Opinion: Time To Get Drastic About Plastic

In 2015, more than 500 locals signed a petition urging local vendors to stand up against single use plastic by charging a 20-cent fee for each bag, hoping that this change would greatly reduce the amount of single-use plastic waste the Copper River produces.

This petition began as a response to support Cordova, our downstream neighbor, who had passed their own ban that spring. But how could we, with no local form of government, do something similar?  Mr. Morse, the Glennallen landfill dude, saw that source reduction could only be achieved if local vendors would voluntarily agree to help. He brought the issue and the petition to a Chamber of Commerce meeting. He received lots of interest and lip service but no action.  

Ten years later, a lot of water has passed under the bridge and with it, a lot of plastic waste. Were we able to reduce that amount or not? Time to review the effort.

While many community members signed this petition, most businesses ignored our request. The exception to this was James Fields of IGA. James not only signed the petition himself but took steps to phase out plastic bags at the counter entirely, switching to recyclable paper bags. This helped significantly because prior to this IGA was the biggest contributor to the windblown plastic bag mess at the Glennallen landfill.   

Ten years ago during spring cleanup, you could look around our local landfill and see hundreds of plastic bags littering the ditches and stuck in tree branches and fences, most sporting the bright red IGA logo. Within two years of IGA implementing their new bag policy, the landfill landscape changed drastically, with less than half the number of plastic bags littering the trees —and none of them from IGA.  

Gold stars to IGA for taking a stand to help reduce plastic bag pollution.  They truly deserve your business. Some stores offer paper sacks if you ask but still peddle plastic.  It’s too late in the game for that to be enough.

Currently, most of the plastic bags floating around the Glennallen landfill are the generic “Thank You” bags favored by most local vendors. If anyone tries to offer you one of these, I urge you to remove your items. You don’t have to take it! Your plastic bag collection will outlive you, and it’s an inheritance your children don’t want. Hand the plastic bag back to whoever gave it to you and say “No Thanks!”  

Ending plastic pollution at the source is the only effective way to keep plastic microfibers out of the environment, the oceans, and our bodies. Recycling is not enough—recycling toxic waste is not necessary if you were never given it to begin with.

We all know it’s not easy to run a business out here in the Copper River Basin. We want to support our local stores, but we cannot in good conscience continue to spend our dollars at stores who choose to contribute to single-use plastic waste.  

We ask readers to encourage other local businesses to follow IGA’s example, make the switch to paper bags and take a step to protect our children’s future. If enough readers hold local businesses accountable, and if enough businesses truly care about the future of our children, together our small community can lead the way to a better world.

Matt Morse is the local landfill operator. He is speaking on his own behalf in this piece. 

Disclosure: IGA is a Copper River Record advertiser.