I would have to disagree with the ban on plastic bags. I understand your points, and I agree with your anecdotes as sort of egregious examples of waste, but I personally feel the government has absolutely no business telling me what kind of *grocery bag* I can use.

The old standby (paper) has always been there, and many stores are offering the new, reusable bags, and that is about as far as you can go without crossing the line. You can educate, you can offer, but God help you if you force. ~C. Rhode

“I don’t want the government telling me…” seriously? How many areas in your life, big areas does the government influence you in what you should and should not do? You seriously need to be kidding me if you are going to overlook those and get spiffed on a bag. Pick your four favorite months of the year…those four months you work your wages go straight to them, and that doesn’t make you a bit angry?

I mean, god forbid you be inconvenienced a few minutes each shopping trip to grab your own bags. And you can find great bags out there. Lacoste and Marc Jacobs make shopping bags upward of $200 if you are worried about the big green bag crashing your style.

The reality is… Think about how much junk we are leaving behind for our children. Look at your daughter, son, grandchildren…you wouldn’t consciously feed them poison but the waste of not only the bags themselves but the manufacturing process is building up in the air, soil and even the kids bodies.

If you don’t want to relinquish your precious bags because you don’t want people telling you what to do your a moron, or lazy. Neither of which I think is true. The real reason is you are afraid. Change is scary but it’s required or we will self destruct. You touch a stove, it’s hot and you get burned. Touching the stove doesn’t work. You know that now. You don’t do it again. This is where we are at now. Have you heard of the Pacific Vortex? Look at this map, it’s huge! 10 million tons of trash, mostly plastic in our oceans. Plastic that does not decompose. And plastic has only been around for less than 150 years. 10 million tons (and plastic is light, how much takes up a ton?) in less than 150 years. And it’s not going anywhere.

I love this article, seeing how San Francisco just passed a ban on them. The youth (and young at heart) are really taking to living responsibly. A lot of people don’t understand that the “modern conveniences” so readily handed to them are products of commerce and not necessarily of sustainable interest. If we keep pushing this idea from a marketing objective that the young are going green, eventually in our desperate pursuit of youth and beauty it will catch on. Probably with less hostility than “the government will pry my plastic bag from my cold, dead hand.”