I hate plastic grocery bags. Whoever created them ought to be smothered by using one - slowly. These poor excuses for bags don't hold as much as the old standard brown paper bag, making me take home more of them. The bags litter the landscape; they're light and can be blown easily about by the wind. Yes, they are stronger than paper and more durable. Although they do have a convenient? handle, it cuts into my hand. The claim to biodegradibility must try one's patience. I have to ask for paper bags at the supermarket, and the bag boys don't know how to load them anymore. Gone are the days of the carefully packed, overflowing large brown bag, with the larger, heavier and more durable items placed at the bottom. Now they place a few items in one bag and others in another, causing me the difficulty of juggling two awkward packages. Likewise, they use too many plastic bags. Such waste!

I have a large bag (guess what kind) in my pantry full of plastic grocery bags saved for recycling. These bags don't fold neatly flat like the paper bags. The best one can do is attempt to wad them up, but alas they expand. Some supermarkets do offer recycling bins for the bags in an effort to be eco-responsible. I thank them. It's not too much trouble to take them back on a trip to buy groceries. But the brown paper bag makes a fine, biodegradible trash can liner, assisted in its decomposition by the moist garbage it contains.

The American people have once again been hoodwinked in the name of convenience, and perhaps cost, by those whose only wish is to make money. Perhaps it's convenient for the supermarkets. Some conveniences simply aren't. The environment be damned. The people be bamboozled. Do we really need these? An ecologically sound policy would ban plastic bags. Write your supermarket president.