"Yes, boohoo, a tree branch had to be chipped..."

Doesn't matter, anyway. Paper is made from farmed trees. They cut down, they plant new, and they actually plant more than they cut down, so the wooded area of the US is actually increasing.

I like paper bags. I always compliment cashiers who know how to fill them properly, because I appreciate it and it's becoming a lost art. My favorite market supplies paper bags with handles. They are reasonably sturdy and you get a discount for reusing them.

You are mistaken; pulses are illegal unless surrounded by a taxpayer or a Democratic. Please refer to "Obamacare: Throwing You Under the Bus, Literally"

I also reuse the plastic bags for refuse from the litter box. And I sometimes use the reusable bags as well (they are easier to carry up stairs with lots of groceries).

An outright ban seems silly. I don't carry reusable bags into every store I shop in. They have proposed this in CT as well.

On the other hand, every time I jog along the LA River, there they are--thousands upon thousands of plastic bags.

Americans litter. Profusely.

That being the case, it may make sense for a diktat that paper, glass, or degradable plastic is the way to go.

The free market does not provide solutions to pollution. He who excretes at lowest cost (to himself) wins. Passing the costs of pollution onto the braoder society does not eliminate the costs, it just "spreads the costs around" Obama-style.

I am a fervent free-marketeer. But there are times when any ideology comes up short.

Plastic bags and bottles are one of those times.

Actually, since plastic bottles can be recycled for cash, they are less of a problem. But plastic bags?

It's all a load of horse hockey. I reuse plastic bags all the time, from putting them in the little garbage cans in the bathrooms to putting them in my luggage for dirty laundry when I'm traveling. When they break is when I throw them out. And I use the paper bags to put my newspapers in on recylce day. Either that or I tie up the bundle with twine. When I'm not using the papers to papertrain a puppy or start a fire in the fire pit with them. And you know what else? Plastic bags are great for picking up after your dog. Although Amy only needs a little corner of one for Lucy!

I use them to put out bottles for the homeless

Bottles? vodka? whiskey? tequlia?

the lady who collects cans from our alley

Oh...

We save all the plastic bags we get from the store. They come in handy for all sorts of household things.

Dear BOTU,
Because some people out here choose to litter, I must be punished?

Let's try better punishment and enforcement of laws all ready on the books, including littering. (What a novel idea!?)

Thanks,

I hate this whole posturing about grocery bags. A few months ago the Albertsons supermarket chain had a big push to sell the reusuable grocery bags. When the clerk gave me their spiel, I said that I would take their environmental concern seriously when they stopped giving me 3 feet of register tape even if I buy only a couple of items. As I was feeling nice that day, I didn't add "because it has your blankety-blank ads and coupons on it."

Another vote for using the plastic bags to empty the litter box. And they have all kinds of other uses around the house. The other day I had to take an old greasy saw chain to the store to match it up. How to keep it from gunking up the interior of the car? Put it in a plastic grocery bag.

Cat-

It does seem we spend much of lives punished for the stupidness of a few. On the other hand, I doubt that we can ever stop litter with laws. People wait until no one is watching, and then litter. The stuff is rarely traceable.

I like the idea of making plastic bags "valuable" in the sense that plastic bottles are. The homeless etc collect plastic bottles in CA for sale to recycling centers, and that fixes that problem, mostly.

Somehow we survived back in the glass-bottle and paper-bag era (if you remember rotary telephones).

Anyway, all I am asking is to go back to paper bags, or devise a plastic bag that degrades in a year into cellulose.

True, people *shouldn't* litter. But they often do. You might tuck that bag away to use for something useful, but many many others will throw it out the car window.

I lived in DC when the bag tax went into effect, and I think that's a better option than an all-out bag BAN -- I liked the idea that the assholes who were tossing plastic bags into nature had at least paid a tax $.05 per bag towards river clean-up. Also, that teeny tiny financial incentive encouraged people to do the right thing and got a LOT of people into the habit of using re-usable bags.

"The free market does not provide solutions to pollution."

Sure it does. The solution is private property, and the rights associated with such. What do you suppose would happen if you backed your truck up in somebody's driveway and dumped off a load of trash?

The fact that public property exists as it does is not a failure of the free market.

I'm not opposed to a fee for plastic bags. I pick enough of them out of my yard, thanks to the jerks who are too cheap to buy trash cans or too lazy to put them in the cans they do have.

In Germany, and at Aldi here, you have to buy the bags. It encourages reusables and cuts down on trash, but they are available if you need them.

Hawaii is in the process of getting rid of them, except on Oahu, if what was related to me is true. Pardon me, but an inter-island tourist isn't going to lug his reusable bags around, nor is paper the answer to every need. (Wet swimsuits.)

Paper for free, plastic for a fee.

In the town next to mine they have proposed outlawing ALL (BOTH paper and plastic) bags at the grocery store.

However, that town still requires folks to put their recycling newspapers into a, get this, brown grocery store bag - not tied up!

And with the grocery store brown bags soon banned where are folks suppose to get them to put out their old newspapers? Oh, wait, newspapers will be out of business soon, so never mind.

The question is, are plastic bags a huge problem or not.

If they are a huge problem, then government banning is the only way to deal with it. People aren't going to miraculously give up something convenient for long-term gains, we are too short-sighted as a species. You and your bags are the exception, Amy.

If the bags aren't a problem, then there is no need for interference.

So I'd like to hear the reasoning, are they a big problem and if so, why?

Plastic grocery bags are a negligible component of total landfill volume. And, if you don't have some handy for lining your garbage cans or a myriad other uses, then you have to buy bags for those purposes, so the total volume of trash does not go down. There's a good discussion here:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/263178

I heard an environmentalist interviewed on the radio about this. He was a founder of one of the big name groups and has since been kicked out. He had some interesting points (I have been unable to confirm or refute these).

The re-useable bags are almost all made in China and shipped over to the US. On average, the environmental impact to make and ship one re-useable bag is the same as 1000 of the disposable - and the re-useable only last for about 100 uses.
Bags made from re-cycled material is either from material over there or material shipped there and then back (which is even worse).

On average, the making & shipping of paper bags was slightly worse than a disposable plastic bag - again shipping (they are heavier) and some chemicals released during manufacturing.

He recommended a mix of disposable paper & plastic. Similar total costs, but different individual problems.

Paper bags might be good because the trees capture carbon and putting the bags in land fills locks up the carbon.

The quick degrade plastic bags are good, but relatively expansive and use in demand materials (I believe corn was one of them) and so would likely get more expensive as use increased. I believe he said some Whole Foods have these.

Their is an often quoted statistic about bags in the Ocean (I hadn't heard)...this originates from a mis-quote... the number was of abandoned fishing nets.

I think you may find many of the plastic bags you assumed were tossed out a car window were actually blown out of a dumpster by the wind.

Here in Texas where high winds are almost constant, you'll find plastic bags in the middle of a miles-wide field. I have seen the wind pick them out of the top of a dumpster myself. The design makes them a perfect windsock and they travel far.

So we should make our own reusable bags if we've the inclination?

Those resuable bags that are made in China have also been found to have dangerously high levels of lead in the colorful printing that proclaims you are green for using them. The lead paint rubs off onto your food.

I have a solution to the trash problem I call the Piggly Wiggly/Weight Watcher Plan. When I walk to exercise (Weight Watchers) I carry a plastic shopping bag (Piggly Wiggly) and I fill it up with litter, If everybody did so (I know fat chance) there would much much less litter. Bending over to pick up the trash is a form of cross training and as I am a volunteer if I don't want to pick up used needles or anything else, I don't have to. (actually empty soda bottles make good sharps containers)

don't forget about unintended consequences where the banning of plastic bags in Ireland led to an increase in plastic consumption as people had to buy the bags for the garbage can liners they once use recycled shopping bags for. And since these garbage liners must be many times thicker (no bags the thickness of take home shopping bags are sold to the home user) the total plastic consumption may go up or stay the same. http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Plastic-Bags-Aren-t-Evil/%28comment%29/113411 see also http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0685.htm

If plastic bags aren't a problem, its one thing. But if they are, the free market can't be trusted to fix it. It's a prisoners' dilemma... if everyone does the right thing, everyone benefits, but if one person does the right thing and everyone else doesn't, the person who did the right thing loses.

I see this article titled "Why Must We Be Given Orders?" and then I see the article titled "Morons At The Polls".....and both are proposing polar opposites. One says people are intelligent to decide for themselves. And "Morons at the polls" says people are too stupid to vote(don't give explanations like it does not exclude all people and is only proposing a test etc etc...the same thing can be applied to issue plastic bags also to people). Honestly, make up your mind. If people are intelligent enough to decide whether to use plastic bags or not, they are intelligent enough to vote wisely. If they are too stupid to vote wisely, then they must be given orders.

I like the idea put forth in Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

Only those willing to put their lives on the line to defend the society they live in should be allowed to vote.

They may not be the smartest people, or the kindest, but they have shown themselves to be willing to put societies needs before their personal concerns.