I thoroughly enjoyed the article, “If I wanted to be a Trash Man,” my classmate had written. I enjoyed it solely because it was very informative and filled with numerous amounts of facts. I liked how the author brought attention to the bag ban, and the dangers it can ultimately have. The author of the article explains to people, the dangers of not washing your bags after you have had raw meat in them.  The author expresses that not a lot of people know that they must wash their reusable bags, leaving a whopping majority of 97% of people being susceptible to bacteria, such as e.coli.  He claims that if you wash your bags, you are eliminating 99.9% of bacteria.

In this article, the author expresses his/her resentment towards the new bag ban, and honestly I can’t blame them. With the hard on facts they provide such as, “There are also no environmental benefits to banning plastic bags — but there is potential harm. Compared to cloth bags, plastic bags require less energy to produce and less energy to recycle and produce less municipal waste. Plastic bags generate fewer greenhouse gas emissions and require less water to produce than paper bags. Cloth bags need to be used 104 times before there is any environmental advantage over plastic bags. But most cloth bags are used half that amount. Reusing cloth bags can also lead to cross-contamination and disease." I find these explanations to be solid and valid reasons as to why they are not for the bag ban.

What is my stance in all of this? I am not for the bag ban, because I honestly miss grocery stores giving me bags. One positive to the bag ban I have noticed though - especially in my apartments, there are no more bags lying around haphazardly like they used to be. Although that is one positive, like the author explained, there are many downsides to having this law in place. Like the author, I find that having this ban on bags is overall, inconvenient. Furthermore, I loved their article because it will remind me to wash my bags, because of the potential harm of not washing re-usable bags can cause.