Here is something to keep in mind as you do your Fourth of July shopping.

The state of California is on the verge of banning plastic bags. Specifically, the type of plastic bags I’m talking about are those that one uses to cart their purchases home from a retail store.

Personally, if I lived in California, that would make me happy. Not just because of the reduced environmental impact that a ban of these bags could have (in both a conservation and aesthetic sense), but because the functionality of these bags just plain stinks. Using them to haul home your groceries is simply a task of frustration.

Whoever thought that these would be regarded as a superior technology?

Have you also experienced this? When you pack your groceries in these idiotic carrying devices, you can put only a few average sized items in each plastic bag. The bag’s capacity is too small for an average grocery order, so you end up with many, many, many plastic bags to cart out of the store. Then, when you place the loaded bags on the floor of your car or in your trunk, most, if not all, of their contents spill out because plastic bags have no structure. Why even bother putting your things in the bag?

The San Francisco Chronicle article that I read about the proposed ban stated that, instead of using plastic bags, shoppers would need either to bring their own bags or to pay a surcharge for the superior carrying technology available from those large brown paper bags we used to know so well before these plastic bags came to town. That would be fine with me.

Paying an extra dollar so that I wouldn’t need to deal with the frustration of the plastic bag packing would be a bargain.

Have a Happy Independence Day.