Bite The Bag!

California has just banned the plastic bags so common at grocery stores and other retailers.  These ubiquitous bags are cheap and handy, and they're also an environmental disaster.  Each bag is "used" for only 20 minutes, on average, yet will remain in the landfill for a thousand years.  They have no recycling value and we've produced billions of them.

Many regular readers are old enough to remember when these bags simply didn't exist.  The neighbor hadn't yet recommended his one word -- "Plastics" -- as a career choice to Ben in The Graduate.  Back then, bags were paper -- a natural, recyclable, biodegradable product -- and we got along just fine.

It would now appear that today's flimsy little plastic bags are just a passing fancy, a "convenience" with unacceptable downside costs.  California has the right idea and other states should follow suit.  Until that happens, say "paper."  In this instance, we can all change our habits without real hardship.

The plastic bag industry will cry foul and try to scare us about job loss, but sometimes certain products just have to go away.  Once, we had a lead paint industry and an asbestos industry, but not anymore and we're better off without those jobs.  It's time to bite the bag.
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(A good friend has a company which maintains and repairs the machinery used in plastics manufacturing, including equipment which makes grocery bags.  Hey bud, I'm not trying to put you out of business.  If the little bags are outlawed, there's still enough need for other extruded polyethylene film products to keep you busy for a long, long time.)