Plastic bags are the latest front in the battle against waste.
Admired for their flexibility and durability but reviled for seeming to be everywhere, the bags accumulate in cupboards, in landfills and along roadsides.
"They just fly all over the place, and they wind up settling places we don't want them," said Carl Smith of the city of Phoenix's Public Works Department.
Now there's a better place for them to go, and it's not the city recycling barrel.
Grocery stores and other retailers increasingly are accepting plastic bags for recycling, and the city of Phoenix has started a pilot project in Maryvale to get shoppers to bring their bags back to various retail outlets. The bags are then sent on to companies that use them to make plastic decking material and flip-flops, among other things.
Outside the U.S., governments are imposing taxes or outright bans to curb the avalanche of bags, which some estimate number between 500 billion and 1 trillion bags a year.
In the Valley, the challenge is getting the bags to the right recycler. Some consumers have other uses for them, from wastebasket liners to improvised pooper scoopers for their pets. And many others pop them in the recycling barrels provided by their local city government, figuring if it's plastic, it's recyclable.
But the cities don't want the filmy bags because they gum up their sorting machines.
And they don't want them loose in the environment, where they're enduring forms of litter that don't biodegrade.
The bags, readily used by everyone from retailers to newspaper delivery people, are the biggest contaminant in the city recycling barrel, Smith said.
To keep them out of the barrels, but also out of the landfills and off the roadsides, city officials in June launched a pilot project to promote in-store recycling in a square-mile tract of west Phoenix. They're thinking of spreading the idea citywide.
But recycling isn't the only solution to the flood of plastic bags.
There's a growing movement to reduce their usage.
In Ireland, a "plastax" introduced in March 2002 has reportedly cut plastic-bag usage by 90 percent. Customers are charged 15 cents per bag. Proceeds go to a national environmental fund.
San Francisco is considering a 17-cent tax on both plastic and paper bags.
Communities in places ranging from Australia to Europe have contemplated banning the bags altogether. In Bangladesh, a ban took effect nearly three years ago as officials worried that accumulating plastic bags might dam up drainage systems, disrupting the country's water supply.
To Vincent Cobb of Chicago, it's unworkable to ban bags and recycling has its limitations. He is promoting reusable bags and sells them through reusablebags.com, a company he founded about two years ago.
"Plastic bags are an excellent product," he said. "The problem is, they're a victim of their own success."
Because they're lightweight and portable, they're used everywhere. And because they're cheap, people use them without thinking of their long-term cost, Cobb said.
But there is a cost, he said, both in their manufacture (relying on petroleum-based products) and even in their recycling (it costs money to run collection trucks, transport the product and remanufacture it).
"Based on the numbers we've seen, most of these (plastic) bags still get thrown out," he said.
The Phoenix pilot project is trying to reverse that trend.
Starting last summer,Maryvale residents were given the names and addresses of retailers where they could return their plastic bags. And retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Food City, agreed to put out their own recycling barrels to collect the bags.
An audit done last week concluded that the residential blue barrels in Maryvale had a smaller number of plastic bags than those found during a similar check in November.
"There were some plastic bags in there, but it was nothing like we'd seen in the past, when they were flying all over the place," said Robert Amaya, recycling information specialist with the Public Works Department.
He conceded that fewer bags in the barrel don't necessarily mean people are taking them back to stores.
But the managers of the Wal-Mart at 51st Avenue and Indian School Road say they've seen an increase in customers returning their bags, especially in the Christmas week.
"I think there's more consciousness about the environment than there used to be," Eric Kimbley, the store's co-manager, said.
Manager Irma Weaver said the store's two barrels fill up quickly, adding that the recycling push "pretty much sells itself."
To some customers, there's no need to haul their bags back to the store because they already have other uses for them.
"We use ours for garbage bags, so we reuse them nice and simple," said James Hemingway, a Maryvale resident.
But Sheila Phillips said she would make the extra effort.
"I believe in recycling," she said.
Besides, she already has a big stash of bags at her Glendale home. "I keep them (bags) forever and ever," she said.
The bags go back to Wal-Mart's distribution center, where they're bundled up and sold to companies such as Trex and U.S. Plastic Lumber, which make them into plastic decking.
The Bashas' supermarkets send their used plastic bags to a distributor in China, where the bags are used to make flip-flops, said Alison Bendler, a spokeswoman for the grocery chain.
Kerry Luginbill, public-relations director for Safeway in Arizona, said the stores send their plastic bags, as well as shrink wrap and other filmy plastic used in store operations, to Trex, a company that combines the plastic with reclaimed wood to make decking and railing.
Trex spokeswoman Maureen Murray said an average 500-square-foot deck uses 140,000 plastic bags.
Murray wouldn't disclose the cost of a pound of plastic bags, citing competitive pressures, but said the bag recycling has helped Trex capture 40 percent of the market of alternative outdoor decking materials. - The Arizona Republic
Admired for their flexibility and durability but reviled for seeming to be everywhere, the bags accumulate in cupboards, in landfills and along roadsides.
"They just fly all over the place, and they wind up settling places we don't want them," said Carl Smith of the city of Phoenix's Public Works Department.
Now there's a better place for them to go, and it's not the city recycling barrel.
Grocery stores and other retailers increasingly are accepting plastic bags for recycling, and the city of Phoenix has started a pilot project in Maryvale to get shoppers to bring their bags back to various retail outlets. The bags are then sent on to companies that use them to make plastic decking material and flip-flops, among other things.
Outside the U.S., governments are imposing taxes or outright bans to curb the avalanche of bags, which some estimate number between 500 billion and 1 trillion bags a year.
In the Valley, the challenge is getting the bags to the right recycler. Some consumers have other uses for them, from wastebasket liners to improvised pooper scoopers for their pets. And many others pop them in the recycling barrels provided by their local city government, figuring if it's plastic, it's recyclable.
But the cities don't want the filmy bags because they gum up their sorting machines.
And they don't want them loose in the environment, where they're enduring forms of litter that don't biodegrade.
The bags, readily used by everyone from retailers to newspaper delivery people, are the biggest contaminant in the city recycling barrel, Smith said.
To keep them out of the barrels, but also out of the landfills and off the roadsides, city officials in June launched a pilot project to promote in-store recycling in a square-mile tract of west Phoenix. They're thinking of spreading the idea citywide.
But recycling isn't the only solution to the flood of plastic bags.
There's a growing movement to reduce their usage.
In Ireland, a "plastax" introduced in March 2002 has reportedly cut plastic-bag usage by 90 percent. Customers are charged 15 cents per bag. Proceeds go to a national environmental fund.
San Francisco is considering a 17-cent tax on both plastic and paper bags.
Communities in places ranging from Australia to Europe have contemplated banning the bags altogether. In Bangladesh, a ban took effect nearly three years ago as officials worried that accumulating plastic bags might dam up drainage systems, disrupting the country's water supply.
To Vincent Cobb of Chicago, it's unworkable to ban bags and recycling has its limitations. He is promoting reusable bags and sells them through reusablebags.com, a company he founded about two years ago.
"Plastic bags are an excellent product," he said. "The problem is, they're a victim of their own success."
Because they're lightweight and portable, they're used everywhere. And because they're cheap, people use them without thinking of their long-term cost, Cobb said.
But there is a cost, he said, both in their manufacture (relying on petroleum-based products) and even in their recycling (it costs money to run collection trucks, transport the product and remanufacture it).
"Based on the numbers we've seen, most of these (plastic) bags still get thrown out," he said.
The Phoenix pilot project is trying to reverse that trend.
Starting last summer,Maryvale residents were given the names and addresses of retailers where they could return their plastic bags. And retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Food City, agreed to put out their own recycling barrels to collect the bags.
An audit done last week concluded that the residential blue barrels in Maryvale had a smaller number of plastic bags than those found during a similar check in November.
"There were some plastic bags in there, but it was nothing like we'd seen in the past, when they were flying all over the place," said Robert Amaya, recycling information specialist with the Public Works Department.
He conceded that fewer bags in the barrel don't necessarily mean people are taking them back to stores.
But the managers of the Wal-Mart at 51st Avenue and Indian School Road say they've seen an increase in customers returning their bags, especially in the Christmas week.
"I think there's more consciousness about the environment than there used to be," Eric Kimbley, the store's co-manager, said.
Manager Irma Weaver said the store's two barrels fill up quickly, adding that the recycling push "pretty much sells itself."
To some customers, there's no need to haul their bags back to the store because they already have other uses for them.
"We use ours for garbage bags, so we reuse them nice and simple," said James Hemingway, a Maryvale resident.
But Sheila Phillips said she would make the extra effort.
"I believe in recycling," she said.
Besides, she already has a big stash of bags at her Glendale home. "I keep them (bags) forever and ever," she said.
The bags go back to Wal-Mart's distribution center, where they're bundled up and sold to companies such as Trex and U.S. Plastic Lumber, which make them into plastic decking.
The Bashas' supermarkets send their used plastic bags to a distributor in China, where the bags are used to make flip-flops, said Alison Bendler, a spokeswoman for the grocery chain.
Kerry Luginbill, public-relations director for Safeway in Arizona, said the stores send their plastic bags, as well as shrink wrap and other filmy plastic used in store operations, to Trex, a company that combines the plastic with reclaimed wood to make decking and railing.
Trex spokeswoman Maureen Murray said an average 500-square-foot deck uses 140,000 plastic bags.
Murray wouldn't disclose the cost of a pound of plastic bags, citing competitive pressures, but said the bag recycling has helped Trex capture 40 percent of the market of alternative outdoor decking materials. - The Arizona Republic