In 1967, a Mike Nichols film “The Graduate” summed up the future for the new college graduate played by Dustin Hoffman with a single word:  “plastics.”  To review the scene, go to:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk .

If produced today – given the regular news reports of whales ingesting large amounts of plastic ‒ the phrase would be: “no plastics.”

Item 1: The European Union and Canada are banning “single use” plastic in the next few years.  What is “single use?”  Well, as it turns out, it’s just about everything that is made of plastic.  More on that later.

Item 2:  New York State recently enacted a five cent levy on plastic bags.  Maryland has now banned Styrofoam so the containers for carry-out food at restaurants and the drinks at Maryland Dunkin’ Donuts will now be made of paper. 

Item 3:  A Baltimore City Councilman has just proposed a ban on plastic bags and a five cent levy on paper bags. 

Item 4:  On June 12^th the New York Times reported that a grocery store in Vancouver, British Columbia was using plastic bags with embarrassing lettering such as: “Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium; the Colon Care Co-Op and Dr. Toews’ Wart Ointment.”  The notion was that shoppers would be embarrassed to walk out of the store with such bags.  However, this appears to have backfired as shoppers demanded more of these bags.

What has changed in the last 50 years?  All of these efforts are an attempt to “save the environment.”  To be eco-friendly, one has to swear off plastics.

Now how did all this plastic come to be?  And is it really that important?  Well, look around your house.  Peer into your refrigerator and pantry and count the plastic containers and you will easily get to 10 in each.  Go to the bathroom where, egads, plastic rules:  shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, liquid soap, floss containers, toothpaste tubes, deodorant and multi-vitamin “bottles” and your electric toothbrushes. 

In our house, it doesn’t stop there as the new windows are plastic clad and the ceiling of the wraparound porch is made of plastic material as are the railings.  And no decent plumber would be able to do the job without PVC pipe; nor would any automobile manufacturer be able to achieve miles per gallon goals without the substitution of plastic for former steel components.

Why is plastic everywhere?  The answer is simple enough: it is in many respects a superior material, economical to produce and a better and more efficient alternative than what went before.  And, to boot, the “carbon footprint” to produce plastic is considerably more eco-friendly than, for instance, steel or galvanized pipe.

But plastic does have a downside.  While most plastics can be “recycled,” some are more difficult than others and plastic is not “biodegradable” in the way that other materials are such as wood (although I bet that steel and galvanized pipe don’t exactly collapse).  And then, of course, there is the plastic bag in the tree visible to all who are standing on the paper bag while looking up.

What happens to these plastic and paper bags?  In my house, the plastic bags are sometimes reused but usually end up in the trash.  Paper bags are sometimes used as trash liners and either end up in the trash or in a recycling bin.  In many cases, both plastic and paper are carried to the landfill.  

So, in the words of a political phrase from a generation or two ago:  “Where’s the beef?”  Well, the anti-plastic person says:  “But plastic does not biodegrade like paper.”  The pro plastics person responds: “Who cares, both are in the landfill which, in due course, will become a park or a green space or a golf course.”

The switch away from plastic to different materials is costly and produces alternatives that are not nearly as effective as the plastic they replace.  The shiny bright legislators who proposed the Maryland Styrofoam ban were quite eager to say that Maryland was “first” to ban Styrofoam.  Never mind (1) that the principal product of a Maryland company employing 700 people (in high unemployment areas) was the manufacture of Styrofoam or (2) that they had become the stalking horses for the lobbyists for the paper industry who were enthusiastically applauding nearby.

There is some irony in all of this.  The Plastics Crisis Alliance recently announced in Facebook ads that cigarette butts are the most prevalent non-biodegradable items found in the ocean which – if that is the case ‒ may call for a name change for that group.

Now what about so called “single use” plastic?  A group called the Plastic Free Challenge on its website says “Single use plastics, or disposable plastics, are used only once before they are thrown away or recycled.  These items are things like plastic bags, straws, coffee stirrers, soda and water bottles and most food packaging.”

Think about the term “most food packaging” in this definition when you amble around your local grocery store to see what’s affected.  Obviously, the meat and seafood section would have to be redone as would the vegetable aisle, the bread aisle, the soda and water aisle, the dairy, ice cream and orange juice coolers, any product with a see-through window as well as anything in a plastic container.  One effect of a “single use” ban:  glass back in business.

Why ban just Styrofoam when you can get everything with the term “single use” plastic?  Groups like the Plastic Free Challenge maintain that plastics are responsible for human cancers, infertility and other diseases.  Even allowing for hyperbole, color me unconvinced.

The current political campaign against single use plastics is wrong headed.  An H. L. Mencken quote seems apropos:  “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is simple, direct and wrong.” 

Can we live without plastic?  Obviously we can as it did not become a staple of our lives until recently.  We also can live without automobiles and electricity but the question is – should we?  If we ditch cars and return to horses, you can bet that some group will begin complaining about methane emissions from the droppings of millions of horses.

So what to do?  Here is a modest three point proposal:

1. Use plastic wherever it is a superior alternative and increase our plastic recycling efforts.  Indeed, even the hated Styrofoam can be recycled;

• Encourage landfills since these are the places where almost all our “stuff” ends up and, even here, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, there is a decided environmental benefit to be gained.  https://www.epa.gov/lmop/basic-information-about-landfill-gas;

• Call Vancouver for your bags since humor is the necessary antidote to all the doom and gloom.