Writing at Reason.com, Katherine Mangu-Ward argues that the humble plastic grocery bag has been unfairly maligned. They constitute a much smaller percentage of land and water pollution than formerly thought. Hat tip to RealClearPolicy for the link.
My take on the subject is closely related. Our household reuses plastic grocery bags for kitchen trash and to line wastebaskets, They are also used in the yard and for recycling aluminum cans.
One of the the three places we live each year (liberal CA) has banned the bags. We have to carry cloth "bag lady" bags to market there, as Europeans do. In the other two locations plastic bags remain available and we get enough there to handle our needs throughout the year.
If plastic grocery bags disappear entirely we will have to purchase plastic bags to replace them. Would this benefit the environment? No, as the number of bags ending up in the landfill remains roughly the same. Instead of reuse, our purchased bags will be single use, not the greenest of outcomes.
