Disposable bag fee fails miserably

Well, it's mostly official. The referendum to charge 20 cents per disposable bag used by consumers has gone down in a big pile of burning plastic flames. So far, 58% of voters voted against it.

Now, I would expect this if the referendum included all of King County, but this was just for the city of Seattle. Really, people? Is it just too much of a hardship to remember to bring your reusable bags when you go shopping? Are you too lazy or too cheap? Which is it? And, really, if you forget and have to have a bag, is adding 20 cents onto your purchase of Cheetos really going to break the bank? Better yet, how 'bout just not getting a bag?

I find this horribly frustrating and, frankly, this just doesn't bode well for the rest of the country. If us nutball liberals here in Seattle can't get a little ol' bag fee passed, well, it just looks like we'll be looking forward to getting payback when those 100 billion plastic bags used in the U.S. every year choke us to death down the road.

Bike sharing comes to Seattle

For those of you who have visited Paris, Copenhagen or D.C. and have been enamored of their bike sharing programs, you'll probably be excited to hear that Seattle is beginning a similar program of our own.

What's a bike share? Basically, bike sharing features automated, self-serve bicycle rental stations. The high-tech, utilitarian bikes are intended for short trips where people check out a bike from a kiosk and then return it either to that location or another near their destination. If the first 30 minutes are free, like in Paris, and if the bike stations are spaced decently, you could potentially ride from station to station and never pay for the bike :)

These bikes are equipped with GPS so they can be found if "misplaced" from the rental station. You also need a credit card to check out a bike and it has special sensors on it to make sure the tires are inflated properly before you can remove it from the station. So, even though the theft of bikes might be an issue in other areas that have these programs, I suspect that unless a renter has a pocketful of stolen credit cards, it's unlikely they'll be stealing these bikes. The only downside to this much technology is that the bikes aren't exactly light. And this can be a big problem here in hilly Seattle.

Finally, with Paris eyeballing a car-sharing program, Autolib', with a fleet of 4,000 electric cars, could something similar hit the states in the near future?

I wish. Le sigh.

I think I would still be more apt to rely on public transportation rather than the bikes, mostly because I'm a complete wimp about riding in dense traffic. Riding a bike in a bike-friendly European city is one thing. Riding it in crazy traffic with no bike lanes is another.

Shopping bag tax

Today is the day that Seattleites vote for or against a shopping bag tax. Well, in theory, it's the last day we can vote since we've switched to all absentee mail-in voting. Anyway, by voting "Yes", citizens are choosing to retain an ordinance that was adopted by Seattle City Council last year whose goals was to reduce waste and pollution by encouraging shoppers to use reusable bags. The ordinance would charge shoppers 20 cents for every new disposable bag they carry out of grocery, drug and convenience stores.

This ordinance was modeled after a similar law that exists in Ireland, with the hope that the fee would increase the use of reusables and is expected to reduce disposable bag use by up to 90%. Not too surprisingly, oil and chemical companies have now spent 1.4 million dollars in a campaign to repeal the law, mostly focusing on how unfair the bag tax is to the poor, etc.

What’s the American Chemistry Council getting for its money? In the last two weeks the group has spent $40,000 on direct mail, more than $7,000 on yard signs (many of which have been placed illegally in city medians), $15,000 on phone calls to voters, $11,000 on online and radio ads, and nearly $9,000 on unspecified "get-out-the-vote" efforts. Looks like this ordinance is hitting the ACC in a sore spot - its profits.

Disposable shopping bags are a significant source of pollution, generate global warming gases, harm wildlife, clog stormdrains, and cause other problems. Seattle Public Utilities estimates that Seattleites use approximately 292 million plastic and 68 million paper disposable shopping bags per year, totaling about 360 million bags a year. Nationally, we use 100 billion plastic bags and 7 billion paper bags a year. Wouldn't it be nice to get rid of them all?

Want to find out more? Read How Bad are Disposible Grocery Bags?.

What do you feel about a bag tax? Would you vote for one in your area?

Cash for Clunkers: epic fail

I'm not even going to touch on the most obvious reasons why the Cash for Clunkers program is an environmental failure. If you want a quick overview, you can read Ruchi's post on the matter.

Basically, what I see as the main issue with this program is that it is only applicable to cars 25-years-old and younger. So, any car built before 1984 can not be traded-in. Now, before you get all excited, I do realize that many cars manufactured in the early 80s are more fuel efficient than many of the modern behemoths currently on the road. But, those cars wouldn't be eligible because they are too fuel efficient. However, that does leave 5 million of the other stinkers ineligible and still on the road.

One huge issue is that cars built before the mid 1970s didn't have catalytic converters and, in many cases, spew out hundreds of times the amount of particulate matter than even the most fuel inefficient beast produces today.

From the LA Times:

For example, a 1965 Chevrolet Malibu, when new, produced 400 times the smog-forming pollutants that a new 2010 Malibu produces, said John Swanton, an air pollution specialist with the board. Thus, an old Malibu driven only 1,000 miles per year produces as much pollution as a new Malibu would in 400,000 miles.

Why is it that the cars that really need to be pulled off the road aren't eligible for this program? Well, it seems that the classic car lobby managed to get older cars excluded. I don't understand the impetus for this lobbying effort, I'm sure there is one that makes sense to somebody, but frankly, the people I know that drive their classic cars around regularly really need some serious emissions control (but that's another story entirely).

I believe most of this has something to do with the aftermarket parts manufacturers not wanting their customer base removed. Unfortunately, the result is that the guy that drives a beat-up 1981 Dodge pickup can't take advantage of this program, even though his car doesn't exactly qualify as a "classic car" and, realistically, isn't spending a whole lot tricking out his ride.

So, is this program devised to help get fuel inefficient cars off the road, or really, just to move new cars off the lot? Methinks that if this program were really about fuel efficiency and pollution they would have told the classic car lobbying group to go stick it up their hotrod. You can thank the government for another auto bailout, this one more back-handed than usual.

Idling in the hood

While I was out running this morning, I saw something on the way back to my house that kind of annoyed me. One of our neighbors had started his car in the driveway, got out of the car and then went back into the house.

Since I had to pass by their house twice on the way back to mine, I noticed it was still running several minutes later. And, since I do some stretching outside, I saw that it was still empty and idling for at least the ten minutes I was outside.

I was somewhat tempted to say something to him, even if only to feign ignorance that someone left their car running in the driveway and, oh, maybe it would be a good idea (for safety, pollution, whatever) that they turn it off. But the giant "Susan Hutchinson for King County Executive" lawn sign kind of scared me off.

I was happy to see, while we were in Manhattan, that there is a fine for unattended idling in the city. If only those signs existed here, at the very least, in school zones and included school buses while they are at it. I'm sure enforcement of those laws are problematic, but maybe the signs alone would help to educate people or remind them to turn their cars off.

Anyway, what about you, would you say anything to your neighbor or just let it go?

American population control

As somewhat of a follow-on to last week's post, I wanted to discuss the issue of demographics and population control outside the emotional considerations made in last week's comments.

Given that Americans use, by far, considerably more resources per capita than any citizen of any other country in the world, should population control measures be introduced (a la China) to acquire better control of environmental and resource impact? Since Americans seem rather unwilling to substantially lower their carbon footprint on their own, perhaps controlling things on the other end of the coin makes more sense.

By controlling the number of Americans on the planet, or those living a high impact lifestyle, do we achieve the same goal of resource preservation and reduction in environmental degradation? In other words, by advising (or requiring) that Americans only reproduce at the replacement rate of approximately 2 children per mating couple (that is, maximum two offspring per person), can we mitigate disaster? This is sometimes called a birth permit system (1.05 permits per person, where each couple gets 2.1 permits), thereby essentially allowing a cap and trade system on reproduction.

I know that many will argue that the biggest upcoming threat to the environment are developing countries such as China and India, but the reality is that the individuals in those societies use far less resources than Americans do. And, when you stop to consider it, a large proportion of pollution generated by countries like China is due to demand of manufactured goods by Americans.

Our demand for cheap products drives the industries that pollute. For us to turn around and complain that this pollution is unfair is really, actually, unfair. The Chinese individual, for the most part, does not benefit from the cheap Elmo toys and dollar goods being generated. Quite the contrary, they suffer immeasurably due to polluted air and water. You can argue that the demand is providing jobs, but given the pittance they are actually getting paid for that labor, it is an arguable benefit at best.

So, what's the solution? If we don't voluntarily and drastically reduce our per personal carbon and resource consumption, is population control of high impact societies a realistic alternative? Would you support a restriction on reproduction?

Pet poop disposal

I asked this question a long time ago and wanted to see if people's answers have changed much regarding how they dispose of their dog poop.

When we had a dog, we always flushed his poop, thinking that it was better sending it to the wastewater treatment plant rather than it living forever in a plastic bag in the landfill somewhere, never to decompose.

I'm really not sure which is better, although since our wastewater is treated and composted it's probably better than going into the landfill. This won't work so well if you have a septic system.

I assume you could also dispose of cat poop in a similar manner (flushing rather than putting in the trash). And I know you can compost your pet poop in a pet poop composter.

Which leads me to Sunday's poll: