Picking Up After Your Self

Plastic bags litter the streets and the fields. But they are a convenience may would not do without. Environmentalists fear they will dirty the environment for decades. Objectivists resist regulating businesses for undefined reaspons. Is there a reasoned way to regulate trash bags? Is there even a right to do so?

The store owners give away plastic bags because they do not have to face the consequences of their use. Shoppers throw them away because they vet them for free. The bags, if given away and then thrown away because they are free, are an objective nuisance. There are several solutions. like bottles, which are a known temptation to litter, a deposit could be placed on their use. The cost of the deposit should be set at the cost per unit for the labor necessary to remove them as litter. Since homeless people will collect bottles for a nickel a piece, about 5c a bag seems reasonable. Shops might complain that this deposit is inconvenient. But so is having to pick up the litter that the shops generate for free. Some stores may complain that it is inconvenient to redeem dirty and torn bags. They are correct. The shops may say that they will have to discontinue the use of bags as too costly. But this was a hidden cost that existed all along, now they are complaining only because they have to bear it. I routinely refuse a bag just for a gallon of milk - insane - the plastic jug comes with a handle - the bag is a handicap, not a help - and refuse a bag for items such as bread which already come in a plastic bag or for items I can put in my back pack or pocket.

The answer is a deposit, and a hefty fine for littering. People who litter are no better than cattle who shit where they stand and happily walk in their own dung. You have a mind, you can think to hold on to your trash until you come upon a receptacle. Selfishness means cleaning up after yourself, not expecting your victim to do it for you.