Plastic Bag Makers for More Plastic Bags

We recently came across the website of some offshoot fake-grassroots organization launched by the American Chemistry Council, a big lobby group for the chemical industry.

They call it “Progressive Bag Affiliates”, of all things, and the press release announcing the new group suggests that it’s dedicated to “promote the environmentally responsible use of plastic bags”, and increase “in-store recycling programs” [emphasis ours]

We have no problem whatsoever with plastic bag makers advocating for what’s most important to them: that is, selling more plastic bags. In fact, that’s exactly what we do here, in clear, direct, make-no-bones-about-it language.

But these clowns at the Progressive Bag Affiliates seem to think that they can dress up their concerns in environmentalist mumbo-jumbo and that people are going to buy it. As if the city of Seattle is going to take environmental advice from the plastic industry. The notion is laughable on its face, isn’t it?

I hope that all of us in the plastic bag industry can agree on a direct, honest approach. We’re not really concerned about “City proposals that could impact consumers’ use of plastic bags”, like the Progressive Bag Advocates try to say. Let’s be straight: what’s *really* at issue are “city proposals that could *reduce* consumers’ use of plastic bags.

We’re plastic bag makers. What we care about it making more plastic bags. To claim anything else would be satire, no?

I don’t know this Mr. X character, but how dare this “ecogal” accuse us of having a hidden agenda? Our agenda is plain: to support the use and manufacture of clean, sanitary, disposable plastic bags. We make no bones about standing up for plastic bags. Plastic bags have always been there, free at point of purchase, whenever we’ve needed them; we’ll be there for the bag as well. Frankly, if our agenda were “hidden”, that’s mean we’re secretly anti-bag! (That’d hardly go over well in the Plasticman household!)

In any case, we made sure that ecogal’s slur on our reputation didn’t stand uncontested:

41

@ecogal: Mr. X may work for the plastic industry, I dunno, I don’t recognize his name. But I, theplasticman, have hardly hidden my agenda or who I represent. The name of my website is “Plastic Bag Makers for More Plastic Bags.” There’s no need for conspiracy mongering about a hidden agenda when the agenda of the plastics industry is in plain view, from setting up websites to helping finance signature gathering.

We in the plastics field have interests at stake here, and it’s our job to represent those interests. That’s how democracy works. If you don’t like it, go declare your tree-sit a sovereign territory or something.

For the facts, visit http://theplasticman.wordpress.com

We are a non-partisan organization. We don’t believe in ideology or parties, but we believe in America, and America believes in plastic bags. But the Democratic Convention this week has us thinking: in all the talk about polls and votes and turnout and election results, it’s worth nothing that if using a plastic bag were the same as casting a vote, well there’s a certain Fred Meyer branded piece of plastic film that would have been elected President by now. 

In short: we are pro-bag because America is pro-bag.

We got our hot little hands on a copy of a statement from the Metropolitan Market high-end grocery chain on the bag tax. Like any customer-oriented business, it’s critical that they obfuscate their position in wishywashy language designed to appeal to both sides, but which in fact appeal to nobody. But by reading between the lines, we can dispose of the mumbo-jumbo and get right to the heart of what they’re actually saying.

If you love plastic bags as much as we do, I think you’ll be pleased. Read on for the text of their response, and an analysis.

Metropolitan Market Supports a better path to Green

Metropolitan Market and the City of Seattle share mutual goals: To decrease disposable bag use and to be good stewards of the earth. However, a disposable bag tax may not be the answer. Rather than mandate a disposable bag tax, we believe what will greatly reduce disposable bag use is community education about the environmental value of reusable bags, and customer rewards for reusing bags.

[theplasticman notes: Like any good corporate citizen, Metro Markets believes in the iron law of supply & demand -- except when it comes to market-based regulation of customer behavior. At that point it's clear: public service announcements and perhaps raffles are the way to make a difference. That's why they never reduce prices when they want to increase sales -- because cost is not a satisfactory means of affecting consumer behavior. It's economics 101.]

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s obvious to any working person that 20 cents per grocery bag is an ungodly price to pay for a clean, sanitary plastic bag, at least if that price is paid by the consumer at the point of purchase, rather than through other costs like the cleanup of the Puget Sound or other externalized costs of plastic bag production.

It’s just as obvious that the middle middle class is disappearing from our city — taxed out of existence like some kind of right-wing fantasy of how taxes destroy things — and that adding yet another tax simply won’t help the matter.

So why, then, are the area’s leading groups representing the interests of the poor & elderly not speaking up against the tax? The Statewide Poverty Action Network is silent on devastating impact the bag tax would have on their constituents. The Washington State Alliance for Retired Americans says nothing about how a bag tax would befuddle our elderly to an early grave, and bilk them of their life savings like a corrupt reverse mortgage scheme. And the Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition seems to think there are more important issues than the welfare of their members about to be hit with a 20 cent per bag tax.

What’s happening here? Why are we in the plastic bag industry the only ones speaking up for the poor & the elderly? Why aren’t these groups which exist to represent the interests of the disenfranchised not prioritizing this issue which so massively impacts their constituents?

Do they think that poor people will be able to re-use bags? Come on now, if these populations had that sort of thriftiness, they wouldn’t be poor in the first place, now would they?

We here at PBMforMPB (Plastic Bag Makers for More Plastic Bags) will continue to speak out for the poor and disenfranchised, as we always have, for the life of this issue at least. Because if you can’t trust advocacy organizations to advocate for what matters, you can certainly count on plastic bag manufacturers.