Opinion: What NJ Politicians Don’t Get About Single-use Plastic Bags

First of all, how dare the legislature co-opt “Star Wars” fans’ "May the Fourth be with you."

That’s the date their save-the-planet virtue signaling goes into effect in New Jersey with the banning of plastic bags at most every level of retail. Of course, it’s more than that. It’s a ban on Styrofoam containers at restaurants. It’s a ban on paper bags at grocery stores also.

Let’s just focus on those plastic bags for this. What are they always referred to as in their march to oblivion?

Single-use plastic bags.

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That’s a lie. Banning an item and dismissing it as single-use shows no real-world knowledge. These bags from ShopRite and Stop n’ Shop and everywhere else are rarely “single-use.” They are likely one of the most commonly repurposed items in any New Jersey household.

We set out to prove that. We asked some listeners to call in with ways they reuse these bags. There was seemingly no end to the ingenuity.

I’ll just give you a few examples.

Paul and Gary and many, many others use them to clean up after their dogs.

Jerome uses those bags to line small garbage cans in his home, to wrap diapers and sometimes even uses them as low-rent luggage. (You haven’t shown the world an IDGAF attitude until you’ve checked in at a Ritz-Carlton with some of your belongings in a plastic bag.)

Joe has a job requiring rubber yellow safety boots be worn over his shoes, which are very hard to pull on. That is until he puts a so-called single-use plastic bag over his shoes and then slides into the boots like butter.

Tara brings them to the beach with them carrying snacks for the kids on the way to, then with snacks eaten, the wet clothing goes in them for the way back. That makes them triple-use.

Kenny knows people who figured out how to use it like yarn material and they make mats for the homeless. Leave it to a progressive politician to be so busy virtue signaling that they screwed over the homeless in the process.

Mair makes a second use of them when dying her hair.

Gail swears she uses them on rainy days to tie over her suede shoes from the parking lot into the office.

Mark would be lost without them when cleaning out his refrigerator.

Another Joe sets them up as little car trash bags. Basically so that his car doesn’t end up looking like mine.

Perhaps my favorite of all because I so want a front-row seat when this happens, Angela called in to say she’s a shoes-off household. When guests are uncooperative about taking off their shoes she grabs two of those allegedly single-use plastic bags and ties one each over the guest’s shoes.

So what if politicians want to ban single-use plastic bags, let them, because I don’t think such a thing exists.