Nonsense 3 (Sacks and Bags)

Today I heard on the car radio that, starting June 27, 2019, supermarkets in the state of Rio de Janeiro will no longer be allowed to provide plastic bags (polyethylene) to customers, in the name of saving the planet. Those who insist or fail to comply will be fined R$34,000 (*1), said the JB radio announcer.

It seems that in packaging for rice, beans, sugar, plastic bottles for soft drinks and bleach, yogurt cups, vacuum-sealed meat packages, this plastic can still be used.

I kept waiting for some additional and more effective measure regarding concern for the planet, but there was no mention of birth control or space travel; so I understood… at that point I always feel like I missed part of the story, or it wasn’t told to us, or they think we’re idiots… and they might be right.

Until the 1960s, beer, soda, milk bottles—in short, all glass containers—were returned to bottling plants, where they were properly washed and reused; bulk goods were packaged in paper bags, and we had containers to go pick them up at the bakery, the butcher shop, the grocery store. Along with self-service markets (self-service, supermarkets, yes!) came “non-returnable” packaging (one-way, yes!) and credit cards (no cash, no change).

In 1972 or 73, during Médici’s presidency, I even wrote a letter published in the now-defunct magazine Visão (by Henry Maksoud), complaining that these then-new “disposable” habits generated, in my view, an unnecessary increase in waste and pollution. I thought no one had paid attention to me or that I simply didn’t understand “modern times.”

However, I see that was not the case. At last, my concerns were heard, and in addition to reusing jam jars to serve water at home (not to guests, except at my dear friend Paulo Rogério’s house), we will now ban some bags and recycle others, and sleep peacefully with a clear conscience.

If the planet doesn’t work out, it won’t be our fault, comrade.

After all, we did what we could: we were communists, then became socialists, then environmentalists, until we found something better, posing as defenders of diversity (even though this conflicts with the Stalinist worldview of our communist phase and leaves us confused and sleepless).

Going back to the radio news: what about bags for salt and flour? Does the law or regulation, in short, clarify the difference between a “bag” and a “sack” (no innuendo, please)?

I also became curious: how was that fine of $34,000 determined? Per day? Per month? What is the calculation criterion? Was it approved by the CRA? Is it per supermarket? Per store?

Will inspectors “threaten to impose” one fine during the day and another at night? Every 8 hours? After all, business owners are rich, and inspectors speak on behalf of the State—so it’s “good” versus evil, the “right” versus the “wrong.”

I went to look it up, and the author of the anti-bag law, 45 years after “non-returnable” containers, was Congressman Carlos Minc Baumfeld (former PV, former PT, now PSB—geographer, professor, environmentalist, politician, former guerrilla, economist, universities of Paris, Lisbon, etc., according to Google—top notch), I think I get it…

The law is the law, and it’s there to be followed. Especially because it saves us from thinking.

Knowing the “electorate,” without small bags to reuse, the problem will fall on dog waste. Every time someone steps on it, it will be impossible not to remember Minc. My apologies to him.

(*1) ~US$8,500

Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer, columnist and essayist, member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Engineering. Written June 20, 2019; revised June 4, 2020. 3,572 characters.