Think Globally and Act Locally

In previous posts, here and here, I discussed how much oil is wasted on things like plastic bags - and straws. Sadly, I FAILED to adequately consider Khal and cafiend's suggestions about reducing the use of bags at the store. Reusing lightweight bags for produce and meat is indeed a viable option. It becomes more viable yet if a dog poop solution not involving bags can be found. I will address those observations in  a post to come soon.

Also, even more sadly, though my post was made nearly FIVE YEARS AGO, nowadays neither link take one to a place that is useful in discovering where to take a pesky plastic bag. The site that worked before, now provides no useful information at all. It shows a generic "Discover our New Home" page without any clear indication about where the new home is. THAT page is shown below:

Luckily, clicking through the various places that WERE listed provided a page that will identify the closest places that will recycle plastic bags. That site can be reached directly here and is a "dot org" site. As you may see, the closest locations are 25 to 50 miles away. I suspect few people are going to go to that amount of effort to recycle plastic bags. Still, at least both of the places identified were still in business, unlike the equivalent search five years ago.

Since that post, "bag bans" have been implemented in places like California and Washington State, and have been attempted in places like Laredo and Austin, Texas, though the courts ruled that such local bans were illegal. Perhaps Texas did the right thing for the wrong reasons. As it turns out, these bans have actually INCREASED the amount of plastic bags going in to landfills. The most recent LA Times story on bags may be found here. A related evaluation, summarizing the Times findings, is here.