Purim - 5779

Purim - 5779 Rabbi Hal Miller (Reminder: It is traditional that on Purim we read "Purim Torah". These are fashioned in the same

way as regular divrei Torah, but are humorous, nonsensical, and often just plain silly. Any "rulings"

of law herein are expressly disclaimed as being jokes, not serious.... Oh, and bear in mind you're

supposed to be a little schicker when you read it. --HM)

Those of you who have been following this series over the past fifteen-plus years are aware of the

"Halacha" series I have been writing for Purim each year. This year, our discussion topic is the

halachos of plastic bags.

Since 1965, plastic bags have been a way of life in most of the more developed countries of the

world. Only popular in the USA since the late 1970s, many of us still remember days when they

weren't around, when everyone used cloth, paper, or "granny carts". Since, with the recent huge

negative changes in social mores and standards, nostalgia is very widespread, some folks hearken

back to those pre-polyethylene bag days as an indicator of a better way of life. Environmentalists,

animal preservation societies, and operators of rubbish disposal sites agree.

Are there benefits to plastic bags? Of course the answer is yes, or they wouldn't be produced.

Plastic is strong, lightweight, and endures significant use. With modern manufacturing methods,

it is fairly inexpensive to produce. A boon to military uses, it excels in space exploration, home

use, and commercial applications. The bags we have now sport convenient carrying handles,

are lightweight, and usually last long enough to get the groceries home and in the door.

But, the wonders of plastic have brought on some side effects. Bags seem to lead the way in the

arena of problems. Children seem drawn to putting them over their heads, facing suffocation. We

have all heard of injuries and death to land, air, and sea animals who get caught up in plastic and

cannot get free. We have all heard the estimates of perhaps thousands of years for these bags to

degrade in the rubbish collection points, if then. So what are the laws surrounding use and

disposal of plastic bags?

First, it makes sense to define what a plastic bag is. We can accept that public knowledge of 'bag'

is clear in general terms and that bags themselves are not problematic, so we need merely get

more specific.

So, what is plastic? The earliest acknowledged plastic was invented in 1907 as a synthetic polymer

of phenol and formaldehyde. Most plastics are derivatives of fossil oils, the same thing as the fuel in

our cars. The resulting material is extremely resilient, extremely long-lasting, and tends to be

inexpensive. Because it is so strong, it tends not to break down. That's a good thing, until it

becomes rubbish, also called pollution.

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The first law of plastic bags is that we are in fact allowed to use them. At first, this seems at

odds with the dangers involved. We must ask, is it a secana, a danger to our health? The

answer is yes, it is a secana. Proof of this lies in the number of choking and suffocation

deaths to children each year. Ordinarily, we are prohibited from being around a secana, so

why does this not prohibit our use of plastic bags? The answer is that there is no good

answer, that it should in fact be prohibited. But we learn our rule here from the rulings on

automobiles, trains, and airplanes. All of these were ruled secanot, dangers to life. But

the rabbis determined that since everyone was using them, we rule that Israel as a whole

must know something that the rabbis themselves did not. We could make logic arguments,

based on percentages and chances, but nowhere in all of halacha do we see such

arguments. Either it is or it isn't, and if it is a danger, it is banned. Except when people are

not likely to implement the ruling. For this reason alone, plastic bags, in general, are allowed.

Does this apply to all plastics, or only bags? We can separate these categories by noting

that most plastic materials are not used in a dangerous way, thus are not secanot. Plastic

itself is not inherently dangerous, only some of the things made from it are. For this we

can look to rules regarding iron (including steel). Nobody excludes a plow as a danger,

in fact we are allowed to use such a tool. Nobody excludes an axe even though it could be

dangerous if mishandled. Even firearms are not prohibited, although rules about handling

them are more picky. The material is not the problem, rather the way it is manufactured

and used is what makes it a danger. Therefore, we are not prohibited to use plastics in

general.

Now that we have avoided prohibiting plastic bags in general, we need to look beyond, at

what uses we may allow and whether there are prohibited uses. If we begin from the

vantage point that these bags are a secana, perhaps we can only permit certain common

uses, and all others would be prohibited by default.

So, permitted uses include such as:

- Dog walks. When taking the pooch around the neighborhood, bringing along some plastic

bags is a good idea to clean up their leavings. You can buy the pre-packaged ones with

the nice doggy picture on the display, or just use some of the huge supply of once-used

grocery bags collecting under your kitchen table.

- Packing paper. If you are about to move to a new home, while packing your boxes you

will come across numerous items that are all but guaranteed to break during the process.

You can buy packing paper, or just reuse your supply of grocery bags. Not that this is

guaranteed to prevent breakage, but it's a cheap way of doing what anything you'd

purchase would do.

- Keeping things together. Much of our modern "stuff" comes in many small pieces, be it

game pieces, broken pieces, or such. Plastic bags can be used to separate out the bits

of different items, and to keep together those that we lament were not all in one spot when

we finally get around to looking for them.

- rain cover for a book or a hat. When walking to shul during wet periods, it is nice to have

a way to preserve an item that could be damaged by the rain. One might question whether

it would be preferable to just use a waterproof hat, but that does not limit our use of a bag.

The concern is that most plastic bags tend to have holes, usually in the least-helpful spots.

- And of course, hauling the purchases to the car and then into the house.

Prohibited uses include things like:

- Bedikas chometz/burning. On erev Pesach, we search the house for leaven, and sweep

it into a bag, which we bring to a bonfire and burn in observance of the commandment to

destroy our chametz going into the holiday. But plastic bags give off a poisonous gas when

burned, so we need to stick with paper bags.

- Children's toy. There are times when the rugrats might get under your skin, but we are

prohibited from handing our beloved children a plastic bag to play with.

- Storage of liquids. While older plastic bags were pretty good about holding liquid, at least

for a while, the lighter, thinner, cheaper new ones generally come with holes preinstalled

as part of the manufacturing process, so any attempt at storing liquids is liable to be

messy. This is particularly problematic with dangerous liquids.

- Storage of hot items. Since modern bags are very thin, and have a very low melting

temperature, hot items tend not to stay contained very long, typically breaking through the

bottom of the bag while one is carrying them from place to place, and typically breaking

the hot container, spilling the contents on expensive carpets or on bare feet. Canine lobbies

appear to have succeeded in getting manufacturers to keep bags thin.

Rules about recycling and disposal in general:

- Used bags that end up near animals usually poses a danger to those animals. Since

animals frequent all rubbish disposal sites, and since most plastic bag disposal tends to

occur in the open anyway, virtually all disposal becomes problematic. As noted above,

rules about secana would require that disposal thus be forbidden, but this is not a law

that people would follow, so the rabbis have refrained from promulgating it.

- Interestingly, plastic bags are made of the same materials as are used in recyclable

bottles, but the machinery used for bottles doesn't handle bags. Does that make them

exempt from recycling? Just because someone doesn't do their part, does that patur us?

Tzorech iyun -- more study is required.

- Plastic liquid bottles can be successfully converted into river rafts, with a reasonably

long useful lifespan, rather than requiring some disposal method. This is less successful

with plastic bags.

- Attempts to cut the bags into strips and use them as kite tails invariably result in bits

of shredded plastic spread all over the neighborhood, and an uncontrolled return to the

dirt or nearest tree or power line of the kite itself, thus are forbidden.

Other rules:

- Double bagging. Are you allowed to double up and use two? Or three? Given how

fragile modern bags have become, this is a more common problem than might be

thought. Why would someone double up? Because the handles may break, or because

the bottom may fall out. But then, most people who double only carry the combined bag

by the outer handles, which means they've gained nothing. If something inside is sharp

or heavy enough to go through one, it will go through two. The gain, if any, is minimal,

and the cost in disposal issues is worrisome. L'chatchila one should not double bag. If

the grocery bagger packs your stuff into a doubled bag, b'dieved you are allowed to

take it to your car and later into your house.

- Single bagging. In contrast to the rules on double bagging, we must ask whether one

is permitted to use a single bag, knowing the high probability it will break at an

inopportune moment. Running a risk at this level is forbidden. There are those who

permit it as a mitigation of the recycle problems, but they appear to be pressed in this

opinion by the dogs who stand to gain from the dropped food.

- Handles. Part of the manufacturing process as opposed to consumer usage, plastic

bags are required to have handles embedded. No rules exist standardizing what that

means, so one might find rectangular bags with straps above the top, or with holes

cut inside the upper third, or various similar arrangements. Standards in the industry

appear to require that those not be made of rip-stop material, so once they go, they

really go. Handles are not to be used more than once as they are guaranteed to fail

on a second usage. This is, of course, problematic when you use the handle to carry

the bag to your car, then need to use it again to carry it into your home.

- Preparing a bag for use. The laws here fall into two separate, but related, categories.

First, one must acquire the bag. They are usually arrayed on a hanging metal rack,

from which you separate one off the package of bags. Manufacturing standards

require that the bags be solidly attached to each other, thus this process, typically

attempted by the shopper who already has something in one (or both) hand(s), is one

intended to lead to frustration, thus regulating the amount of bag usage. In most cases,

tearing one off leaves that one, and possibly a few more, with holes. Second,

once you have managed to free one bag from the package, (and you will not notice

until you get home that there is in fact a second one still connected) you need to

open it. Bags are not considered valid unless they are so tightly bound closed as

to require three friends (or a two year old) to assist in getting them open. Wetting a

couple fingers and using them to snap against the plastic usually works, but tends

to tear the bag as well.

- Bringing your own. Is one permitted to bring bags to the store? At first glance, this

seems a positive direction, reducing the disposal issues by reusing bags. However,

the incidence of failure on second use is so high that this is not recommended.

Although bringing your own gives the advantage of, with two hands and while

seated, managing to separate bags for quick access before being at the head of a

long grocery checkout line, it remains difficult.

In summary, plastic bags are problematic. They present a secana, they yield damage

upon failure, and they are a huge disposal problem. By all accounts they should be

prohibited, but they are instead permitted under the theory that people are going to

use them anyway.

There are other options. There are numerous kinds of "plastics", not just the polyethylene

stuff we think of when discussing these bags. Laboratories have produced "bioplastics"

from "biodegradable enhanced petrochemicals". This is merely "fake plastic", which in

itself is an oxymoron. While true that these "biodegradable" bags have half-lives which

are measured in generations rather than in millenia, their disposal remains nearly as

problematic as the non-fake stuff, they are just as dangerous and fraught with all the

same problems as the non-fake stuff, and they are considerably more expensive to make.

Of course, someone someday might invent a "paper bag"....