fantastic Gardens, my favorite nursery at the Union Square Greenmarket. Into the ground went pansies, viola and lobelia. Into the terra cotta herb planter went chives, parsley, thyme, peppermint and rosemary. And into the kitchen sink for a quick rinse went the big blue bag. After that, each time I purchased anything or received in the US mail or was given a gift or received a package into Big Blue went the plastic.

I tried not to adjust my regular shopping habits to fit this experiment. There were two exceptions: an extra food shop for some Passover cooking supplies as the designated matzoh ball maker for one seder and two holiday dinners. I also put on hold my bi-monthly standing order of arepas from the East Village thus eliminating 4-6 small plastic bags.

Opening my laundry that had been washed, dried, and then folded into large clear plastic bags and then placed in my large drawstring bag for pickup twice during the month netted four thin bags–reusable to hold kitchen and garden compost scraps. Toilet paper and paper toweling overwrap; clear sealing strips around the necks of vitamin supplement and cosmetic containers and jars of jam, mayonnaise, olive oil, pickles, special yogurts: pretty much everything I had to twist or tear off to open had something similar encircling it. Sourdough and other artisanal breads from some of New York’s best bakers are packaged in soft plastic bags.

Virtually all gluten free bread products are frozen in plastic bags. Hand cut sliced cheese, turkey, mozzarella pound balls all wrapped. Stationery items such as index cards, clasp envelopes, Post-its, greeting cards, all wrapped or in sleeves. Possibly the most excessive plastic usage was part of my one-time order from TEMU (the Chinese online shopping site), a package of attractive patterned wrapping paper, wrapped in plastic, packed in a sealed plastic sleeve that had been placed in an overwrap plastic bag and shipped to me along with other items in a soft plastic bag. Wrapping paper wrapped, covered and rewrapped.

Now a word about produce and shopping bags. I try to buy as much fresh unwrapped organic produce as possible. I bring my own shopping bags: sturdy ones for the larger shop and smaller, thinner, washed reuseable bags – mainly for produce or bulk items like grains, nuts and seeds and I almost always have one with me. Like many of my fellow shoppers I don’t always succeed in having the right bag with me at the right time. Buy yet one more store-branded bag?

What about those thin green “compostable bags” found mainly in supermarkets? Most environmentalists and scientists and eco-activists think these don’t work or break down as promised. Still a better choice for this reporter to re-use than others. So much of our ‘fresh’ produce is pre-packaged: cucumbers and endives lined up on plastic coated trays already wrapped; plastic sacks of apples, potatoes, onions, avocados; cut melon halves, bags of grapes and bananas, packages of imported dried figs and whole “fresh” coconuts in shrink wrap. For a once-a-day big salad eater with a varied basic plant-based diet who cooks from scratch supplemented weekly by fish or occasionally meat like that of this reporter, it is startling if not shocking to see so much plastic acquired in one calendar month. Fish and chicken packaging, bubble wrap from deliveries of glass bottles of vitamins, cellophane from inexpensive packages of tights and tee shirts and packing material from online clothing re-sale sites make up much of the blue bag’s contents.

Surprisingly my totally anecdotal experience showed me that it was several local West Village butcher shops, a few bakeries and a French fry takeout that wrapped their goods in paper –not plastic. Several layers of paper perhaps but not plastic.

And that discussion, dear reader, paper versus plastic, is left for another time.