People Think A Plastic-Bag Ban Is Terrible, Plastic-Bag Industry Reports

• Plastic bags aren't creating pollution any more than bricks are. The problems that WE as people decide how we take care of them. They are indeed useful to an extent. I seem to acquire more than I need and they are easily stuffed into one of the stronger bags. When those get to the point of bursting because I don't think about returning them my every waking minute, I finally get motivated to carry them to the front door. Passing that door on the way out I am reminded and simply dump them in the bin at my local store. Recycling has to be easy and it is indeed easier with plastic bags than many other things like electronics and batteries and worse yet, fluorescent light bulbs, yikes!! mercury! When one of those loose bags is beside your car or blowing past you, are you too good to simply pick it up? Good people do good acts. I am not embarrassed to pick up somebody else's trash especially when it is easy for me. When I do, often I see somebody else do it right away. Regardless, setting a good example helps with many folks. Oh, what I would like to do for the people who leave dirty diapers in the parking lot! THAT is another use for those bags. I would like to follow them to their home and put it in their mailbox or set it afire and ring their doorbell. A tight knot seals in the stench. Most often there is a garbage can at the entrance of the store the parking lot serves. An alternative is to wait until you get to a gas station or drive by a dumpster. Take the extra step and set a good example. We need to demonize people who do the pollution with as much zeal as we do at demonizing political views that don't align with ours. If you notice, people living in more affluent places are less likely (with some arrogant exceptions, mostly rich kids) to throw trash outside of their cars. In poorer neighborhoods we much more trash. Perhaps that tells us something about why they are poor. Maybe some of us are simply too lazy to maintain our own, much less have some semblance of ambition of working hard to better themselves. I am not blaming the poor, just pointing out the difference in people who trash and those who take the extra step. Personal accountability and responsibility must come back to be the way of life here in The US as well as abroad. Take some pride for goodness sake! I do not expect an 85 year old to chase a loose bag down in a 10-15 mph wind. I will do what I can to help that. I resolve henceforth to walk down a fence where I see the bags build up and forom time to time, recycle those. In my neighborhood I see grass cut beyond people's yards, in ditches that are not well maintained by the city, state, or whatever. Perhaps "old-school" conservatism such as said accountability, responsibility, taking the extra step, pride in one's home, city, state, and country have some redeeming qualities, eh? How can I say that? How can I descriminate and judge? Seeing more and more "progressivism", laws, deterioration of The American Work Ethic, loss of self-discipline, mutual respect, pride in one's country, pride in one's character, I see less effort among individuals to do their part. Indeed I see more of it in middle income than anywhere else. I see much cleaner areas where people work for what they have. Now they want to take fruits of such effort away and give it to undeserving people. To get off my personal responsibility kick, maybe if they added an extra "dollup" of plastic to the bottom and make then a bit thicker so that they are less likely to blow away quickly and more useful a second and third time around, we could more easily contain them. Ease of handling helps. Free, strong, and thick bags with handles recycle better. They don't lose as much per lb. in heating and recycling. Use them multiple times and when they get holes, stuff them in another used bag and take them to the store for the next round. This would use more plastic in bags that would be used more and longer and be better to recycle. We would need to use less of them because they would have more uses with more strength. The total amount of plastic would continue to be needed and make The ACC (and those who work in the manufacture distribution, transportation, and yes recycling) happy. They would be less likely to blow impossibly fast to catch. They would be more valuable to us. They also could have a deposit value. As a kid, practically every day, I would pick up glass bottles and take them to the store for the deposit so that I would have money to go swimming. Of course to make this worthwhile, the bags again, would have to have mor percieved and actual value including being multi-use. Make thicker, stronger, more useful bags and put a value on them, make them easier to catch, and hold people directly responsible rather than regulate and ban. Regulating and banning takes away freedoms and efficient resources from us. The answer is rarely more laws.

• I think its a good idea. The use of plastic bags creates a lot of pollution.

• Brownsville?? Not exactly my first pick of who would jump on the kneejerk-gotta-be-like-the-Jones bandwagon.

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