In 1977, a new variable was introduced to the retail market: plastic shopping bags. The inventors and marketers of plastic bags thought they could fill a vacuum by marketing plastic bags as the solution to the problem of paper bag production: having to cut down trees. This threw the old paper bag into a funk.

Plastic bags became one of those pyrrhic victories. It won over paper but lost in helping us achieve the original goal of sustainability. Both plastic and paper came hand in hand with the single-use principle. They were convenient and easy to throw away. Such disposability has resulted in urban landscapes strewn with random plastic trash. Beyond the land, our oceans are filled with similar consumer trash. In the Northern Pacific Gyre, an area twice the size of Texasis filled with plastic. Its name, the Eastern Garbage Patch, is a lovely evocation of our postmodern era of unintended consequences and recovery. Visualize this last half century’s legacy as a whirlpool of plastic junk.

Plastic bags are also petroleum products and have all the associated problems of fossil fuels. The most immediate is the environmental and health impacts from extracting crude oil, the production of plastic and finally, its longevity. A single fragment of plastic can last for four hundred to one thousand years. As it degrades, its chemicals leak into the ecosystem and up the food chain.

Additionally, plastics have varying degrees of recyclability. Plastic bags belong to the number four category of plastics, LDPE. Only one percent of plastic bags are recycled. Trex, a manufacturer of composite decking, buys up 50% of the above percentage and mixes it with recycled wood to make planks. This is a case of downcycling. Even as they crush and reuse the plastic, they create another non-recyclable consumer product. The effective way to eliminate plastic bags is through incineration. It’s not a desirable proposition for its noxious by-product.

Many large grocery chains and retailers will stockpile used bags and sell them to recyclers, brokers and companies like Trex. Realistically, though, how many people have passed by a near empty container labeled “recycle your bags” at the local grocery store? It never seems to get beyond a certain level. According to the American Chemistry Council, the Progressive Bag Affiliates are launching an aggressive branding campaign to encourage recycling plastic bags.

Most community curbside recycling programs do not accept plastic bags because, more often that not, they clog the recycling machinery. In San Francisco, Recycle Central would rather truck these bags into the regular dumpster than let them go into the machines. Even as they try to avoid this problem, during hours and after hours, certain workers have to climb the machinery with kneepads and a knife to clear out the plastic clumps.

Here is a recycling symbol guide from The Daily Green to help you work out what should go into your blue recycling bins. You should also look up the guidelines posted by your own curbside recycling program. Generally, they will provide a specific list or a chart of household products they do accept. Your municipal program should also provide a list of locations for recycling or disposing electronic waste and hazardous waste.

Are these solutions merely loose bandages on a vast, endemic problem?

Finally, we just need to use and consume less. The most basic requirement when we shop is a container that will lift maybe 20-40 lbs of material goods. The best thing to do is (1) invest in reusable bags like canvas totes, Chicobags that can hang from a keychain, basket or cart, (2) reduce extraneous packaging and (3) go the way of Ireland, Taiwan, South Africa, Bangladesh, Thailand and China. As recently as January 2008, they’ve banned or leveled a tax on plastic bags. If you take things to go, a viable packaging alternative for restaurants and markets to adapt are biocompostable products.