In March 2007, San Francisco became the first city in the nation to outright ban plastic bags from being distributed by larger retailers. But almost two years later, an SF Weekly reporter finds that the cut-and-dried argument used for so long—plastic bad, paper good—is largely disproved after a close look at the facts.

True, producing plastic bags takes millions of barrels of oil, but processing paper bags releases noxious chemicals and pollutes millions of gallons of water. In addition, transporting them to stores takes far more space and gasoline than their plastic cousins.

“Firstly," says the author, "biodegrading paper represents a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Secondly, in a properly run landfill, paper doesn't really biodegrade. In fact, nothing much really does.” Landfill trash is so tightly compacted that paper and even food waste remains mummified for decades, unable to break down.

As for the aesthetic argument, that the ban would eliminate unsightly and unsafe plastic litter, research shows that while overall litter has decreased, plastic bags’ share of that percentage of that number has actually increased since the ban.

So what should consumers do? As TreeHugger puts it, “Ultimately, neither paper nor plastic bags are the best choice; we think choosing reusable canvas bags instead is the way to go. From an energy standpoint, according to this Australian study, canvas bags are 14 times better than plastic bags and 39 times better than paper bags, assuming that canvas bags get a good workout and are used 500 times during their life cycle.”

Image courtesy of londonista_londonist, licensed under Creative Commons.

The bottled water industry has been quite busy sweet-talking consumers into disregarding the environmental impacts of their product. But in certain cities, like London and Minneapolis, their message is running up against robust campaigns to make tap water trendy.

Style is strategy across the pond, where Londoners will soon sip their city’s tap water from a “signature serving vessel” designed to rival even the prettiest packaging of bottled water, according to World Changing. Selected from a design contest as part of the city’s London on Tap campaign, the sleek carafe will be produced and sold to London restaurants, bars, and hotels as the vehicle to deliver tap water to patrons. “Though a gimmick for sure,” writes Julia Levitt for World Changing, “the contest is a smart way to bring high style and sophistication to simple tap water, which is both less expensive and less wasteful than bottled water.”

Minneapolis is also marketing its water to residents with an $180,000 campaign set to run throughout 2009. The effort is part of a “progressive citywide campaign to cut down on waste,” according to the Twin Cities Daily Planet, and will attempt to build loyalty to the tap water brand by pushing its high quality and environmental advantages.  

Image by Rickard Berggren, licensed under Creative Commons.

Forget everything you’ve heard about mountains of bottled water waste! Disregard the experts who prove that tap water is almost identical in quality! Viva bottled water!

That’s the battle cry EnjoyBottledWater.org raises in its quest to free bottled water from persecution. The website is run by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market advocacy organization that believes that “individuals are best helped not by government intervention, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace.” (Feel free to insert your own cynical economic observation here.)

The site exhaustively details why bottled water is a misunderstood and wrongly persecuted beverage medium, and why it’s our right as Americans to drink it. Users are encouraged to sign a petition against “foolish lawmakers and regulators” taking away the right to the stuff, donate money to the cause, and purchase Enjoybottledwater.org merchandise (no reusable water bottles, naturally). Visitors can also read up on the “crazy bans” enacted by cities and those “silly claims” that bottles affect global warming.

A few of the highlighted benefits are somewhat sensible, like ease of distribution at disaster sites, but the flippant disregard for known facts goes beyond chutzpah to being ridiculous. The best headline of the bunch: “Is Beer Next?”

Image courtesy of judepics, licensed under Creative Commons .

The idea of flushing human waste down the toilet, mixing it with water from the laundry, the shower, and the sink, and then trying to treat the whole effluent sludge using expensive, energy-intensive industrial plants is “totally insane” according to Arno Rosemarin, research and communications manager at the Stockholm Environment Institute, quoted in the Boston Globe. There are plenty of other options that people and governments can pursue for more sane and sustainable sanitation.

A global movement is afoot to harness the “neglected treasure” of human waste, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow writes for the Boston Globe. Low-flush toilets, waterless urinals, and composting toilets are just the starting points. Tuhus-Dubrow also writes about “vacuum toilets”—like the ones found on airplanes—bathrooms designed to give nutrients to plants, and toilets designed to separate urine, feces, and greywater. A number of barriers, including psychological ones, are preventing this kind of technology from being implemented, but any one would be preferable to the “flush and forget” system currently in place.

The nuclear energy industry isn’t just mounting a P.R. campaign about the great green hope of nuclear power. It’s also applying good old political pressure to get its way, the Texas Observer reports, strong-arming Texas environmental regulators in order to win approval for a huge nuclear waste landfill over scientists’ objections.

The Dallas-based firm Waste Control Specialists is close to securing approval for a low-level nuclear waste landfill in Andrews County, Texas, Forrest Wilder reports. If the company scores two more necessary licenses from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), “Waste Control could bury more than 60 million cubic feet of waste over the span of 30 years, more than half the volume of the new Dallas Cowboys stadium,” he writes. Which of course would be a radioactive dream come true for all the people who are talking about a nuclear renaissance but still unsure exactly where all that waste is going to go.

The licensing process has led to a clash at the TCEQ between the scientists and engineers who oppose Waste Control’s plans and agency managers bent on approving the licenses. Three employees have even quit because of frustration with the licensing process, Wilder reports. Chief among their reservations were indications that the dump might be dangerously close to the water table and that Waste Control had previous “radiation protection issues” with worker safety.

—Keith Goetzman