Why stop with plastic bags?

 

Dallas City Council member Dwane Caraway is on a tear. He wants to ban plastic bags. I guess he doesn't think Dallas has enough problems without creating one.

 

At any rate, Dwane says, "The bags collecting on the trees and in the Trinity River and White Rock Lake and Bachman Lake, somebody's going to have to clean it up someday. Might as well start now."

 

Sounds good -- but are we going to ban automobile tires, too? I've seen creek beds with enough rubber in them to make a 50 foot Super Ball. How about refrigerators and stoves? I've seen quite a few of those tossed away as well. Aluminum cans and plastic bottles? I see more of those than I do plastic bags. And cigarette butts -- nothing more disgusting unless you consider the morons who leave poopy diapers on parking lots. So let's ban diapers.

 

Dwane's problem is one that plagues many liberals. Rather than calling for strict enforcement of the laws on the books (littering), they prefer to punish all the law abiding people by taking away their conveniences. I know many people who recycle those plastic bags by using them to dispose of their pets' waste. Which would you rather step on -- a plastic bag or a pile of doggie doo? I use them as bathroom trash liners. I also keep a supply in the trunk of my car, and they've come in handy quite often for sacking muddy items or disposing of trash. Scot Wisner weighed in on the subject. He says, "Spend a few buck on an assortment of reusable fabric bags and change your habits." Do you really want to put dog feces in a fabric bag? And if you do, do you really want to reuse it? I guess Scot is unaware of the studies that show fabric bags can be repositories of some pretty nasty bacterial growth just from carrying fresh meat from the grocery store in them.

 

And those reusable and paper bags? They eventually wear out, and guess where they'll probably end up. By the way, I haven't even touched on how much the plastic bag ban will cause the price of groceries, etc. to rise. So my advice to you, Dwane, is to MYOB. If you don't like plastic bags, don't use them, but leave the rest of us alone.

 

"Talking Points." The Dallas Morning News; June 9, 2013; p. 1P.

"Change bag habits." The Dallas Morning News; June 13, 2013; p. 14A.