Hefty this

As I was cleaning up my apartment this Tuesday morning after a weekend of letting things get rather messy, I also decided to reorganize all of the cupboards and cabinets in my apartment.  What can I say, once the cleaning frenzy takes hold, you might as well just go with it.  This involved stuffing the millions of plastic grocery bags that I have accumulated over the past few months into the bag holder on the cabinet door rather than just flying loose under the sink.  

Then I got to thinking about how many ducks could choke to death from eating the plastic that I have under my sink should I unleash it on a landfill, and how wasteful it is to have so many of these bags when I have so many perfectly good canvas bags I could grocery shop.  Then I thought how annoyed I get when cashiers try to give me a huge bag to go with tiny purchases like mascara or a new pen.   I don't know why with all the green initiatives out there it hasn't been mandated to restrict on plastic bag usage, or bag usage at all, or to implement more environmentally friendly bags.

I know that there is a debate about whether paper bags or plastic bags are more detrimental to the environment since paper bags mean tree destruction, but plastic bags don't biodegrade.  However, I don't understand why there has been no progress in creating a trash bag that won't languish in a trash dump for all of eternity.  I mean we can make these cool new biodegradable pots for gardening to replace the old plastic standard that simply decompose into the earth once planted, and they appear pretty sturdy.  Why hasn't anyone tried to make a garbage bag that won't leak out all the goopy gunk, but will gradually decompose with the trash inside after a few years?  A development like this could make a great difference in the way our landfills function.  I think Hefty should stop bragging about their virtually indestructible bags that can stretch, contain an elephant, and survive the most raunchy trash and get on it.