Plastic Bag Ban Sacked

The ban on plastic bags for large stores here in town failed to pass at the Town Meeting last night.

It wasn't time. The intentions of the two Tantasqua High School students that first brought the idea of a ban to the attention of the town were admirable. It showed great deal of thought, responsibility, and a desire to do good for their community. It just wasn't the time.

As mentioned in a previous post, both paper and plastic have their pitfalls, but to ban one, and to expect the Board of Health to monitor compliance is asking for a lot at this time. That would require more man hours, and funding.

I'm not sure that banning the bags at only certain stores, and not at others, would have been fair. I realize that small stores survive on a smaller margin and operating changes can be felt far easier than with the large stores, but if the ban was to go into effect, maybe it could have included the smaller stores at a later date.

No matter. It didn't pass. I have been buying those cloth sacks to use when I do my Wal*Mart run, or grocery shopping. We bought them not so much to keep the plastic bags out of our lives, since every one of those bags that enters our home will have additional duties to perform before they are tossed away. We bought them because they hold more, are strong as all get out, and I won't have an item tear the bag and let loose a landslide of produce onto the parking lot.

Cracked spaghetti sauce jars, run away cans of soda, and veggies that hide under the other cars in the parking lot. I've cursed those bags for years. So, no more double bagging, just fill that cloth sucker to the top, please. And, since I do use the plastic bags around the house for all sorts of things like lining the waste baskets, disposing small messes, and packing off left overs for company, I will occasionally leave my cloth sacks at home, and restock on those plastic ones.

I realize that my actions won't save the environment. My reasons are to change a personal habit, and make things a bit easier for me. Self serving reasons, I know, but when others also do it for reasons of their own, it can begin to have some impact.

So, I guess an impact could still be made, eventually, as more folks begin to use the reusable bags, or the "It's-all-about-me-bags", as time goes on.

Change takes time, and can be done well, and faster, when the benefits directly, and immediately affect us.

Yep. It's all about me this time.