Plastic bags are terrible for the environment; they choke wildlife, add to the demand for oil, don’t break down in landfills, and they’re not easy to recycle.  They clog waterways and are dangerous to marine animals.  So why do we still use them?  An estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used world-wide every year.

It is reported that 1 billion single-use plastic bags are distributed free of charge every day.  Less than 1% of those bags find their way into the water, but that is still hundreds of millions of bags float out to sea  every year.  Sea turtles have become the poster animal for the impact of plastic in the ocean.  The floating bags are often mistaken for jellyfish, a common food for the sea turtles who have lived one this year for the past 100 million years.  Now, all seven species of sea turtles are in danger of extinction.

Unfortunately the problem is not just plastic bags however, it is all plastics.  Water bottles, cups, utensils, straws; all of these inexpensive single use plastic items never fully biodegrade – they break down into smaller and smaller pieces but never completely disappear.  These small pieces of plastic float around in the ocean indefinitely and are swallowed up (mistaken as food) by birds, fish, whales, sea turtles, mollusks, and crustaceans.

There is hope: This year alone the Boston suburb of Brookline banned the use of plastic bags by retail stores larger than 2,500 square feet.  Mountain View, California and Portland, Oregon both banned single use plastic bags; Menlo Park, California has banned polystyrene containers and is currently working on a bag ban.  Delhi, India is taking a huge stand against plastics.  No person can manufacture, import, store, sell, or transport any kind of bag in the city; a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison plus a fine could await violators.

Even without a bag ban, you can make a big difference by not using plastic bags.  One person can make a difference – 6 bags each week is 24 each month or 288 each year.  Challenge ten of

your friends – 2880 bags, your neighborhood – 57,600, your small community – 864,000.  You can also take a stance on the bigger plastic issue by avoiding plastic-bottles beverages, buy products with minimal or reusable packing, use your own coffee mug when getting coffee, enjoy your beverage without a straw, ask the deli or meat department to wrap your items in paper, or use real silverware at parties rather than plastic.

5 Gyres mission is to end plastic pollution.  Find out more and take the plastic promise on their website.

On the other hand, testing is still necessary to determine the toxicity of a product prior to hitting the market.  This short term testing is still effective and accurate for immediate results and to implement policies and guidelines to encourage compliance with environmental requirements.  The Scotts Miracle-Gro company, a producer of pesticides for commercial and consumer lawn and garden uses, knowingly used an insecticide in its wild bird food products that is actually toxic to birds to protect the food from infestation during storage.

Scotts Company pleaded guilty in federal district court in Columbus, Ohio in February 2012 to illegally applying insecticides to its wild bird food products that are toxic to birds.  Scotts was fined over $12.5 million in federal fines and civil penalties for eleven criminal violations of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act which governs the manufacture, distribution, and sale of pesticides.  Officials also pleaded guilty to falsifying pesticide registration documents, distributing pesticides and misleading and unapproved labels, and distributing unregistered pesticides.

“As the world’s largest marketer of residential use pesticides, Scotts has a special obligation to make certain that it observes the laws governing the sale and use of its products. For having failed to do so, Scotts has been sentenced to pay the largest fine in the history of FIFRA enforcement,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice. “The Department of Justice will continue to work with EPA to assure that pesticides applied in homes and on lawns and food are sold and used in compliance with the laws intended to assure their safety.”

In the plea agreement, Scotts admitted that it applied the pesticides Actellic 5E and Storcide II to its bird food products even though EPA had prohibited this use. Scotts had done so to protect its bird foods from insect infestation during storage. Scotts admitted that it used these pesticides contrary to EPA directives and in spite of the warning label appearing on all Storicide II containers stating, “Storcide II is extremely toxic to fish and toxic to birds and other wildlife.” Scotts sold this illegally treated bird food for two years after it began marketing its bird food line and for six months after employees specifically warned Scotts management of the dangers of these pesticides. By the time it voluntarily recalled these products in March 2008, Scotts had sold more than 70 million units of bird food illegally treated with pesticide that is toxic to birds.

Scotts also pleaded guilty to submitting false documents to EPA and to state regulatory agencies in an effort to deceive them into believing that numerous pesticides were registered with EPA when in fact they were not. The company also pleaded guilty to having illegally sold the unregistered pesticides and to marketing pesticides bearing labels containing false and misleading claims not approved by EPA. The falsified documents submitted to EPA and states were attributed to a federal product manager at Scotts.

Whether it was greed or indifference, Scotts knowingly put a toxic insecticide in bird food to protect it from infestation.  The loss of the product was in fact more important than the animals the food was for.  Capitalism at its worst, I believe this is not an uncommon practice and that the use of chemicals (regardless as to what the package label may state) is probably very widespread and prevalent.  Chemicals are in everything including our water supply and we may even know about any possible side effects until it’s too late.