On March 1, Austin’s plastic bag ban went into effect. If you talked with folks around town, shoppers and store workers alike, pretty much no one but the city council wanted the ban. Pretty much everyone thinks it’s stupid and a hassle. Carrying a cloth bag around in your trunk, so you can actually carry anything home that you happen to buy at the grocery store, is unsanitary but now everyone has to do it. The ban of the plastic bags looks like it has triggered some forest clear-cutting: Stores now offer sturdy paper bags with handles for those of us who occasionally forget to grab a cloth bag at home or leave it in the car. Some of us end up grabbing a bag from, say, Sprouts, and carrying it into HEB, not to be snarky but to keep the peace. Proactively carrying a bag into the proper store with that store’s logo on it can get the clerks to accuse you of stealing said bag.
But the stupid bag ban remains. Even though, as this infographic shows, the environment doesn’t even benefit from it. Liberals who pass laws and ordinances to feel good about themselves benefit from it. The environment, shoppers and store workers don’t.
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