Ban the Bag Ban

     In this article author of The Bluebonnet State criticizes the plastic bag ban in places around Texas in which it is implemented, and firmly believes this ban needs to be lifted.  I would agree with the author in saying that it is absurd and a very large annoyance. There are many reasons that the ban is a bad thing, and the article's author listed quite a few of them which I will add onto.

     For starters most people that do own reusable bags, will forget the bags either at home or in the car, leaving the customer to carry everything by hand or pay an additional fee for a paper bag.  This also increases the amount of paper waste.  If the argument can be made that paper is recyclable, the same argument can be made for plastic bags. Another argument the author makes is that there are many purposes for plastic bags, so it's not like they are going straight to waste.

     I believe in theory the bag ban is a nice idea and may seem necessary for the state to implement if they want to be "eco-friendly", but it's ultimately not making that much of a difference in the states plastic bag use, simply because you can go outside the city limits and get as many plastic bags as you want.  The article also points out that though plastic bags may be banned other plastic items (plastic bottle, milk cartons, etc) are not banned. They are just are harmful as a bag. Instead of banning plastic bags, the state should focus on having easy access recyclable centers all over. The plastic factories can work on creating clean and recyclable products to be implemented into stores.

     I do agree that the environment is a very precious resource that we take for granted much of the time and we need to do what we can to protect it.  That being said, I also believe that the bag ban needs to either expand to all cities throughout the state to actually create a difference, or it needs to be done away with completely because all its really doing right now is creating a nuisance.