I never finished my degree, but I am an environmental studies major. I began decrying the horrifying stuff we are doing to our oceans many years before that was trendy, when it just made me an opinionated nutter.

But all my free grocery bags get reused as garbage bags. There is no ban on the sale of garbage bags. If I were not getting free grocery store bags, I would be buying small garbage bags and going through about the same number of plastic bags.

We have multiple islands of floating plastic in the ocean. IIRC, one is like the size of the state of Texas. The plastics problem for our oceans is quite serious. But it is hardly limited to plastic bags.

I don't know what the solution is, but I have lived without a car for at least a decade. I am walking the walk to the best of my ability in terms of living light on the land. I think the big picture choices I have made more than make up for whatever small conveniences I find are essential to keeping my quality of life high.

> But all my free grocery bags get reused as garbage bags. There is no ban on the sale of garbage bags. If I were not getting free grocery store bags, I would be buying small garbage bags and going through about the same number of plastic bags.

You don't even need grocery store bags to use as garbage bags. I've found that composting and recycling allow me to get away with using the produce plastic bags for my remaining trash. I don't even bag all of my produce, just stuff that could be damaged easily or hard to gather together, like green beans or small peppers.