Once upon a time, in the early part of the second decade of the 21st Century, a debate ensued among the Lords and Ladies of the local governments of California. Los Angeles County and the little kingdom of Weho were in the forefront of serious discussion about the hazards of plastic bags used provided by the grocery stores for the convenience of the serfs and their harmful impact on the oceans and sea life. Their concerns were truly laudable. I for one love all form of non-human creatures, including the ones of the deep.
The complexities were enormous. Not only were plastic bags bad for the ocean, but other possibilities, like the paper bag, had their own deficiencies. Most ended up in landfills and failed to biodegrade for far too long a period. There being no perfection in human existence, a proclamation was made, although for the life of me, I still do not understand exactly what changed, except that bags were deemed "reusable", many were still plastic, only thicker than those that had previously been used, and all bags now came with a price tag of 10 cents, unless. . . .you brought your own tote, or bought for prices ranging from 99 cents to nearly 5 dollars, a tote with the logo of the stores of your choice. Since the dawn of the time of the reusable bag, I have bought them, like the lovely thick burlap-ish material of the Trader Joe bag (which I often use for laundry), and forgotten to bring them back down to my car for my next foray into the grocery aisles. I thus have a collection hidden behind an easel in my living room. As I use the reusable plastic bags for disposing of trash and used cat litter, I conceded that I simply would be paying the extra 10 cents per bag for up to about 5 bags a shopping trip. How ocean life was preserved by the reusable plastic bag I could not fathom. But I didn't make these rules, and, like all of us in the land I made do with the reality--which seemed to me to be a highly questionable one, but questionable governmental decisions are the rule, and accepted that there was a new tax, though not called a tax, on plastic bags, denominated as reusable. I could not figure how they would be better for the fish or the turtle, but that was beyond my pay grade. And while bags like the Trader Joe one above, variations to be had at every store, Gelson's, or Bristol Farms, or Ralphs, seemed to me to be fertile for all sorts of bacteria (as if people really would wash their bags), since I hardly ever used mine anyway, I just took the 10 cent plastic and accepted another aspect of my modern fate.
And then came the Coronavirus. It was decreed by the very same authorities who had created the grocery bag bingo through the second decade of the 2000's that the reusable non-plastic bags were no longer acceptable. In fact, they appear to have become death traps along with other people and every physical item that a human being could possibly touch. In a moment of absent mindedness I actually took the Trader Joe bag above, which had somehow managed to escape from behind my easel barrier, to one of my grocery stores to contain my groceries. The horror! "No, we cannot use those!"
I breathed back my hot exhale trapped behind my cloth mask, and conceded my foolishness, although the incongruity of suddenly denominating something unsafe that was always unsafe, did cross my mind.
I purchased the reusuable plastic bag. Since then, the bags are no longer, well, at least until this first phase of shutdown is over (to be replaced I am personally certain by other shutdowns as viruses and stray diseases are the lot of humans), provided with a charge.
I am saving about 50 cents a shopping trip. I just don't know how this is helping the sea life.
No comments:
Post a Comment