Moonwolf's Lair

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I love all these environmentally-friendly groups. They are wonderful examples of the heights of prejudiced stupidity political correctness can lead people to.

The latest bright idea these perfectly mobile people have come up with? Banning plastic grocery bags.

Now, this might not seem such a bad idea on the face of it. They take oil to make, and they’re possibly the most common source of unsightly trash littering the world, not to mention they’re not that biodegradable and are a choking hazard to children.

They also happen to be one of the best inventions for people in wheelchairs.

Now I’m pretty sure none of the Maryland General Assembly members are wheelies, and the local environmentalist on TV¹ certainly isn’t, so it’s a safe bet not one of them has bothered considering the impact on people with disabilities their half-baked idea is going to cause.

My wonderful purple wheelchair, my Tank, can carry 8-10 plastic bags of groceries when I make a grocery trip. Since the grocery store is only 4 miles away, it’s not hard to make such a trip just by traveling on my own to stock up for the week.

If I had to use paper bags, I could carry … well, one. And would probably drop half the contents on the way home.

A real benefit to my independent living ability, isn’t it?

It’s been suggested that people use some sort of canvas re-usable bag. This is another “sounds great” idea, but where exactly are people with disabilities going to find the money to buy these wonderful re-usable bags? It’s a safe bet they’re not going to have enough every time they go shopping, and so would have to buy even more pretty much every trip.

We don’t all have cars we can stick such things into, neither do we all have cars we can stack paper bags inside. There are limits to public transport options as well, even MetroAccess (DC Metro Area’s paratransit system) limits the number of bags that can be carried.

Plastic bags are great for people in wheelchairs. We can go grocery shopping and carry more things back in one go, regardless of mode of transportation to and from the store. Plastic bags are also useful to have with us for putting our trash into, covering chair electronics in the middle of an unexpected downpour … For the practical wheelie-about-town, plastic bags can be a lifesaver. I’ve even used a couple of the plastic grocery bags I keep attached to the arm of my chair for motion-sickness-emergencies to re-attach the POW-MIA and Patriot Guard Rider flags I flew attached to the Tank at the last Rolling Thunder.

But no, the General Assembly, or Ms Houlihan and her Envirobloggers, don’t consider those things. They’re “full steam ahead, plastic is bad, let’s ban it, sod it if it inconvieniences a few crips along the way because, after all, they’re saving the world!”?

For who, precisely, are they saving it, however? Chipping away at disability independence reduces our ability to participate in this world, so is it just them, the green-minded able-bodied, who are the beneficiaries of their efforts, alone?

Another case of able-bodied busy-bodies making wide-reaching decisions without a single thought about the effects on the rest of us.

I wonder how many wheelies will just stop bothering any more? Such a little thing, but it can have a huge effect on wheelies. Of course, that would have required the General Assembly or people like Ms Houlihan to actually have registered wheelies exist, and to consider the effects on us as they formulated this latest piece of political-correctness.All they’re worried about is “environmental impact”. What about “disability impact”? I’m not saying plastic bags are good, anyone with common sense acknowledges the harmful effects a consumer society causes – but not one of these people seems to have bothered to think about the issues outside of their own blinkered narrow experience of life. Ms Houlihan is the “Vice President for Research at the Environmental Working Group (EWG)“, how much “research” has anyone done in coming up with alternatives to plastic bags that are workable for people with disabilities? Or did they just consider the impact in their own two legged, hybrid car with plenty of trunk space, world?

I’m all for conservation and trying to repair the damage we’ve done to our world. I happen to be part of that world, though – is it really that unreasonable to expect a little common decency, to be considered in the decisions taken to try to save it? Some people will scoff, and think this a “storm in a teacup”, or another case of “activism”, but it isn’t, not really. Each little “storm in a teacup” is an issue that, in isolation, seems inconsequential, but each of them is another chip away at disability rights and freedoms. Each little decision made without consideration of the impact towards people with disabilities is another theft of our control over our own lives, another patriarchal decision made that affects us without our ever being consulted, considered, or respected.

So, paper is going to be more environmentally friendly? I think the 8 plastic bags it takes for me to make a grocery run are a little less damaging to the environment than the six MetroAccess rides I will have to take to replicate a grocery run. 3 trips each way, in a wonderful polluting van, which not only pollutes as it takes me, but to and from those trips as well. A 3 hour grocery run will now turn into an all-day waiting game, hoping the transport will arrive.

Where does that plug into people’s “research”?

[Edit: March 11th 2008] Even environmentalists and governments can’t make their minds up about the threat of plastic bags:

But in Britain, scientists, politicians and marine experts have attacked the British Government for joining an anti-bag “bandwagon” based on poor science.

Lord Taverne, the chairman of Sense about Science, said: “The Government is irresponsible to jump on a bandwagon that has no base in scientific evidence.

“This is one of many examples where you get bad science leading to bad decisions which are counter-productive.

“Attacking plastic bags makes people feel good but it doesn’t achieve anything.”

David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject, said plastic bags did not figure in the majority of cases where animals died from marine debris.

“The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands,” he said. “Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.”

David Santillo, a marine biologist at Greenpeace, told The Times that bad science was undermining the Government’s case for banning the bags.

“It’s very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags,” Dr Santillo said. “The evidence shows just the opposite. We’re not going to solve the problem of waste by focusing on plastic bags. On a global basis plastic bags aren’t an issue.”

Source: News.com.au

This should get interesting.

1. Jane Houlihan, as seen on WJLA ABC 7 2/6/2008 [↩]