[JDLinn]

I sail model sailboats. One day one sunk. We “sailed” a string across the pond and hooked it to a rope with a grappling hook on the end and began moving the hook back and forth across the pond. Every time the hook came up, it was fouled with plastic bags ... no problem, we took them off and laid them out on the bank of the pond behind us and resumed our deep pond search for the missing sailboat. After a couple of hours we finally hooked the little boat (worth about $800 and worth the effort) and dragged it to the safety of the shore. But the real story was on the bank behind us. We had laid out over 250 plastic bags. A local reporter had a camera and the next thing you know, there was the picture in the paper. I have no moral to this story (except don't chase a goose family with little ones or the big ones will STOMP your boat!). But its curious that people (stores) put their NAMES on these bags ... bags that will last a lifetime in a little pond. Does it hurt the animals, probably not, but you'd think in this age of laws and lawyers, people would rather put their name on a paper bag that “disintegrates” rather than on a plastic bag that “remains” for 100,000 years or so (who knows?). If I was running a company, I'd used paper bags... who knows what retroactive environmental whacko law the libs might come up with to go after deep pockets using the plastic bags as proof? Just food for thought.

[reformedliberal]

Once in a while, especially after strong winds, I will see plastic bags snagged on trees/bushes in my rural area of Wisconsin. I never see them in/around our small river and my sailor husband has never found them around his slip when he has to go under the boat to clear water weeds. Rarely, I see them in the ditches, but we have good Adopt-A-Highway programs that keep the roadsides clean.

However, on the windward side of every island I have ever explored in the Pacific and Caribbean, there are literally mountains of trash, including the bags. Fishermen will build markers out of them that only last a short time until the next storm.

Degradable bags would be fine. Not using plastic bags would be fine. But political stunts like banning them or charging for them are useless, again, IMO.

Years ago, I was having a conversation with a friend about recycling. I had been told by the manager of our landfill that except for aluminum, they have more recyclables than they can sell and every once in a while, they just put the cans and bottles into the landfill. My friend was shocked and stated that she recycles because “it makes me feel better about myself.”

We have had anti-littering programs for 35 years. Why aren’t they succesful enough to keep all these bags out of your lake? The world really was a messier place back in the 1960s and it seems to me that this has improved tremendously. However, it is all about control, not about wildlife, the environment or cleanliness.

I do agree that companies that print their names on non-degradable bags are simply asking for a judgement.