Is the Plastic Bag Ban in Pasadena Taking it Too Far?

“No civilization in human history has collapsed for a lack of a means to convey small goods to their abodes,” Ellis Sterling said in an article for the Los Angeles Times. “However, civilizations have failed for abusing their environment and depleting their resources.”

Is it really going to kill people to remember to grab a few reusable bags into a grocery store when they go out and shop? Reusable bags not only cut out the 130 non-biodegradable plastic bags that one uses during a year, according to the Earth Resource Foundation, but they save you five cents per bag every time they’re presented at the register. The question shouldn’t be, is the plastic bag ban in Pasadena taking it too far, but it should be, why didn’t anyone think about banning plastic bags sooner?

There is absolutely no benefit to using plastic bags other than the mild convenience of not having to take bags with you into the store. It’s complete and utter laziness compared to the fact that plastic bags are continuing to demolish the availability of our natural resources, and the damage the environment from the extraction of petroleum used to make in the hazardous production and pollution.

Plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to decompose on land and 450 years in the water, which someone who isn’t probably going to last more than 100 years, should be ashamed of. So many marine animals and birds end up dying from being entangled or chocked with the chemical ridden plastic bags because people somehow convinced themselves that magic plastic fairies whisk the 500 billion plastic bags used each year and hide it in some other realm.

Plastic bags aren’t helping anyone. They’re reused by some as small trash can liners or lunch-pails a few times, but then they get a few holes in them and they stay buried in the ever growing landfills for the rest of our and our many future descendants’ natural born lives.

All it takes is to grab a few reusable shopping bags the next time anyone needs to buy beer and an emergency bag of Oreos to help save our planet from being overrun with trash. And the ban, which will take place within 60 days, and that requires grocers, convenience stores and vendors to stop offering plastic bags and to charge 10 cents for paper bags isn’t cruel and unusual punishment. It’s taking initiative on something that should have been done a long time ago.