Heal the Bag

Heal the Bay and their sycophants are blasting the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for not outright banning plastic shopping bags - yet, like that model of common sense, San Francisco. They want the Board to intrude more into the business world and micromanage stores even more than they do already. Although environmentalists once hailed plastic bags as a better choice to brown paper bags, they now act like they are a bigger problem than street gangs.

Why?

Because some of the bags end up as litter and most of them are not recycled. By this reasoning, the Board should ban condoms and environmental advocacy materials.

I don’t know about you, but I find plastic bags to be very useful. I use them to take cans and bottles to recycling centers. I’m sure Heal the Bay would not want to discourage me from doing that. They are good as trash can liners. They are good for picking up dog poop, which I know Heal the Bay doesn’t want to discourage, as they don’t want pet feces making its way to the ocean. Though I’m not sure who is stopping the whales from making their “contributions” to the ocean, and if Heal the Bay thinks that land animal waste wasn’t making its way to the ocean for most of the last several thousand years, I wonder how bright they really are. Finally, plastic bags are excellent for assisting during assaults and for when USC students need to discard infants and are either ignorant or indifferent to the Board’s promotion of “Safe Surrender” of infants. This is the same Board, by the way, that publicizes “deadbeat dads”, who would have been completely off the hook if their sex partner had taken advantage of Safe Surrender.

Okay, so I’m kidding about that last advantage of plastic bags. But I do find them very convenient and helpful. And I have never, ever let one get away from me to become litter. I recycle most of them, and put the others to good secondary and tertiary use. Why should I be punished because of some careless people? I can’t help but think this is part of the movement to adapt to conditions caused, in part, by an influx of poor, ignorant illegal aliens. Let’s face it – neighborhoods where they live and congregate tend to have more litter. But since the Board doesn’t control the border, the Board can only react, and the rest of us have to deal with it.

The suggestion by folks like Heal the Bay is “Take your own permanent bag to the store.”

Okay, so even if I get in the habit of keeping my own bags in the car in case I make an unplanned stop at the store, I need more bags for some visits than others. If I come across a deal and want to buy a higher volume of an item, I need to be prepared. And how welcoming are stores going to be of someone carrying a bunch of bags with them as they go shopping? Ever hear of shoplifting? But I know the socialists who populate many environmental advocacy groups don’t consider property rights as important as keeping a bag out of the ocean.

Speaking of the ocean and “healing” the bay – I swam a lot in the supposedly polluted bay growing up, and I’m fairly healthy. I kind of like a certain amount of “pollution” in the bay, because I don’t like having to deal with poisonous, stinging, biting, and predatory ocean animals, who are more likely to be there in the surf if the water is cleaner.

Thanks, Heal the Bay, for trying to make villains out of supermarkets and other stores, when you should be shaming the careless bag users who litter or don't recycle. Be sure to do that ad campaign in multiple languages. Don't punish everyone for the actions of some.