Surprising no one, environmentalists applauded the move citing a mind-numbing hodegepodge of statistics regarding the amount of waste that will be spared from landfill sites. Huh? Why do politicians convince us to spend tens of millions of dollars on recycling programs only to then ban items that are supposed to be recyclable? Yes, I well aware that not all plastic bags can be recycled, but Toronto's ban (similar to those in L.A., Seattle, and San Francisco) affects all plastic bags including those advertised as compostable, biodegradable, or photodegradable.
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| It ain't easy being plastic these days. |
What's more is I'm not convinced that plastic bags occupy that much space in landfill sites to begin with. I can't recall ever throwing an empty bag in the garbage around our house. Sure, they'll eventually make their way there, but usually they would have been used more than once before that occurs, crippling the "single use" argument. There are several uses for plastic bags beyond their primary function of carting groceries from your car to your kitchen and I doubt there are many who simply discard them collectively once the groceries are tidily put away. And even if everyone of us did just that, how much space in the landfill are we talking about? Considering I can easily compact ten bags in the palm of my hand, I'll surmise that the number of bags my family disposes of on an annual basis would occupy less space than hundreds of other items that regularly find their way into landfill sites.
Common sense never seems to prevail in the political arena and I'm sure all cities will eventually impose similar bans. I doubt I'll miss the plastic bag when it's gone, as there are far greater demons to slay at the grocery store, but it's a shame that the real issues of our time aren't given the due consideration they deserve by our dithering politicians.
Plastic bags are not the problem; municipal governments so big that they find the time to debate these minutiae are.
