Opinion: Plastic bag ban or not, it's up to us to do the right thing

The City of South Lake Tahoe imposed a single use, plastic bag ban for grocery stores in the city limits in October of 2013. The original ordinance was for grocery stores to implement the new policy on January 15, 2014 and for all other retail outlets to begin on October 15. During the June 17th City Council meeting, three Council members decided that the ban on all other retail outlets should be postponed and the final vote on that will be during this week's Council meeting.

Whatever their reasons were, I personally was disappointed at the decision. After all, those of us who are baby boomers never had plastic bags in our households when we were growing up, yet we survived. Arguments used during the Council meetings on the subject have ranged from people needing small garbage can liners, contractors needing small bags to carry their nails and screws, the ability to carry groceries down the street and the fact that their dog clean up bags would be gone.

Seriously?

If we can't look to city leaders to force us to change our habits, then we need to look to ourselves. Bags are a small part of our overuse of plastic products that needs to be evaluated.

Life existed before plastic, that we know. It's just another part of our daily lives that derives from a love affair with oil (plastic is made from oil) and convenience.

We've become a nation dependent on easy and convenient. Products made from plastic are a part of our every day lives. They hold the milk, juice and strawberries in our refrigerators. We type on our plastic keyboards on laptops and personal computers, we drive cars with plastic components. Plastics of any kind make our lives easier, and seemingly better. However, our love affair with plastic is not sustainable.

When we toss out our plastic products we may not think of where they can end up. Our garbage ends up on beaches, in parks and along waterways where animals can come into contact with them. Have you seen the pictures on television where an animal ends up with soda can rings around its neck or where they've died after after choking on a plastic bag. Eliminate plastic and it won't end up in our environment.

Most of us have a collection now of reusable bags that we take to the grocery store. Why not change our shopping behaviors at stores that aren't required to end their use of plastic and either carry in our own bag or refuse their offered bag?

We can even choose to only support the businesses that offer non-plastic bags. Consumers are a powerful force and the industry will change if we demand it. We have changed our behaviors on many things in the past including insecticides, oil, gas, electricity and water consumption as well as cigarettes. Are we prepared to demand the end of plastic and plastic bags?

Don't leave it up to the City Council or other government entity to tell you to stop using plastic, let's do it ourselves. Businesses not currently required to eliminate the use of plastic bags can do the right thing and do it on their own.