When San Francisco banned plastic bags 2 years ago, my whoops of joy could be heard across the Golden Gate in Marin. Having grown up in the developing world I grew accustomed - sadly - to seeing plastic bags everywhere they shouldn't be: the streets, clogging drains, polluting rivers, the ocean, even stuck on phone lines. Everywhere except in garbage cans. You can be sure that I for one wasn't going to miss their absence at all.
So imagine my surprise when last week my local Delano's bagger put my groceries in one of these:
That's funny, I could have sworn that plastic bags are illegal in San Francisco. So unless I'm missing something, this shouldn't be allowed.
On second look, the makers of the bag have done their utmost to convince everyone that this is anything but a plastic bag with the liberal use of clever marketing copy. Phrases like "no trees were harmed in the making of this bag", and a cute little "nutrition" box highlighting exactly how it hasn't hurt trees are nice tries - but belie the fact that eventually this bag will no doubt end up in a dump, where it most certainly will hurt a tree.
I get what the folks behind the bag are getting at: we have so many bags in production already that it certainly makes sense to train people to reuse them, thereby preventing more bags from ending up in landfills. Indeed, these particular bags do seem more durable than their crappy white plastic counterparts, so I could definitely imagine using them for more than one grocery run - but let's face it: I can count on one hand the number of people I know who bring eco bags to the store every time they go. Heck, I have 3 such bags in the trunk of my car, and I still manage to forget them each and every time.
As luck would have it, these bags have an answer for our laziness, too - a message nudging us to take them to "participating stores" for recycling. Good idea in principle, until my roommate tried it: turns out our local Delano's isn't one of those stores.
Go figure.
That's funny, I could have sworn that plastic bags are illegal in San Francisco. So unless I'm missing something, this shouldn't be allowed.
On second look, the makers of the bag have done their utmost to convince everyone that this is anything but a plastic bag with the liberal use of clever marketing copy. Phrases like "no trees were harmed in the making of this bag", and a cute little "nutrition" box highlighting exactly how it hasn't hurt trees are nice tries - but belie the fact that eventually this bag will no doubt end up in a dump, where it most certainly will hurt a tree.
I get what the folks behind the bag are getting at: we have so many bags in production already that it certainly makes sense to train people to reuse them, thereby preventing more bags from ending up in landfills. Indeed, these particular bags do seem more durable than their crappy white plastic counterparts, so I could definitely imagine using them for more than one grocery run - but let's face it: I can count on one hand the number of people I know who bring eco bags to the store every time they go. Heck, I have 3 such bags in the trunk of my car, and I still manage to forget them each and every time.
As luck would have it, these bags have an answer for our laziness, too - a message nudging us to take them to "participating stores" for recycling. Good idea in principle, until my roommate tried it: turns out our local Delano's isn't one of those stores.
Go figure.