Disposable Bag Bans

Good thing I don’t need bags.

Once upon a time, I bought some reusable resealable bags for backpacking because somebody shamed me for using disposable bags. The extra plastic made them stiff and bulky — less than ideal for backpacking. Then, I lost one and realized that was probably 10 years’ worth of disposable backpacking bags. So now they stay in the kitchen and I just reuse disposable bags. Same with disposable water bottles.

Two articles were recently published less than a day apart. The first said bag bans work. The second said they don’t. I think policies like plastic bag bans are doomed to fail if they rely on changing to reusable bags. If you can find a way to reuse what already exists, then great, but forcing people to buy thicker plastic bags because they forgot/choose not to use their own seems like anti-policy. (Unless the purpose is to create a reusable bag profit stream for big retailers.)

Maybe the better solution would be to invest in local food production and get rid of supermarkets…

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