“Bagging Plastic” Critical Analysis

“Bagging Plastic” Critical Analysis

            “Bagging Plastic” by Veronica Majerol explains the dilemma of using plastic bags. Veronica Majerol explains that most of us usually carry our groceries home in disposable plastic bags without much thought. Majerol goes on to explain the viewpoints of those for and against banning plastic bags. Majerol uses many things to support this. One thing that she includes is that Majerol implies that many people are for a ban on plastic bags. For example, “‘The idea that we grab for a plastic bag in a grocery store has become a part of our culture,’ says zola berger-Schmitz…The bans, she says, are “about trying to reduce pollution little by little.’” Simply, she is for the bans. To support the idea that plastic bags have a negative effect she quotes, “‘we no longer live in a world where we can pretend that what we do on land doesn’t affect the ocean,’ says John Hocevar, a marine biologist at Greenpeace.” She also talks of the many places where ther are already bans on plastic, for example, “In the U.S., environmentalists have also been targeting disposable plastic bottles. The town of Concord, Massachusettes, the Grand Canyon and several other national parks, and some universities now ban the sale of plastic watter bottles. This month, San Fransisco began banning their sale on public property.” But, Majerol does admit and shows that there are also very many people who are opposed to a ban being passed against the “convenient” plastic. She says, “Mark Daniels of the American Progressive Bag Alliance, which represents the U.S. plastic bag manufacturing and recycling industry, thinks the bans are misguided. He says 9 out of 10 Americans reuse plastic bags for things like packing lunch, lining trash cans, and picking up after their dogs.” Again she gives another opinion, “‘Environmentalists truly think every single person is going to leave their house in the morning with their reusable bag because they want to get something at CVS.’” This statement of course is a sarcastic one. Another supporter says, “The industry also makes an economic argument against the bans:More than 30,000 people across the U.S. have jobs related to plastic bag manufacturing and recycling, says Daniel, and bans jeopardize those jobs.” This is a general opinion of all of those connected to the industry. And as Majerol explains, “There’s even a movement to ban the bans [on plastic].” But to support all of this Majerol includes many facts. For example, “More than 100 U.S. countries and major cities—like San Francisco, Seattle, and Austin—now have bans on plastic shopping bags.” She also includes this one, “Americans use about 100 billion plastic bags each year…generated about 32 million tons of plastic waste…and recycled only about 9 percent of it.” She also includes alternate solutions other than bans, “Of course, bans aren’t the only way to cut plastic use.”  Majerol uses all of these techniques to support her original claim.

            With this article, Veronica Majerol tried to make the reader think and feel that it is a true problem how much plastic waste is made by plastic bags. But she does want the reader to realize some are opposed to the plastic while others, many of them, too, are opposed to a ban. To achieve this, Veronica Majerol utilizes multiple craft moves. The first of these craft moves is using a question as a transition: she starts a paragraph, with a new topic, “Are plastic bags also a drain on natural resources?” This is compelling and gets the reader engaged in the topic. The reader answers the question in their head before reading on to see the facts that Majerol includes to answer the question. Another craft move: along with a picture of three men holding multiple bags, Majerol poses the question, “Can Americans give up plastic bags?” This move is to leave the reader to decide their answer to this question after Majerol includes all of the evidence, quotes, opinions and facts that she wants to in the article and they read the article. A third craft move is Veronica Majerol starts the article with a relatable thought, “Most of us do it every day without much thought: buy things and carry them home in disposable plastic bags,” with which most of the readers will agree, or at least I do.  This technique of including something relatable to start the story gets the reader to think and relate but also almost leads the track they will take to ultimately het to their final opinion on a topic. This is a great craft move to use both as an introductory statement and even a concluding statement to keep the reader interested. A forth craft move that Veronica Majerol utilizes is ending the article with a questionable and interesting idea that she quotes, “‘ In a city where dog owners are forced to pick up their pets’ waste and are precluded from smoking in parks,’ Rosenthal writes, ‘why is it so hard to get people to employ reusable bags for shopping?’” This is a questionable and debatable question that the reader can continue to think about and even try to answer after reading all about the topic. But ultimately the point of that craft move is to leave the reader thinking, which is exactly what it does well. Another technique that Majerol uses is including a photograph of a scavenger man paddling through a plastic-strewn waterway in the Phillipines. This is a strong image and was very well chosen for the topic, it shows the reader what the problem with plastic is. She also includes two plastic bags containing facts. One states “100 billion—number of plastic bags Americans use each year.” And the other says, “90%--percentage of Americans who reuse plastic shopping bags.” These were just nice interesting touches.

            After reading “Bagging Plastic” by Veronica Majerol, I definitely think that the plastic bag dilemma is a real problem for everybody. At my house we already reuse plastic bags but it was never really for a positive reason, I don’t thin, it was just for our own needs. But I now realize that it’s a very big problem.