Matt Driscoll: Who are we really talking about in the plastic bag debate?

Are the days numbered for disposable plastic bags in Tacoma?

That’s a question the City Council looks poised to take up next year, with the Tacoma’s Office of Environmental Policy and Sustainability currently gathering community feedback that city officials will presumably use to help inform their decision.

Even without hearing a peep from the public, there are plenty of good reasons to ban plastic bags in Tacoma.

Plastic bags don’t biodegrade; instead, they usually end up festering in a landfill, or floating in our oceans and choking marine life. The Environment Washington Research and Policy Center estimates that 2 billion disposable plastic shopping bags — that’s billion, with a “b” — are used in Washington each year, with most finding their way to a landfill or ending up as litter.

Even disposable paper bags are problematic. While they’re easier to recycle — and are recycled at a much higher rate than plastic bags — the greenhouse gases produced for a disposable paper bag are significantly higher than its plastic counterpart. According to a 2010 report from Green Cities California, compared to plastic, the production of paper bags leads to greater atmospheric acidification, more water consumption and more ozone production.

Indeed, banning disposable plastic bags, as well as restricting disposable paper bags, are the kind of moves for which a city can pat itself on the back. The idea is to promote the use of reusable shopping bags, a bit of social engineering that often relies on banning plastic bags outright and then placing a fee on the use of paper bags. As Tacoma’s press release announcing the possibility of citywide restrictions points out, 13 other communities in the state have disposable bag regulations.

We’re talking about forward-thinking cities like Seattle, Olympia and Bellingham here. Wouldn’t Tacoma love to add its name to this list of progressiveness?

Certainly. And for good reason.

But that’s just the thing about moves like this. Folks like me, who already carry reusable totes to the grocery store and have the privilege of a comfortable lifestyle that makes such things easy, can rally around it as a small step in the right direction. It helps us sleep a little better at night, after a satisfying dinner of organic kale salad and grass-fed beef.

It’s hardly an inconvenience because we’re already doing it. It’s those other people who need the incentive (read: penalties) to do the right thing.

So let’s focus on them for a minute. The plastic bag became a staple because, one: it’s cheap to produce, and two: it allows for the easy carry of goods from the store.

If we decide to ban plastic bags in Tacoma, rest assured grocery stores will find a way to adapt. They always do.

The people who rely on plastic bags will, too, but it may not be as easy.

And that’s who this conversation is really about, whether we’re saying it or not.

There’s a decent chance that getting your groceries home from the store isn’t a taxing endeavor. But say you don’t have access to a running car, and you live in one of the city’s known food deserts on the East Side or South End. Or say you don’t have the kind of income that allows for big, expensive, once-weekly trips to the grocery store. In situations like these, always being prepared with reusable bags becomes something more burdensome.

I’m reminded of a recent discussion I had with new Pierce Transit CEO Sue Dreier, who pointed to numbers indicating that her transit agency has an average of 34,200 boardings each weekday. Of those fixed-route riders, Dreier told me that 44 percent have a household income under $20,000 a year, and 39 percent have no access to a working car.

Of course, those are countywide numbers. Not all of those people live in Tacoma. But it’s also safe to say that in a city with a per capita income of just under $26,000, and a median household income of just over $50,000, many of them do.

If we’re being honest, these are largely the people who currently rely on plastic bags and would be disproportionately impacted by any kind of fee levied to dissuade them from doing so.

To its credit, the city’s survey is operating under the assumption that low-income individuals would not have to pay bag fees. That’s a good starting point. But more can be done, whether that means providing free reusable bags to those who need it — which the city says it is also considering — or something else.

Tacoma is an economically diverse place, and plenty of people struggle to get by here. As unfortunate as it may be, people struggling to get by are also the ones most likely to benefit from the convenience of something as environmentally unsustainable as the plastic bag.

Is that a reason not to ban plastic bags? Probably not.

But if we’re running social-engineering experiments, it’s important to acknowledge what part of society we’re really trying to influence.

This story was originally published November 30, 2015 at 12:58 AM with the headline "Matt Driscoll: Who are we really talking about in the plastic bag debate?."