bag ladies.

In every city i visit, i find stores and entire aisles dedicated to the art of the satchel. Leather goods, plastic arts, all materials are represented in as many styles as lifestyles. somewhere about the bustle of alleys and parks, i invariably notice women carrying bags in various stages of decay. Some push carts which are loaded with bagged possessions. Container and content part and parcel of same.

The bag has become a symbol of affluence, the more luggage, the more riches. But the baggage become the burden of this age. We soon are strangled by the multitude of ever thinning resources, which must be contained for fear, they will eventually possess us. Zippered, tapered, locked and snapped, Guccied or Vuittonized, trends and fashions clutter the wallet and the market.

Sure, no designer purse will exterminate the Florida alligator. No single briefcase will decimate the Brazilian cattle. But the flimsy little bag which steams up your veggies from the nearest Super- Mart will definitely cause some poor fish to die prematurely from ingesting pelletized plastics in the ocean.

It is not a case of importance, but one of quantity. The US uses bags at an alarming rate; 100 billion in one consumer country; that amounts to 1500 per person. 12 billion barrels of oil, are used to fabricate the flimsy things to carry more futile objects and processed items. These bags will live between 400 and 1000 years in a multitude of stages, strangle wild life, choke fish and ducks, and finally wash down rivers to break down in microscopic plastic particles to end up as carcinogenics in the meat of your favorite fish.

Talk about end game and product, could man have designed a more perfect multigenerational food chain reaction? The trouble with us is that few bother to compute the lifecycle of each invention. So now we are faced with the results of a marvelous convenience, the plastic bag. I don't have a medicine pouch to wave at the problem, but i do have numbers to demonstrate what many are doing about it.

Around the world in eighty bags, the satchel chronicles.

Australia: phasing out bags end of 08 -- Bangladesh: ban and levy -- Britain: Gordon Brown PM. pressures to eliminate bags -- China: begins phase out June 21st 08 -- Ireland: charge 29 cents per bag -- Europe has had fees since the 80s -- Uganda has imposed a ban on bags -- US. California and New-York impose recycling in major stores. San Francisco first US city to ban bags by April's Earth day.

Progress - progress, too late and not enough, where to start? The EPA claims that it is up to local waste management to deal with it. Do we have the necessary self discipline? Can we overcome the rebellion over ecologic authority? I do see signs of a growing concern.

The local HyVee store in our small town offers re-usable green bags for $1.00... I have a multitude of bags, library book bags, large gadget bags with fancy logos from one major advertiser, nylon catch all and travel bags, light and easy to save and carry. There is no excuse to keep using plastic grocery bags.

Well, yes, there are many uses for the bags we already have collected, inside out pooper scooper, rain hat, different bag please!, stuff thrower, stuff storer, vacation socks and underwear changer, and how about wild edible greens collector? Toy carrier, wet bathing suit protector, emergency shoebag, and my favorite, halloween mini costume< you figure this one out!

Paper or plastic? Pulp or oil? one is biodegradable, one is not--one is heavy--one is light. Neither offers a solution, so get out that gaudy beach bag with the long lived shells and blooms, and dazzle the store clerks with your newfound conscience, or break down and spring a buck for a sturdy little green bag.

from my alter ego, the bag lady, Madame Pochette, happy bagging!

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