Companies, markets, even cities, states and China are banning plastic bags. New reusable bags seem to appear everyday; baggu, acme, and more available at reusablebags.com. There is good reason to ban plastic bags too, like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Reading about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is adequate reason to ban plastic bags, among others. I am all for banning plastic bags, though I can't help but feel that all this emphasis on plastic bags and finding solutions to that is taking effort away from other issues in need of consideration. The best way for me to explain this is to an analogy of sustainability to dieting. It is more than something you do for the three months to loose ten pounds. We can't buy the diet cola then drink twice as much, and we can't buy reusable bags and continue to consume as much.
We need to change our attitudes and how we go about living. We have be cautious that we don't equate the solution to not using plastic bags, and then go about consuming without consideration. As a society, people have to use reusable bags, then go about using them less than they were using plastic bags. And lets start seeing reusable bags in more places than just the supermarket, the video store, the hardware store, the printing service bureau, the toy store, and so forth.
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