We’ve got this. It’s in the bag.
A former neighbor, upon getting asked “paper or plastic” by a grocery store cashier, replied she preferred to use a credit card. And no, she wasn’t half in the bag. Her scattered mind centered on payment methods, not conveyance modalities. Although I’ve called credit cards plastic, I never referred to cash as paper. Drinks are on me boys! I’ve got deep pockets stuffed with paper! Yeah, that doesn’t work at all.
Way back in the day when stores even offered bags, paper was the sole option. Paper bags got over-stuffed by the pimply faced bag boy, thus making them difficult to carry. If so equipped, some bags had perilously unstable handles which proved useful if toting something equivalent in weight to loose leaf lettuce or a small box of Saltines. They possessed the practicality of securing a giant wind turbine to a flatbed rail car with a shoe string. Double knot all you want, it ain’t gonna hold.
My mother shouted prophetic warnings, such as “carry it by the bottom”, or “don’t pick it up from the top”. Paper grocery bag ruptures always happened at the most inopportune of times, as if an opportune time was a thing. Not surprisingly the heavier the bag, the greater the likelihood. This usually happened with the bag crammed full of glass jars and a dozen eggs foolishly set on top of the pickles, jams, and jellies. What could go wrong?
“You weren’t carrying it by the bottom of the paper bag, were you?”
“No mom, I sure wasn’t.”
And then came the wonderful world of plastic. Bags, not debit devices. We now had checkout choices, paper or plastic. Could I do both, paper and plastic? Or is this a one or the other option? Paper was so ingrained in my inner psyche, I felt like I was cheating on it if I opted for plastic. However, those easy to grip plastic handles on a more manageably sized bag felt so enticing. But deep down, I remained loyal to paper. Especially when passing around a shrouded bottle on the street corner with my crew.
Activist groups and vocal minorities swayed many a politician with their rhetoric and vilified the use of paper bags. They branded us tree killers, no friends to our treasured forests. Undaunted, my wife still used paper bags in conjunction with plastic ones. Did she hate the woodlands? Was she an enemy of the eco-state? No. She used the paper bags to collect old newspapers and other paper items headed to recycling. You can’t get any greener than that, bitches.
For those too young to know or remember newspapers, they were a printed medium that arrived almost daily on our doorsteps and was sold almost anywhere before we fully conceptualized the worldwide web existing everywhere. And they used these gigantic machines called printing presses, passed down from Johannes Gutenberg. It was quite revolutionary. Let’s take a moment to lament this loss on the ink industry while also celebrating clean fingertips.
Fast forward to present day Colorado.
Paper bags disappeared from the checkout lines. Plastic bags exist, but we must pay for them. That new alternative to paper was no longer the eco-friendly version originally touted by the environmentalists. Although not killing the trees, depleting the forests, or damaging the atmosphere, we’re dumping single-use plastic bags into landfills. These bags take one thousand years to degrade and they don’t completely break down, but instead photo-degrade, which pollutes the environment even further. Thank God we stopped using those awful paper bags.
As Americans, we use approximately 100 billion plastic bags yearly, which requires 12 million barrels of oil to produce. Did the activist groups that said paper bags were killing the forests get funded by Mobil, Halliburton, and Exxon? Perhaps Dick Cheney and other politicians giggled their way to the bank on that one. Thank you for all of your political fund raisers, dinners, and economic support. Apparently the green movement actually referenced dollar bills, not eco-friendly options.
But hey, we’re saving the world, one billionaire at a time. These plastic bags that are so harmful to the environment still exist at the store’s checkout lanes and counters. We can purchase these harbingers of death for an affordable ten cents in Colorado. 60% goes to the municipality or county to pay for administrative and enforcement costs and recycling or other waste diversion programs. The stores pocket the other 40%.
Thank goodness, because I was concerned the grocery chains weren’t making enough money with their inflated food prices.
Pretty soon we’ll get charged to use their carts, wifi, and oxygen while shopping. Of course I plan on keeping the carts and reselling them to the highest bidder, so that could still pan out for me. The oxygen part could prove problematic. You corporate minimalists keep cutting back services while hiking up the prices. It’s like I’m paying for the date and they take the girl home. I thought college was over.
Now bag ladies became the models of recycling and environmental awareness. Their plastic bags are definitely more than single-use items. By June 2024, Colorado will completely ban the sale of single-use plastic bags and we will be left with our multi-use bags that we repeatedly tote inside the supermarket. Plastic bags are horrible, but so are empty political coffers not getting filled by oilmen. Fortunately, there’s lots of other plastic products to produce.
The last time I looked, a gazillion plastic products floated and laid around the great state of Colorado. Where’s the fervor to stop this proliferation? Why aren’t we tearing holes through the plastic trash bag industry? Aren’t those trash bags subject to the same laws of chemistry when it comes to their degradation in landfills? Not to mention, shouldn’t the government immediately investigate that evil empire known as Tupperware? Those damn satanic bastards. Friend to fiendish homemakers, yet environmental enemy number one.
I’m all for the great outdoors.
If you’ve traveled abroad, you recognize how well the U.S. actually protects the environment. I spent time in the slums in Nairobi several years ago. There’s not really a functioning waste management system in place and plastic bags litter the landscape. And I mean they were everywhere. Sometimes filled with trash and often times overflowing with human bodily waste. I don’t even know where they got the bags. It’s not like the Kenyans could run down to local Piggly Wiggly. Maybe British Petroleum donates them to third world countries. BP’s almost as rotten as Tupperware, which ironically keeps my food fresher for longer.
I bet leading scientists will one day prove that multi-use grocery bags actually cause intense uterine spasms, testicle shrinkage, taint cancer, or some other unforeseen malady that nobody ever dreamed of catching. But that’s O.K. I’m certain a greedy crew of corporate curmudgeons will wistfully devise a devilish scheme to bleed us for every nickel they earn on these multi-use bags we stuff into our car door pockets and shove under our seats.
So now my new first world issue is remembering to carry one of these potentially deadly multi-use bags into the grocery store. This isn’t really a big deal, but I naturally forget every time. At least I have bags crammed somewhere in my car that I can race outside and retrieve before hitting the checkout lane. I’m environmentally aware and doing my part, albeit through forced state regulations. We recycle and we don’t purchase or use single-use plastic bags. Of course I make my purchases with a credit card which is made out of…plastic.