Big Butt Plastic Bag Seat Cover Sweat

Those who know me well know that I am conscientious when it comes to the environment. I try to keep water usage low, recycle as much as my trash as possible, try never to throw food away, and don't even throw cigarette butts on the ground (yeah, I know, but I've cut way down in recent months!).

AND, I ride the bus--for better or worse.

One of the most horrifying environmental disasters to me is the ugly Pacific Gyre, also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, that continent-sized swirling mass of trash and plastic floating in the middle of the Pacific. Much of the plastic junk and garbage finds its way into the ocean from local waterways that eventually flow into the sea. It's truly a sickening testament to man's wasteful, destructive ways. You can read more about this disgusting human legacy here: http://.

Some of the most heartbreaking images I've seen of the effects of the gyre on the ocean's wildlife are of dying albatrosses on the Galapagos Islands. The birds are dying because they have eaten small pieces of plastic which they have mistaken for the krill and small fish that comprise their diets. Their decomposing corpses offer a heinous glimpse into this problem; plastic chunks and pieces are often found entwined in the skeletons.



A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of taking a long, solitary walk along the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, N.Y. I saw massive amounts of plastic debris washed on shore, including the largest number of plastic bags I've ever seen in my 30 years of frequenting that beach.

Gyres exist in all of the oceans, and in large bodies of freshwater like the Great Lakes, including Ohio's Lake Erie, where the first-ever survey of plastic pollution in the lake found massive amounts of plastic garbage. www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/12/record_levels_of_plastic_pollu.html

(Note: For some reason, I haven't been able to reproduce links on this blog, so you'll have to enter the addresses yourselves--sorry!)

COTA is doing its part to ensure that our waterways continue to be fouled by plastic with the complimentary plastic shopping bags it inexplicably has on hand on all of its buses. Presumably, the bags are for riders to dispose of trash. However, they are more often used by passengers as seat covers.

I suspect those guilty of this reprehensible practice believe sitting on the bags will protect them from bedbugs and other vermin, or the leaking bodily fluids of other passengers. Well, bedbugs crawl and can easily evade being covered by a plastic bag, and it's just good bus rider practice to scan the seat before sitting down. But I've never seen any that were so bad they required seat covers.

All the bags really do is add to the trash found on COTA buses because they invariably end up on the floor, then are swept out the door as passengers come and go, and finally blow around the neighborhoods COTA serves. Since central Ohio is home to two major rivers, the Olentangy and the Scioto (which flows into the Ohio River) and numerous large creeks (some of which like the Little and Big Darby creeks, are federally protected), you can bet the bags end up in local waterways eventually. I've already seen them hanging from tree limbs.

This was the scene on a COTA bus recently. See for yourself:

Some PR whiz at COTA probably thought providing these plastic bags (emblazoned with the COTA logo) might be a nice way for the authority to show some customer appreciation (as opposed to taking real customer-friendly actions like making service improvements and keeping fares down). I've never seen ANYONE use them for anything BUT seat covers. The offending rider always leaves the bag there for someone else to throw on the floor (because, after all, who wants to sit on a plastic bag seat cover someone else has used?). I have to wonder how much these specially made bags costs the authority -- which probably hands the cost off to passengers, especially since COTA provides a stash both at the front and back doors of the bus!



The other day, while riding the Eastbound #2 to the Kroger store in Bexley, I noticed someone has simply grabbed the entire bundle of bags to use as a seat cover; I guess they needed that extra cushion that only a stack of plastic bags can provide. I picked up the bags and stuck them in the plastic-bag recycling bin at the front of the Kroger store, so disgusted was I by this selfish act.

California is banning plastic shopping bags and I'm all for a similar ban nationwide. But until that happens, COTA should end this ridiculous and wasteful practice, and get the bags off the bus!