Fellas, Is Trash Praxis?

Sometime in late December, I discovered a vexatious problem at the grocery store: the plastic bags in the produce section had been replaced by thin, slimy, “compostable” bags that seemed primarily designed to make my produce go bad faster, in addition to being a sensory nightmare. After tossing some spoiled cilantro into the compost one evening, I threw an irritated post about my growing produce bag-related rage into the social media universe.

A commenter noted that the compostable bags reflected a new state law, SB 1046, which requires stores in California to replace petroleum-based plastic “pre-checkout” bags like those in the produce section with plastic-adjacent products considered “compostable” per ASTM International Standards. The bill joined a long list of laws designed to cut down on wasteful single-use products from propane canisters to Styrofoam that spend a brief time in the hands of consumers, followed by years in landfills. 

These laws are often wrongheaded for a variety of reasons. Single-use products are not great for the environment, but the alternatives manufacturers brag about aren’t always better. Those bags, for example, require high-heat industrial compost, aren’t accepted by all composting companies, and wind up producing methane in landfills. 

They also don’t address the underlying problem: It’s capitalism—not how my vegetables are bagged.

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