Once upon a time, people would happily gather up their steak bones, used Kleenex, and slimy meat wrappers into plastic garbage bags the night before the garbage truck made its rounds. Then these happy people would happily deposit their garbage bags on the curb.

That all changed the day that municipalities started demanding $1 per bag. No longer could you discard of a half-full garbage bag. You had to get your money’s worth, even if that meant stinking up the garage by leaving the garbage an extra week. After all, if you threw away a bag that was only 82% full, you wasted a whole eighteen cents. Instead, you’d stuff and stuff and stuff until you could stuff no more.

Then cities started charging $2. Some even demanded clear bags to ensure you weren’t sticking Campbell’s soup cans where they must not go. Garbage was serious business.

The effect is still rippling out. Last month my favourite grocery store stopped handing out plastic bags for free. Instead of warning customers, though, they made an “exciting announcement!” They wanted to save the planet, and they would do this by requiring you to pay for bags. Isn’t that grand?

It certainly is environmentally friendly, though grocery stores congratulating themselves on their civic mindedness as they inconvenience us goes a little far. And I do know that we all should be using canvas bags. I even bought green boxes a decade ago. They’re ever so handy to carry things upstairs and downstairs, or to lug books in, or to use as alternate suitcases when you’re camping. I even use them to separate my recyclables into four different categories! In fact, they’re so handy that they never remain in my car so that I would have them when I’m grocery shopping. Come to think of it, I have the identical problem with those pesky canvas bags. They’re always everywhere but at the checkout counter.

Nevertheless, that’s not even my main problem. I’m all for stopping excessive landfill, but shortly after we started using these reusable shopping bags, like good Canadian citizens are supposed to do, I went to change the garbage in my kitchen and I didn’t have a plastic bag to line the can afterwards. What are you supposed to do with all the soggy leftover Cheerios? With the gooey stuff that sticks to the bottom of the roaster? With the dried egg that remains on the frying pan because my youngest daughter forgot to spray it before she scrambled? You can’t throw that directly into the can! You need a bag.

I could, of course, just buy packages of kitchen catchers, but that seems like too big a leap. And thus I arrived at the modern dilemma: those plastic grocery bags we were once given actually served a purpose. They didn’t travel solo to a landfill; they carried my wet trash. And I still need that plastic.

So I went to my grocery store, deliberately leaving the canvas bags behind. When the cashier asked, “Would you like bags today?”, I proudly replied, “Why yes, I would!”. Every head turned in my direction with horror. But I didn’t care. I wheeled my groceries out, plastic bags and all, with my head held high. I have soggy Cheerios that need a home, and these bags fit the bill. When they’re filled up, my husband will stuff and stuff and stuff our garbage into our jumbo garbage bag, and affix our $2 sticker to it. Times may have changed, but garbage is still garbage. And I still need a place to put it.

Labels: columns, environment, social issues