Convenience VS. Ecology
Stop Plastic!

Plastic bags were just outlawed (first in California, where else?) from the supermarkets. Then from drugstores. Plastic bags have come to be no more, no longer used, no longer manufactured for California. Now, it’s soon for your state. Why?

Why it’s for the good of the environment, Honey! Plastic doesn’t decompose in landfills. It lasts and outlasts. California (always first) has put a “stop” law on these bags to keep them out of landfills, out of the ocean. Have you ever seen the news reports of this gigantic doughnut of plastic stuff in the ocean that’s continuously and permanently circling upon itself, goosed by ocean currents?

What to use to replace plastic shopping bags? We’ll get to that shortly. But beforehand, let’s consider foreign countries. Most of their people go food shopping with their own knitted bags that they carry with them from home to markets. And so for them, this problem of pollution is much less of a plastic-hazard than it is in our country. In fact and however, no American would be caught dead with such a bag made from cloth in their pocket! Oh, well.

They call it litter once the plastic bag is thrown out or used to line wastepaper baskets and small kitchen, garbage cans, then discarded. But if anyone litters these bags in my state, there won’t be a fine because soon there won’t be any empty plastic bags to dump. There will be bags (reusable bags) and stronger than paper or plastic.

These substitute bags that look like the old plastic bags, even stronger than them, are starting to appear at the markets and other retail outlets. I came away today from Walgreens with one of these replacement bags marked: (HDPE recyclable. AB03, A06ZT, WIC# 958803) and also marked: (WARNING: Keep This Bag Away From Babies and Children. Do Not Use In Cribs, Beds, Carriages or Playpens. The Thin Film May Cling To Nose and Mouth and Prevent Breathing. Reusable.) Although really a snuff bag, it’s quite a nice bag for carrying heavy items.

We can anticipate similar bags constructed without plastic from other manufacturers that will soon appear, will become an ubiquitous part of our lives. Now we can sit back and we can breathe easily. Our lives can continue as normal now that replacements have been invented for the plastic bag. And this, too, relieves the strain on the price of oil (plastic is derived from chemicals from oil). But wait, what is this HDPE stuff made from?

I asked the drugstore sales clerk (along with thousands of other customers each day) what is this bag made from? The answer: from corn starch. I showed the bag to someone in my building and he says they’re using bags made from bean starch where he works.

WHOA!

We and the other but hungrier people in this world are going through a worldwide food shortage and excessive prices for staples … and they’re going to manufacture zillions and zillions of bags made from food! WHOA! I hope I’m jumping to conclusions on this catch-22 baggy scheme, I really hope I’m wrong.

But it doesn’t seem that way, does it? And if the rest of the nation follows California (they always do) then there’ll be kaka-zillions and kaka-zillions of bags made in one day possibly from what — corn and beans! And you thought the ethanol-from-corn scheme ended up badly, eliminating ample food crops — Good Gawk! You ain’t seen nuttin’ yet!

Do I have a better answer? Yes, I do. Make the reusable bags that will replace plastic bags from hemp. Not wacky-weed! From hemp.

The following quotes are from the North American Industrial Hemp Council’s web site. Please go there:

Facts About Hemp!

History facts:

*Hemp has been grown for at least the last 12,000 years for fiber (textiles and paper) and food. It has been effectively prohibited in the United States since the 1950s.
*George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp. Ben Franklin owned a mill that made hemp paper. Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper.
*When US sources of “Manila hemp” (not true hemp) was cut off by the Japanese in WWII, the US Army and US Department of Agriculture promoted the “Hemp for Victory” campaign to grow hemp in the US.
*Because of its importance for sails (the word “canvass” is rooted in “cannabis”) and rope for ships, hemp was a required crop in the American colonies.

SCIENTIFIC FACTS

*Industrial hemp and marijuana are both classified by taxonomists as Cannabis sativa, a species with hundreds of varieties. C. sativa is a member of the mulberry family. Industrial hemp is bred to maximize fiber, seed and/or oil, while marijuana varieties seek to maximize THC (delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana).
*While industrial hemp and marijuana may look somewhat alike to an untrained eye, an easily trained eye can easily distinguish the difference.

(You can find on the NAIHC site some additional Scientific Facts, Industry Facts and Ecology Facts.)

That’s my answer to their food-starch answer — make the bags from hemp. Hemp and wacky-weed are not the same, with the same benefits. Okay, let’s sit back and breathe easily and see where this suggestion goes/see whether it is taken seriously.

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