Ignoring the Financial Crisis:
Your plastic bag future

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

The lightning quick and overwhelmingly collectivized withdrawal of investors from Emerging Markets (EM) on Friday has left many average Americans scratching their heads trying to understand how China, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey and a host of other countries are linked. Trust me, they are: the world in toto is one massive organism sharing a common nervous system. Stomp on the little toe and every other part flinches. Stomp on several little piggies and the Dow drops more than $300 (recalling that they’re Dollars, not Points).

So, while major investors and fund managers scurry to mitigate losses and shore-up portfolios, consider California where the lone shopping bag has become, once again, the target of legislation intended to eradicate it from their supermarkets.

The latest legislative approach provides for California’s government to fund a transition from existing to sustainable technology, and to thus eliminate the scourge of flimsy, “airborne” bags from the neighborhoods and highways of California. About time...

Interestingly (or not) I had always presumed that these annoyances, tethered to trees and collecting wildly against chain-link fences, came predominantly from China. Mostly they do. I’ll presume, too, that California doesn’t propose to fund Chinese manufacturers of this environmental nemesis.

So who will they fund?

Bags used at the supermarket have to meet Food and Drug Administration (FDA) certification as Food Grade containers, which eliminates the possibility of them being made in places where they may not be certified, such as in converted sewage treatment plants or around dung piles in Mexico.

In California, Universal Plastics manufactures a large percentage of the bags used to transport food - monogrammed and/or personalized with the store’s logo - but that represents an apparently small portion of their business. One would expect that if this legislation passes, Universal Plastics will be the recipients of California's largesse, inspiring them to seek more environmentally-friendly ways to produce food bags that the average consumer will find more retainable for subsequent use, other than for picking up dog shite.

But food bags are only a part of the problem, albeit a large part: Bags used by many other large and small retailers alike that do not require FDA certification come from China. They are made from the Oil they import. Their manufacture is a major source of pollution in China, too, both in the manufacturing process as well as in their use.

I envision that if the downward trend continues in the world’s financial markets that plastic bags will find a new and important role in our lives as we all stuff into them what’s left of our personal belongings and strike out to find a suitable bus bench, cave, or doorway in which to live.