07-20-2011, 03:21 AM
Frankly, if all plastic grocery bags were to disappear tomorrow I would be fine with it, no matter the inconvenience. I really came to dislike the wretched things while living on Maui during 2002-4. We hauled our rubbish to the landfill on the Maui isthmus below Kula. North shore Maui is frequently very windy from the trade direction and the funnel effect of the valley creates a steady and strong breeze through the landfill. The perhaps quarter mile long access road to the rubbish drop off area is bordered by a six or eight foot high chain link fence. Nearly the entire fence, for its entire length, was coated by tens (hundreds?) of thousands of flapping grocery bags, like miniature ghosts taunting you. Evidently, the churning of the rubbish material by the machines brought the bags to the surface and the constant wind picked them up and plastered them to the fence. Once there they slowly disintegrated in the sun and their pieces scattered further into the landscape. While the scene was ugly enough, the sheer enormous quantity of disposed plastic bags displayed so graphically on the fence brought home what a wasteful and disgraceful addition to the environment these bags are. All for the convenience of waste baskets and dog poo? Good riddance.