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My husband and I drove from Louisiana to Montana for Christmas and it never ceases to amaze me that there are plastic bags and styrofoam dishes caught in every fence along every mile of the entire trip.

They could stop making the darn things tomorrow and I can't imagine why I would care.

I do find it confusing though that the same enviro-wackos that insisted we save the trees and quit using paper bags are now the most upset about the plastic ones.

Which also reminds me that the global warming nutcases were the same ones telling us back in the 70's that we were going to freeze to death in 25 years.

I do find it confusing though that the same enviro-wackos that insisted we save the trees and quit using paper bags are now the most upset about the plastic ones.

Things aren't static. First, growing pulp lumber has gotten far more efficient. Drive through South Georgia, and you'll see pines treated like any other crop -- this year's trees are harvested and replanted, and the same for other trees on other lots next year.

A bigger change is that paper recycling has become far more efficient and more commonplace. Cheap paper like newsprint is almost all recycled fiber these days. Brown paper bags and brown boxes do away with bleaching and are more environmentally friendly.

Paper recycling comes in two forms -- first, cutting scraps are gathered and fed back into the pulper instead of swept up and thrown out -- second, more and more shipping boxes, paper bags and so on are collected for recycling. Look at the bottom of a recycled paper bag -- you'll usually see a % of recycled content and a separate % of post-consumer waste.

Plastic bags take more energy and water to manufacture, not to mention diverting petroleum from the fuel stream when it's not exactly available in surplus. recycling them is less efficient. And when they do get to the landfill, they don't degrade.

In short, the issue isn't that environmentalists changed their position on a whim -- the parameters have changed. The same way there's now a rift among environmentalists between the folks who still believe that nuclear waste is still the more dire threat, and those who now support nuclear power in the belief that gas emissions are the greater threat.

I believe that conservation is a conservative value -- waste is waste, whether it's taxpayer funds or scarce natural resources. I do not support hysterical, draconian measures with little real scientific basis, but if it costs a few pennies more, takes a few minutes more, to live in a way that is more sustainable in the long term, it's worth doing. While government mandates are clearly overreaching, it's something we ought to be trying.

We take a lot of car trips too and yes, there is a lot of litter out there. Shame shame on litterers! But I have a friend who travels in south east Asia and she says there are areas along roads over there, that look like nothing we have ever seen here. There will be plastic bags hanging from every twig on every tree and bush so that it gives a nightmare look to the countryside. Then at night it is even more surreal.

I like plastic bags. I use them every day and I certainly hope laws aren’t passed to outlaw them.