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Confessions of a 40 Year Old Drama Queen

Here is a screencap of a new Twitter account supposedly held by Phil Rozenski, director of environmental strategies at the plastic bag maker Hilex Poly Co.:

I was a bit confused by the ‘retweet’ I got so I went to check out the tweeter. A retweet is usually someone repeating what you said to share it [...]

Myth Busters Weekend Marathon Part 9

It’s time to wrap this thing up. Here are the last two pro-plastic bag arguments made by the plastic industry:
Myth #9:
Recycling plastic bags is too expensive.
Fact:
The price of not recycling them is high. Recycling can help save resources and minimize the amount of waste going to landfills. Also, recycling helps reduce litter, as bags [...]

Myth Busters Weekend Marathon Part 8

This quote comes from a plastic industry publication:
Myth #8:
Low recycling rates for plastic bags prove recycling them doesn’t work.
Fact:
Recycling does work. The problem is not everyone knows that plastic grocery bags are 100% recyclable and not everyone has access to plastic bag recycling in their community. A national at-store plastic bag recycling program would bring [...]

Myth Busters Weekend Marathon Part 7

Ok, I get it. Paper bags are bad. The last time I checked, though, there wasn’t an area the size of Texas filled with floating paper bags in the middle of the North Pacific.

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Myth Busters Weekend Marathon Part 6

The statements above sent me off on a little research jag. There is a little bit of spin and misrepresentation going on. Here are the facts behind the facts:

The EN13432 standard requires 90% biodegradation within 90 days under commercial composting conditions.
There is no standard that applies to home composting.

That does not mean that [...]

Myth Busters Weekend Marathon Part 5

The plastic people got this one right. The plastic is made quite efficiently. That’s why so much pointless crap is made from it. Most opponents of plastic shopping bags focus on the environmental impact of discarded plastic.
The only fact I can think of to counter with is that the oil [...]

Myth Busters Weekend Marathon Part 3

The plastics industry has been accused of using the same rationale that has been the mantra of the NRA. Their version would be “Plastic bags don’t choke marine animals, people choke marine animals.”

They cite sources. A couple of the links they provide direct back to a very general EPA page about municipal waste.
The [...]

Myth Busters Weekend Marathon Part 2

The plastic industry is totally pwning the paper industry with these statistics. You will notice that my blog is not called PaperMore. Reusable bags can’t be compared to plastic in the same way because the number of plastic bags that a reusable bag replaces is variable. We have been devotedly using cloth [...]

Myth Busters Weekend Marathon Part 1

Heather Timmons of the NYT recently went to a plastics convention in India and came away with some choice words from the people whose livelihood depends on the market for plastic shopping bags.
“Politicians have gone overboard. Our industry is facing a problem and we have to fight.” – Arvind M. Mehta, president of [...]