I used to keep a plastic bag of plastic bags under my kitchen sink. Like the water in the pipes above, around which they accumulated, it seemed I had bags in unlimited supply. A few years ago, when my city enacted a plastic bag ban, the collection started waning. Now, I treasure the once ubiquitous sacks, doling them out judiciously for use as diaper pail liners and stewards of wet bathing suits, while down the hall, at the back of my coat closet, another mass is metastasizing: totes upon totes upon totes.
They’re often referred to as reusable tote bags. And that sounds perfectly normal. But it shouldn’t. Imagine saying “reusable backpack” or “reusable shoes”. Most things were never intended to be used just once – not until several decades ago, when plastics ushered in an era in which everyday goods were designed, marketed and sold for exactly that: one, single use.
Now we know better. Doing away with single-use items to cut down on plastic waste is a mainstream notion. And where there’s a trend, there’s a market. Cups aren’t just cups; they’re reusable cups. Ditto reusable bottles, reusable bags, reusable flatware, reusable straws, reusable food-storage containers. “Marketers are pushing the product for profit, but appealing to consumers’ sensibilities for environmental friendliness,” said Aradhna Krishna, a professor at the Stephen M Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
“Reusable” is now a selling point for a host of products – largely food-related – that should, inherently, be reusable to begin with.
We are buying it. And buying. And buying. In the pursuit of fewer throwaway items, we’re hoarding heavy metal cups, water bottles of every conceivable size and more bags to fill with ever more stuff – all while feeling like we’re making the “environmental” choice.
From one environmental disaster to another
When it comes to so many of the little things we use each day, we accept planned obsolescence on a scale of minutes.
We’re conditioned to order lunch in a disposable bowl, carry it out in a disposable bag, eat it with disposable utensils, wash it down with a drink in a disposable cup or bottle, then toss the whole shebang into the bin when we’re done.
But consumers have learned that single-use plastics are an environmental disaster, littering beaches, polluting oceans and dispersing microplastics to the edges of the Earth and the depths of our bodies. Over the past decade and a half, sustainability has evolved as a “business megatrend” and the public is increasingly willing to pay up for environmentally friendly products. The market has been happy to oblige.
“Marketers always want to push the product attribute which appeals to consumers at that moment in time,” Krishna said.
In the 2010s, there emerged the water bottle as status symbol. Now, there’s a lunchbox for every type of lunch. Capacious $50 coffee mugs in limited-edition colors send buyers literally racing to store shelves to grow their collections. Canvas grocery bags sell out and spark outrageous secondary markets. Branded travel cups, water bottles and totes are de rigueur corporate swag.
Never mind that between giveaways and checkout-line purchases, there’s little chance anyone actually needs yet another tote. Or that it’s mathematically improbable if not impossible that they’ll be used the dozens-to-thousands of times required for them to ever offset the environmental footprint of the plastic sacks they’re meant to replace. Or that replacement isn’t actually happening.
California banned flimsy, single-use carryout bags at store checkout counters in 2014. But a (not-so) funny thing happened in the decade following: the state used more plastic than before.
The law had a carve-out that allowed grocery stores to sell “reusable” plastic bags for a fee. Companies quickly started mass-producing thicker plastic bags that were supposed to be reusable. But people didn’t reuse them. A report earlier this year found that seven years into the ban, Californians generated 231,000 tons of plastic bag waste – an all-time high. The state legislature is advancing new bills to close the thick-bag loophole.
Reusable water bottle sales are growing every year. But sales of bottled water haven’t gone down; in fact they are growing even faster.
An entire generation has been socialized to participate in environmentalism by way of consumerism, said Rebecca Altman, an environmental sociologist who writes extensively about plastics and pollution, citing the work of sociologist Andrew Szasz. In 2008, Szasz said that while Americans care about the environment, “there’s a disconnect. Instead of engaging in political action, people go shopping and think they’ve solved the problem.”
On the contrary, the very effective marketing of “reusable” goods may be compounding the problem. It takes more material and energy to produce and transport thick plastic or cotton bags and durable cups and bottles than single-use items for the same purposes. Hoarding them while also failing to reduce single-use items is a double loss for the environment.
So what do we do about it?
The marketing of reusables is becoming a distraction, Altman said, “from the larger conversations that need to be had about the systems of how things are delivered that put people into a forced choice – or lack of choice – around how they meet their own needs.”
The shift away from single use cannot rely solely on re-educating consumers and urging them to build new, less convenient habits. Indeed, consumer choice is often a red herring, if not a full-blown illusion.
“We buy what corporations sell,” said Crystal Dreisbach, head of Upstream, an agency that researches and advocates for the reuse industry. If you want a Coke, good luck finding it in something other than a plastic bottle. “It’s not our fault. I call it ‘packaging determinism.’”
Replacing single-use items at the point of sale with ones meant to be used over and over again can help. Upstream works with food-service companies around the country trying to get people used to the idea of reuse. (Or, re-used to the idea?) The organization is focusing first on “high-volume, closed-loop venues”, like public schools and sports stadiums, where lunchrooms and concession stands can serve food and drinks in durable containers meant to be returned on the way out. “You simply drop off your nacho boat or beer cup before you leave the stadium,” Dreisbach said. The mechanics are almost identical to tossing it in the trash.
The hope is that these large venues can become anchor clients for the companies that distribute, collect and clean serveware, enabling them to scale up their businesses to include nearby grocery stores and takeout restaurants. “In the big picture, Upstream is supporting a paradigm shift of our culture of waste,” Dreisbach said.
“Reusable” items need to be designed with longevity in mind. A grocery bag, for instance, needs to withstand many shopping trips and hold up in the washing machine, which many of today’s cheap plastic-bag-alternatives do not. And we need data to know whether reuse schemes are working, Krishna said. Yes, it’s good for a grocery store to offer tote bags for sale at the register, but are people actually reusing them? Do they last? Are customers using fewer bags (disposable or otherwise) compared to before? If not, then those “reusable” bags defeat the purpose. (See: California’s bag ban.)
Finally, consumers can do more than schlep home groceries in their own bags and sip lattes from travel mugs. They can realize that anything is reusable unless it literally cannot be used again and that “reusable” should be the expectation, not the exception. They can also say no: no to the promotional freebies and the latest in beverage-saving technology. No to more stuff – and yes to using the stuff they already have more.
