LIFESTYLE CHECK

LIFESTYLE CHECK

By Gigi M. Campos

What can one individual do to protect the environment? It seems, very little, especially compared to the power of governments and huge industrial companies. However, working together with dozens, hundreds, thousands of other people, you and I can influence and change policies which are destroying our environment. 

Let’s take the use of plastic bags. The plastic bag may not be the worst thing that adversely affects our environment but because it is everywhere, it is very important. Well over a billion single-use plastic bags or “sando” bags are given out for free each day. From the sidewalk fruit stand, to the corner sari-sari store, to the wet market and to the supermarkets – all are guilty. But as the old adage says, nothing comes for free. 

Here are some facts to illustrate the actual costs paid by our environment and society for the fleeting convenience of unlimited, free, single-use plastic bags. To see the real costs, we must look at the "cradle to grave" multiple impacts and the effects of each phase of a bag's life. Nearly all of us use them – all the time. From the moment we wake up to the time we call it a day at night, we will come in contact with plastics many times during the day. Pervasive and out of control, it is a powerful symbol of consumerism gone wild! I personally believe that the wanton over consumption of plastic bags is insensitive!

Here are the facts. The production of plastic bags requires petroleum and often natural gas, both non-renewable resources that increase our dependency on foreign suppliers. Additionally, prospecting and drilling for these resources contributes to the destruction of fragile habitats and ecosystems around the world. The toxic chemical ingredients needed to make plastic produces pollution during the manufacturing process. The energy needed to manufacture and transport disposable bags eats up more resources and creates global warming emissions.

In the US, the annual cost to retailers alone is estimated at $4 billion. When retailers give away free bags, their costs are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food. Turtles think the bags are jellyfish, their primary food source. Once swallowed, plastic bags choke animals or block their intestines, leading to an agonizing death. 

On land, many cows, goats and other animals suffer a similar fate as marine life when they accidentally ingest plastic bags while foraging for food. In a landfill, plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to degrade. They actually go through a process called photo-degradation—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic particles that contaminate both soil and water, and end up entering the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them.

When plastic bags break down, small plastic particles can pose threats to marine life and contaminate the food web. A 2001 paper by Japanese researchers reported that plastic debris acts like a sponge for toxic chemicals, soaking up a million-fold greater concentration of such deadly compounds as PCBs and DDE (a breakdown product of the notorious insecticide DDT), than the surrounding seawater. These turn into toxic gut bombs for marine animals which frequently mistake these bits for food. 

We are responsible for our environment. We need a lifestyle check because the only way to protect it is for us citizens to take responsibility for our own lifestyle. And we need to force our government to implement good environmental policies. Initially we can do two things starting now. 

1. Let’s switch to reusable shopping bags. Be a BYOP advocate by Bringing Your Own Bag. BAHA or the Bacolod Anti-Baha Alliance sells at cost katcha reusable shopping bags with catchy messages like, “Wala Plastikanay”, “Hoy! Ga Usar Ka Pa Ya Plastic?” or “Indi Ko Ya Plastic Bag!” 

2. Let’s patronize business establishments that are truly environment-friendly and have shifted to bio-degradable plastic bags or re-usable shopping bags. We must be vigilant and check the veracity of such claims as bio-degradable. It is easy enough to label a plastic bag as bio-degradable, but one of our members in the Baha Alliance did try to see what would happen to one plastic bag labeled bio-degradable from a major department store in Bacolod. After months of exposure to sun and rain, nothing yet has happened. 

We all need that lifestyle check, because our lifestyles need to be changed dramatically. By saying NO to indifference, by saying NO to irresponsible consumerism, by saying NO to the inaction and inefficiency of our city officials, we can be the change! If we can commit ourselves to this advocacy whole-heartedly we can eventually chip off at the intransigence of those in power. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world: indeed it's the only thing that ever has!"-- Margaret Meade. The voice of one can be ignored, but the voice of many will be heard loud and clear and reach the farthest ends of the earth. As part of an advocacy group like BAHA we hope to create enough stink that will pressure our city officials to pass and more importantly to implement laws that will save our environment and our future.