A D’Agostino bag decorates the cherry tree in the secret garden.If you haven’t already joined the ranks of the tote-bag-toting, read this: Polymers are Forever.
Plus, if you just say no, you’ll avoid that aggravating explosion of plastic bags every time you open the drawer or cupboard where you stash them.
14 comments:
Yeah, plastic bags in trees seem like the most hopeless, despairing image to me.
Last year, there was one stuck in the tree outside my office window for probably six months. It was really depressing.
God wants us to carry plastic bags around. Otherwise he would have given us stomach pouches like the koala and the kangaroo.
Would our pouches be all mucus-y like theirs?
Kangaroo pouches are mucus-y? Thanks for killin' the dream, Matt. (Notice the comma placement)
Mmmm. Mucus. Yeah. That's gross. Maybe we really descended from kangaroos and that's why little kids are so inclined to pick their noses--you know, b/c they subconsciously miss the mucus. I'll ask my nephew what he thinks about that theory.
Kari, that's gross. Seriously. (As Eric/Klaus would say.)
A really crappy movie once tried to tell me plastic bags were beautiful.
There's been a plastic bag stuck in a tree and a mylar balloon stuck in the powerline at the school across from my apartment. Both of them have been there since I moved into the place in May 2006. I can't do much about the balloon, but I've been tempted SO many times to hop the school's fence and try to get that plastic bag down.
We need to encourage a creature to evolve to the point where it eats plastic bags. Preferably a flying creature, so it can clean up those trees and power lines.
Yes, that’s exactly it, Brian! Microbes have learned to eat even oil, but there are none that can digest plastic yet, because 50 years is too short a time for evolution to develop the necessary biochemistry, as Alan Weisman says in his book. That’s why plastic never really goes away.
(I know it’s a long excerpt I linked to, but it’s one of the best, and if any of you have some time, you should print it out and read it.)
So it’s no excuse for us not reducing our plastic usage, but maybe someday there will be something that will munch on plastic and thereby return it to the Earth. Brian, get on that. You could make our fortune!
I'll invest in that venture!
BTW, scary about the Great Pacific Garbage Dump, and the 5 others like it (or was it 6 others?) around the world. Maybe that should be Bill Gates's next project: fund boat trips to these oceanic garbage dumps to show the public where their plastic bags end up.
NYC is seriously overzealous when it comes to bagging. People are always trying to put full cups of coffee in bags. Paper bags, but still. The cup is shaped like a hand for a reason! I can't drink it if it's in a bag!
And what's with the straws?! Gatorade with straws. Bottled water with straws. I once bought Pepto Bismol at a bodega and the man tried to give me a straw. Okay, that was a lie.
And finally: paper napkins. Having worked in the service industry my fair share, I'm constantly repulsed by people swiping these by the fistful and then hardly using any. Finger-licking strengthens the immune system. New Yorkers could all use that.
I have been perplexed by the paper-bag-with-beverage phenomenon since I moved here. Is it to keep your hand from getting all condensation-y? Is it so you can pretend you’re drinking liquor out of a bag? The placing of a full coffee cup in a bag seems particularly precarious and misguided.
I take the bag and straw anyway, though. When in Rome…
When I moved to NYC, I was puzzled by all the straw offers, too. At first I thought it was a makeup thing--you know, so women didn't mess up their carefully applied lipstick. Then I (half-jokingly) thought it might be because of New Yorkers' sensitive teeth from whitening and dentalwork. But then I learned the REAL reason, and it COMPLETELY GROSSED ME OUT:
Rat urine. Seriously.
These cans and bottles are stored in warehouses where rats are often climbing all over the merchandise and, as rats do, leaving behind their bodily wastes as a lovely present to us humans. The vendor might give the cans and bottles a cursory wipe before selling them, but they've been exposed to rats for who knows how long.
You're SO much better off using a straw. Trust me.
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