Author: Hildegard Sellner

By HILDEGARD SELLNER
Originally appeared in the Juneau Empire on December 16, 2007.

Sept. 19, 2006. High alert on the space shuttle Atlantis.

The crew had just spotted a mysterious object that had apparently fallen off the ship. Upon transmission of a photo to Cape Canaveral, the shuttle program manager, Wayne Hale, speculated: “The question is: What is it? Is it something benign? … Or is it something more critical we should pay attention to?”

To the relief and amusement of all involved, the particular object appeared to be “just a plastic bag,” most likely from the shuttle’s open payload bay, i.e. “something benign” and not “critical.”

Yet, whether plastic bags are benign or critical is very much a matter of perspective. The shuttle incident casts a daunting light on the thoughtless dissemination of plastic bags – they have reached outer space. This reminds me of the tongue-in-cheek bumper sticker, “Earth first, we will pollute the other planets later.”

Of course, the victory parade of plastic bags is first and foremost an earthly problem. The Worldwatch Institute estimates that 500 billion bags are manufactured every year. And they have become a worldwide problem threatening animal and human life. According to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), it can take up to 1,000 years until the average plastic bag dissolves. UNEP estimates that plastic garbage kills one million sea birds, 100,000 seals and other marine mammals as well as countless fish each year, many by strangulation. Even polar bears are affected – currents drive plastic bags into the Arctic, partially because many seamen ignore the United Nation’s Marpol Convention of 1978, which prohibits the disposal of plastics at sea.

Ashore, however, resistance against plastic bags is shaping up. Both industrialized and developing countries are coming to the conclusion that the bags do more harm than good. San Francisco was the first U.S. city to ban plastic bags in supermarkets and large chain pharmacies. In Europe, fees on plastic bags have been successively introduced since the 1980s, and have led to a sharp reduction in the demand for plastic bags. For example, in the Republic of Ireland their use was cut by more than 90 percent. Now, more and more European communities are launching bans. In Great Britain, the 1,500-citizen borough of Modbury gave the kick-off. London is gearing up to follow – its landfills are overflowing. Eighty villages, towns and cities, including Brighton and Bath, have introduced or are considering a ban. Paris has banned non-biodegradable bags. Around the globe, fees or bans are springing up: in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Australia, Darjeeling, South Africa, Taiwan, Mumbai, Lijiang in China, and many Alaska villages.

During the last legislative period, bills calling for a 15 cent fee on plastic bags were introduced – Senate Bill 118 by Sen. Kim Elton, D-Juneau, and House Bill 230 by Rep. Andrea Doll, D-Juneau. Turning the Tides wholeheartedly supports these bills, and by the time the 2008 legislative period starts, we will make detailed information available on how to support the bills effectively.

The objective is to hinder the further wasteful and often mindless use of plastic bags, in an effort to save the earth, the ocean and their support systems on which our well-being (including that of future generations) depends.

Of course, the bills are only a start, but we have to start somewhere. A word to those who oppose the bills, on the grounds that it seems yet another way of big brother reaching into our pockets, imposing another infringement on our freedom: Ideally, no income will be generated from these bills. If they pass, it will be our free decision whether we want to spend 15 cents on a plastic bag or whether we want to bring our own bags and containers.

I know from experience how hard it can be to remember to bring a bag into the store. But humans have succeeded at much harder tasks – such as sending shuttles to outer space. If we all set our minds and hearts to reducing demand for plastic bags, we would be one step closer to walking gently upon the earth and leaving no footprints (on the planet or in space).

â Hildegard Sellner, Ph.D., is a council member of Turning the Tides, a Juneau grass-roots nonprofit working to promote environmentally friendly living and alternatives to plastics. To contact the group, call 907-789-0449 or visit www.turningthetides.org.

By HILDEGARD SELLNER
Originally appeared in the Juneau Empire on November 11, 2007.

“Didn’t you see it coming? What did you do?” I began plaguing my grandmother with those two questions when I first learned about Hitler and the Third Reich.

My German grandma had lived through the Nazis’ rise to power and the war. Her answers to my questions showed resignation and helplessness.

“I tried not to think about it,” she said. “There was nothing I could have done, anyway.”

She said the German people kept their heads down, hoping it would soon be over.

“I didn’t find out how bad it really was for many people until it was over,” she said.

But that was a long time ago. Now, many years later, I find myself on a different continent and in very different circumstances.

I have lived in Juneau for more than two years. My friends and family back in Germany often wonder why I insist on staying here. Why am I still here?

Well, for one, I have met amazing people and found a sense of belonging in Juneau that is different from anything I have ever experienced before. And I have seen, learned and discovered many new things.

I have seen the glittering of phosphorus in the water during an overnight fishing trip. I have seen more water – in the sea and coming from above – than ever before. I have met people who make a living directly from the ocean. I have seen trees and moss and lichen and rivers that seem untouched by humans – still in the state they were meant to be.

Their presence somehow makes me want to be like I was meant to be. All these things may not sound that extraordinary to those of you who have lived here for a long time, but they are very extraordinary to a city girl from Munich, Germany.

But I also have seen plastic bags and bottles floating in the channel and eagles scavenging through plastic bags at the dump.

I have been reading about the problem of plastics in the environment, especially in the ocean, and here are some of the findings that most alarm me:

The plastic garbage we produce never really goes away, but pollutes, chokes, intoxicates and kills sea life. It ultimately accumulates in our bodies, making us sick.

In the United States alone, 8 billion pounds of plastic bags are discarded every year. Plastic bags cover miles and miles of ocean floor, and in some areas of the deep ocean, scientists have been unable to find the floor because it is so heavily layered with plastic bags.

Half of all plastic in the ocean sinks, and underneath this garbage, shellfish, worms and other animals that help make up the bottom of the food chain die. There are many times more plankton-sized bits of plastics than actual plankton in huge areas of the Pacific Ocean – up to 1,000 times more in some regions. Birds, fish and marine animals ingest these counterfeits mistaking them for food – and millions are dying.

The ocean covers 71 percent of the Earth’s surface and supplies up to 85 percent of the world’s oxygen and nitrogen. We can’t live without the ocean, and its health is rapidly deteriorating.

Sometimes I project myself into the future and imagine myself as a grandma with a sweet little girl looking at me asking: “Didn’t you see it coming? What did you do?”

Speaking up and taking action to remedy the current crisis, does not entail any danger to one’s life, like it did during the Nazi regime. Nevertheless, it is still easy to fall into the trap of indifference and respond like my grandma did by trying not to think about the problem, being unaware of its graveness, feeling utterly powerless, and hoping it will go away.

Here in Juneau I found a group of people who refuse to ignore the contamination of the ocean any longer. We are researching the depth of the problem, and we are taking action to raise awareness, to prevent plastic garbage and to clean up the beaches – in an effort to turn this tide.

Hildegard Sellner, Ph.D., is a council member of Turning the Tides, a Juneau grass-roots nonprofit working to promote environmentally friendly living and alternatives to plastics.