Yahoo News carries an Associated Press story reporting that the ban on plastic grocery bags, scheduled to go into effect statewide in California in July, will be put on hold. A group opposed to the ban has qualified a referendum for the 2016 ballot aimed at overturning it and allowing the continued use of these bags.
The bag ban isn't widely popular with Americans, we don't shop like Europeans. They normally carry their own shopping bag to market, shop almost daily, and often do so on foot or by bicycle.
Americans often purchase more than one can easily carry home in a single bag. Most of us shop weekly by auto. Our homes and refrigerators are 2-3 times as large as theirs and most of us drive to the market.
I hope Californians vote in 2016 to overturn the bag ban, any defeat of the nanny state is a victory for individual liberty. And there is no reason those who choose to use their own bags cannot do so.
Meanwhile, our household reuses plastic grocery bags to take out garbage and trash. If we didn't get them with groceries, we'd have to purchase garbage bags. Net benefit to the environment: zero.
