Whole Foods Bags Plastics

Despite a public relations campaign that extended to interviews with the highest echelons of the national press, Annapolis Alderman Sam Shropshire was unable to muster the votes necessary to get his plastic bag ban bill passed in the Annapolis City Council. At the same time, however, the Whole Foods in Annapolis voluntarily stopped offering plastic bags.

Now, the entire corporation is looking to phase out plastic bags by early 2008. The company will still offer 100% recycled content paper bags and will sell reusable "Better Bags", made from 80% recycled plastic bottles.

The move represents a welcome trend in the retail sector, to move away from disposable bags and packaging to reusable materials. Other retailers, such as Ikea, are now charging customers 5 cents per bag.

Surely, there are those who will object to such a move, claiming that it limits their choices unfairly, or that they got good use out of those plastic bags. And there may be some truth to that, but there is no good reason that all consumers, particularly those who bring their own satchels, should be subsidizing the cost of everyone else's "doggy bags."