The Plastic Bag Conundrum

The world seems to be going crazy over plastic straws and plastic bags.

I am not implying that this isn't proper. However, I think we're missing the larger picture.

Recently a fellow that I follow on Twitter posted that he purchased mint Lifesavers. He had a bit of a sore throat and understood that mints might help. He was quite miffed when he opened the bag to discover that each lifesaver was individually wrapped in plastic.

Once upon a time, Lifesavers came in a paper roll, with an inner wrapping of foil or wax paper if I recall correctly. When I was a good boy, my mother would pass me one in church. She would put her thumbnail under the top candy but through the wrapping, to raise the lifesaver a little. I would take the proffered, upraised candy and pop it into my mouth without anyone but me touching it.

It worked!

As for plastic bags, I get it, but what about all of the plastic that we put inside the bag?

Seen on a friend's FB timeline

Heck fire! In our province, even the milk comes in plastic bags that are not reusable. And those bags come inside yet another plastic bag. Frankly, this bothers me more that the plastic bag that the cashier then puts it inside to carry home. (Although I always tell them not to re-bag the milk. I don't need a bag within a bag within a bag.)

Also, I don't know about you, but at least in our house, we reuse those plastic shopping bags for garbage, especially in the kitchen and bathrooms. But there is no way one can reuse almost any of the plastic that is used to wrap the products that go inside the reusable, plastic shopping bags.

I think we are losing our minds when we get all worked up about plastic bags but are perfectly fine with this sort of thing.

There are other things to consider as some communities look into banning the use of plastic bags and insisting on paper. Unless things have changed, I once came across information that more energy is used to manufacture a paper bag than a plastic bag. Did you get that? The environmental cost of manufacturing a paper bag is (or at least was) greater than that of producing a plastic bag.

Then there are the trees! How does cutting down a tree impact climate change? There is much to consider.

And what about our household waste? If we bring home paper bags, do we then go out and purchase plastic bags for our refuse?  How does that help?

Don't get me wrong. I am absolutely and unequivocally not not not promoting the use of plastic. In fact, our careless consumerism disturbs me greatly. But for goodness sake, if we are concerned about plastic, that concern must go well beyond straws and bags.

On a personal note, I really should do better about bringing reusable bags on my grocery shopping trips. I once did so as a matter of course. I had 5 cloth bags that I would dutifully take to the grocery store. One day, I realized that 4 of them had somehow or other disappeared. How? I don't know. But they were gone.

Since we reuse the plastic bags anyway, I was so miffed that I gave up on reusable cloth bags for the time being.

I am not proud of this and probably will try reusable bags again at some point.

I am still very concerned about all of the plastic that we put inside whatever bags we use.However, I am more concerned about that packaging than I am about the bags themselves.

And if I, personally, ever see a banana wrapped in plastic, I swear, I will throw a hissy fit right in the store!

Addendum: Seen since I wrote the above.