No impact on shopping bag conundrum

So I finally finished “No Impact Man,” and the first question that comes to mind is this: Should I take back what I said a few weeks ago about plastic shopping bags?

My point at the time: It’s all well and good that people use their own canvas shopping bags, but what are they going to use to line small trash cans around the house? If you stop accepting store-issued plastic shopping bags -- and businesses then stop providing them -- but you then buy plastic liners for your trash cans, has anything really changed, other than consumers picking up an extra expense as businesses eliminate one?

In the weeks since I wrote that, I have to admit that our plastic shopping bag stash had gotten out of hand. We just weren’t using them as quickly as they were coming in, and the one bag where I kept the other bags was overflowing onto the floor. If I take Colin Beaven’s advice, I stop worrying about what I line my bathroom trash can with because I eliminate bathroom trash, along with every other kind of trash. And if I’m not ready for that step, then maybe I could do the next best thing: Eliminate the liners. Unfortunately, I’m not yet that enlightened, either. (I’ve got a chewing gum phobia, and I can’t stand the sight of gum stuck to ... well, anything, not even a trash can. Anybody up for a movement to eliminate chewing gum from the planet? I’d be all over that one.)

Anyway, here’s how I’m adapting at this point: I’m not accepting as many plastic bags as I used to. And I’m storing the ones I do have, to be used as trash-can liners and dog-poop scoopers and so forth, neatly folded in a box, where they don’t take up nearly as much room. There are 26 bags in the box, which ought to last us a while. So I’m going to try not to bring anymore home from the store for a while.

But I’m not going to take back what I said. Because when it comes to this plastic bag problem, I still feel like Big Business is trying to shift both the blame and the expense to individuals -- which sounds an awful lot like what happened in the days of the national anti-litter campaign, according to Colin Beaven’s book.