Thursday, May 23, 2013
By Mickey Friedman
I got my ass kicked. Playing Democracy In Action at The Mahaiwe.
You might have seen the poster advertising not the opera or the Chinese acrobats but our Annual Great Barrington Town Meeting at The Mahaiwe.
The scheduling stunk: the Red Sox vs the Twins, and the second round of the NBA Playoffs. My neck hurt but the invitation was irresistible: “Be A Part of Democracy in Action … Vote on the annual operating budget; Authorize borrowing if necessary; Consider amendments to zoning bylaws or policies.”
So I’m sorry Big Y, Price Chopper, Guidos and the folks at Azteca who put my rice and beans in the little red and white plastic bag. Sorry, Mother Earth. I suck at Democracy in Action.
Three hours to get to Article 23: The Plastic Bag Reduction ByLaw. I failed and Article 23 is now law.
The Plastic Bag Reduction ByLaw was written by the Selectboard. They’re younger, faster, jump higher and play the game far better than I.
Democracy in Action is all about clock management. You only get three minutes. And I could have used twice that.
The Selectboard works fast. No stakeholders to distract them. No community-wide discussion. Hours for them; three minutes for you and me. If you don’t like Democracy in Action, you don’t have to play. You can always watch the Sox.
With is what most of you did, because maybe 360 showed. I’m guessing the Chinese Acrobats did better.
If you missed it: “The purpose of this Bylaw is to eliminate the usage of thin-film single-use plastic bags by all retail establishments in the Town of Great Barrington.”
Because they “have significant impacts on the environment, including but not limited to: contributing to the death of marine animals through ingestion or entanglement; contributing to pollution of the land environment; creating a burden to solid waste collection and recycling facilities; clogging storm drain systems; and requiring millions of barrels of crude oil nationally for their manufacture.”
Plastic bags are so bad “The Police Department will be responsible to enforce this by-law through the issuance of a violation notice. A violation notice may be reissued for each day that the activity persists until the violation is corrected.” $50 for each day the violation persists; $100 per day for each day a new violation occurs; $200 per day for each day of any future violations that occur after the second violation.
So if the Chopper gives you a plastic bag, on or after July 1, drop a dime. We may not do anything anything about military-style assault weapons but when it comes to the environment, The Best Small Town in America is green and we’re mean.
I tried to say Article 23 doesn’t make sense. Its assumptions are inaccurate, and it’s excessively punitive, a lawsuit in waiting. That the issues are far more complicated than the black-and-white analysis of Article 23. And, in fact, the Chopper might very well be doing a better job of protecting the environment by offering us plastic bags than by giving us paper bags. Whoops, forty-five precious seconds gone.
Someone more experienced at Democracy in Action might have called a timeout. To walk around the microphone. Refocus. Do some deep breathing.
But now I’m realizing this is just too complicated for the forty-five seconds I’ve got left.
What I wanted to say was that our new bylaw punishes merchants for using plastic bags but not paper bags. And if they don’t sue us, the Chopper will probably just bag the plastic, offer only paper bags, and hike their prices. And most folks will just switch to paper bags.
Ironic because making a paper bag produces 70% more pollution than a plastic bag. Plastic bag production uses petroleum, but paper bag production uses four times the energy. And making a paper bag uses three times the water it takes to make a plastic bag.
As for recycling, it takes 91% more energy to recycle a pound of paper than a pound of plastic. And paper bags generate 80% more solid waste than plastic bags. And all this matters.
Do plastic bags endanger marine animals and birds? Yes, and there are existing laws that we need to enforce.
Done. Gone. The buzzer sounds. Game over.
I’m guessing what the Selectboard really wanted was for all of us to bring reusable canvas bags to the supermarket but they did this the same way they’ve done Downtown Redevelopment. Clumsily, costly, and ineffectually.
Ironically, this new bylaw will inadvertently cause more damage to the environment, not less.
As for me I could use a new game. Slower. With more democracy not less. With open discussion, real debate over time. With time enough to think. Reflect. Revise. With everyone in the room. And while some obviously prefer Democracy in Action; I’ll take the real stuff. Sorry, Mother Earth.
To learn more about these complicated issues:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/paper-plastic1.htm
http://www.deq.state.mi.us/documents/deq-ess-p2-recycling-PaperPlasticSummary_2.pdf