The plastic bag's lightweight nature makes it especially susceptible to being inadvertently transported by the wind. Currents of air easily lift bags from garbage trucks, the tops of landfills, and trash receptacles, resulting in the littering of city streets, landscapes, and waterways.29 Before government regulation, South Africa dubbed plastic bags the "national flower" because they were so prevalent in the natural landscape.30 Likewise, China refers to the problem as "white pollution."31 All over the world, people regularly see plastic bags hanging in trees or bushes, tumbling across fields, or clogging storm drains.32 

 Not only are plastic bags an eyesore on land but wind and water currents also carry plastic bags to the ocean,33 where marine animals, particularly sea birds and turtles, mistake them for food or become entangled in them.34 The 2007 International Coastal Cleanup data showed a recorded 587,827 plastic bags pulled from participating countries' shorelines, where plastic bags are amongst the top ten ocean debris items.35 Harm to the ocean is also evident in the presence of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, where natural ocean currents have created a swirling mass of nonbiodegradable plastic and industrial debris that is estimated to be twice the size of Texas.36 Known to oceanographers as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," this large area of ocean collects floating debris from half of the Pacific Rim, approximately ninety percent of which appears to be three million tons of plastic.37 A recent study of marine life in this area also showed tiny pieces of plastic in the stomachs of fish.38 A concern for scientists is that the lowest species in the food chain, plankton, consume tiny particles of plastic, mistaking them for food, which leads to predators also ingesting them.39 Scientists worry that if plastic particles make their way up the food chain, humans will regularly consume fish contaminated with plastic toxins.40 

 While convenient for both retailers and consumers, the proliferation of the plastic carryout bag is resulting in excess, unnecessary plastic in our environment and landfills. Even though plastic shopping bags are more compact than paper bags, a preference for plastic over paper bags means that plastic bags fill greater volumes of space in landfills than paper ones do.41 Also, because consumers recycle paper bags at a much higher rate than plastic bags, a greater number of plastic bags are sent to landfills.42 Some consumers reuse plastic bags for trash bin liners and picking up pet waste. While these are applauded ways to reuse plastic carryout bags, too many plastic bags are not reused and find their way into the environment as litter. More often than not, consumers use plastic bags for their single-use purpose - to carry items from the retailer to the home, sometimes using one bag to carry only a few items.43 In short, the detrimental environmental effect of a plastic bag's entire life cycle greatly outweighs the short-lived purpose that it serves. 

The Indian city of Delhi boasts some of the world's most aggressive legislation on plastic bags, not only fining individual users and businesses that hand out the bags but also threatening jail time for offenders and plastic-bag manufacturers. This year, Italy became the first European country to issue a nationwide ban on plastic bags, while Ireland places a 15-cent fee on every bag - a move that reduced usage by 90 percent in the first three months. All told, 25 percent of the world's population now lives in areas with bans or fees on plastic bags.

Doucette, K. (2011, Aug 04). The plastic bag wars. Rolling Stone, , 37-39. Retrieved from https://baypath.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.baypath.idm.oclc.org/docview/882843555?accountid=6226 

It’s introduced me to the fine supermarkets in Somerville, Brighton and Arlington.

Personally, I hate reusable bags, of which I have many that take up a lot of room in my car. Most of mine are made of plastic of some sort. When you fill them with groceries and get them home, they have puddles of water or worse in the bottom from something that leaked. You have to wash them, and are never sure you can get them clean without washing them in the machine, with the obvious toll on the environment. The bag police recommend cotton bags, which are potentially even yuckier. Funny, we’re not seeing many mesh bags, which would make more sense but are expensive.

Punitive fees haven’t historically been effective in shaping behavior. Our 30-year-old bottle bill may have helped the homeless people who used to pick up discarded bottles on the road, but look around now to see who uses recycling centers and who foregoes the deposit money in favor of recycling at home. (Oh, yes, did I mention that when I recycle my newspapers and bottles, I carry them to the recycling room in paper bags?) An overwhelming vote against expanding the bottle bill has led to a recent effort to repeal it. People learned to recycle largely because of publicity and the plethora of convenient blue containers that are available to us.

So if my city or my state wants me to forswear paper bags and embrace unsanitary, inconvenient reusable bags with not inconsiderable carbon footprints, it will have to convince me that we’re one step away from cutting up newspapers for toilet paper. That means persuasion, including the availability of environmentally friendly products and positive incentives for using them, not legislation. Meanwhile, the bag fee is less than what I’d have to pay to wash reusable bags and fill the gas tank for extra shopping trips.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/news/20160802/guest-column-what-has-cambridge-achieved-by-banning-plastic-bags