So I started doing this, and I was caught by surprise by how many people did not want a plastic bag. Mostly women but a few men would say things like, "I don't need a plastic bag. I am trying to save the environment," or, "Save the bag, save the dump," or, "I brought my own," and out would pop a cloth shopping bag.
It started to make me mad because I would put the item in the bag and as I was separating the bag from the pile of bags they would say this and I would have to take the item out of the bag. Then I had the problem of how was I supposed to put the bag back on the pile of bags. It was physically impossible because they stick together and once removed they don't want to go back on. Sometimes the customer would take out the item from the bag and throw the plastic bag onto the table saying they didn't need it.
I started to wonder, "Do people really believe that not using a few plastic bags is good for the environment?" You know what the problem is? We have been told for so long the negatives of plastic that we think it is a bad creation and hence its derivative, plastic bags, are no good either. Things like it won't biodegrade for thousands of years and finally, "It takes oil to make and we will run out of oil and have a crisis on our hands.
I want to dispel these myths. It does take thousands of years for plastic bags to bio-degrade but and here is the thing people forget, It only takes a dump 15 or 20 years to fill up with regular degradable waste. All we are doing by not sending a plastic bag to a dump is prolonging the life of a garbage dump. If you think about it, a plastic bag is very thin and flat when unloaded. How much room are we possibly saving?
And as most of you know, and who do not have stock in that private garbage company, it is a private waste management authority that makes a profit getting rid of the waste. So all we are doing is benefiting a private company by helping them have a little more space to dump for a couple of extra years while they find a new space for a dump to start the dumping process again. Let them find a new dump now and get it ready. Why help them out? They charge an arm and a leg anyway, which gets put on the tax payers back.
I mean face it. The only people who this helps are the garbage company. Also there is still oil to be found. Unfortunately, the arctic is slowly losing its ice sheets opening up new territory to explore oil. And if they are allowed to produce oil in the arctic then it is only a matter of time before they find ways of producing oil in Antarctica. Antarctica is a continent and I am sure millions of dinosaurs roamed its land when it was still in a good climate. And if not there must have been other creatures that died that produced oil so we still have places to go to find oil. Also plastic bags can be made from things other than oil, like coal, which we have a 300 year supply of. So, use plastic bags. You are not destroying the environment you are helping it. Why?
One last thing to remember, when a garbage dump closes it is sealed so no water can get in, the material in it can't leak out and it is covered with soil. A few years go by and a government official realizes he has a gold mind on his hands because this dump can be turned into parkland with views of the country side that people would love to take pictures of or see and starts the process of park appropriation.
Once again the private garbage company makes a profit by selling the land to the government or being paid fair market value by the dump being taken away by eminent domain. However it is acquired, in fact the garbage company could donate the land for some kinds of tax write off, don't be afraid of the plastic bag. It has been and always shall be our friend.
