Paper or Plastic?

Last night at our local Town Meeting we were asked to vote to prohibit the use of single-use plastic bags at retail establishments. The preachy presentation in favor of this ukase, like is often the case for liberal causes, played on our emotions ... showing pictures of plastic bags littering fields, huge amounts of plastic flotsam in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and animals damaged by ingesting plastic. They also had a well-meaning high school student imploring us to do the right thing ... and pointed to California, the European Union, and Brookline/Cambridge, Massachusetts as examples of places which have already passed this eco-stricture.

This hand-wringing should have been enough to seal my negative vote (how are plastic bags from Natick, Massachusetts going to find their way to the middle of the Pacific Ocean?), but then I started thinking about the downsides of our now re-paving of the road to hell. What about all those plastic bags used to hold items in the grocery store produce section? What about the plastic bags used to keep our newspapers dry on our front lawn? What about Ziploc bags? What about the plastic bags covering our dry cleaning? What about all those nicely-scented plastic garbage bags? What about all those plastic leaf bags in the Fall? What about those heavy-duty plastic contractors' bags? What about the plastic bags used to line our waste baskets (often the very bags that are being vilified in this proposal)? What about the plastic bags to pick up dog doo (ditto)? What about plastic bags used to collect household detritus (ditto)? Will I be now forced to buy plastic bags to use for those things that I now re-use these plastic grocery store bags for?

Already many grocery stores in our area have mechanisms for recycling these "single use" plastic bags. Already there are many tree-huggers in Massachusetts (my wife included) who use the now ubiquitous multi-use shopping bags (to me, unsanitary). And Natick already has a outstanding curbside recycling program that, theoretically, disposes of much of our plastic waste.

And we know that, if such plastic bags are banned, the next step will be the paper bags. (Readers, I'll leave my railing against this proposal for next time.)

Coward that I am, I left this Town Meeting before all my liberal neighbors could see me voting against this nonsense. However, this AM, I read that this proposal was tabled for further study ... hooray! (at least for the nonce.)