By Samuel Strait, Reporter at Large – December 30, 2021 There are many people in this Country that do not understand the vital role that plastic has in our standard of living, a role that appears to be completely lost on the extreme environmentalists in California. In the State in particular continuous efforts have been made by environmental looneys to curb the use of fossil fuels, of which unfortunately plastics are a by product. In 2017 environmental groups aided by large scale retail companies successfully asked for and received a ban on single use plastic bags. You know them as the thin gossamer shopping bags that were ubiquitous with going to most any store in California to encompass your newly purchased goods for the trip home. Often savaged by environmentalists groups as a bane on the the landscape to be tossed indiscriminately by the State's "Walmart" shoppers on roadsides, in waters, and in landfills to take decades to disintegrate back into nature. A blight on civilization and a danger to most wildlife fit to be banned from human use. And then what, at least in California. The replacements for the single use bag had to be recyclable. It is not like we haven't heard that one before, without much success to the happenings in our wallets. Large scale retailer were on board. Gone was the expense of providing cheap bags to the customers for free, replaced by a new revenue stream of selling shopping bags. Environmentalists were overjoyed. Gone was another dastardly human invention which plagued their every waking moment. Victory declared, or was it? As everyone got on board with the "new" shopping concept of bring your own recyclable bags to shop, or purchase the new "recyclable" version at the store, things looked rosy for environmentalists and retail stores as the ten cent surcharge provided them with a new revenue stream to make the investors happy. California was on a roll, more regulation that would soon have unintended consequences. In 2019, Governor Hair Gel decided he needed yet another appointed commission to "advise" state authorities on how to improve recycling programs. The sixteen members of the commission were to be made up with representatives from environmental groups, state agencies, and private solid waste businesses. Most can probably see where this was going, we are in California after all. The environmentalist segment of the commission soon discovered that the recycling aspect of the "new" bags was being abused by many businesses, and to further complicate matters, recyclers refused to accept the "new" bags due to the high cost of recycling such bags. The "new" bags suddenly took on the appearance of single use bags, horror of horrors, and something must be done about it. The commission reviewed the return programs of the "new" bags at several large chain retailers and deemed them inadequate. Retailers were going to be forced to stop selling the "new" recyclable bags until they were manufactured with "recyclable materials", what ever that means. That should fix the problem according to the commission Chair, Heidi Sanborn, an environmental activist who is the founding director of the group, National Stewardship Action Council. Where do they come up with these names? In any event the commission has sent a letter to California's replacement Attorney General, Rob Bonta, and the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, asking them to make those miscreants toe the line with legal action. Wow, sounds like there is another version of the unvaccinated in the State. Clearly the commission doesn't know how big retail chains operate when faced with regulation that affects their bottom line. What was once a lucrative extra revenue stream has now become a liability; hence , major retailers are going to stop the bleeding. It is second nature for them. If the product that they are selling, in this case recyclable shopping bags, are no longer profitable, they restructure the product. If it can't be recycled, who is going to make them change the product to become recyclable if it cannot be made cost effective. Like President "Ice Cream Cone" Biden, they will do it until they are told they can't do it. Going forward, in order for retailers to comply with the single use plastic bag ban a replacement must be sought that actually can be recycled. All current plastics are too costly to be collected, transported, and sold to be recycled, recycled bags at the store included. Kind of like the Cervantes tale, not much chance of a successful outcome, but we are in California where rational thought in government has long ceased to exist. When "environmentalists" are asked to "advise" nothing good will come of it.