Ban the bags in Virginia

Drive past a farm field in or near Hampton Roads these days, and you're likely to see a bumper crop of plastic shopping bags. The cotton, corn and soy are gone, but the seeds of our throwaway culture yield an unending harvest.

Farmland isn't the only depository for the debris. The bags drift into rivers and streams. They end up in parks and on roadsides.

It's the latter landing zone - public rights of way - that recently drew the attention of officials in Roanoke. Folks in the city's transportation department report they now spend more time picking up bags before mowing than they spend mowing.

Roanoke's City Council wants its state legislative delegation to introduce a bill giving local governments the authority to restrict the use of plastic bags.

Restrictions aren't a novel idea. Last year, North Carolina banned the distribution of most types of plastic bags at larger retail outlets on the Outer Banks. This year, the ban was extended to all plastic bags at all stores in coastal Currituck, Dare and Hyde counties.

Washington, D.C., charges a nickel tax on plastic bags, with the proceeds going toward cleanup of the Anacostia River. Communities in California also have imposed restrictions.

In all of those cases, consumers are encouraged to use reusable cloth bags rather than plastic or paper.

But similar efforts to ban plastic bags, including bills introduced by Hampton Roads lawmakers, have fizzled repeatedly in Virginia. And Roanoke's proposal will likely have a shorter life than "a thin plastic sack packed with 8-penny nails," as The Roanoke Times' Duncan Adams recently put it.

Virginia lawmakers are loath to give cities and counties more powers - particularly taxing powers - than they already have. Enabling localities to impose a ban, or a D.C.-style tax, on plastic bags is all but doomed.

But Roanoke's push for a ban is encouraging, and other communities statewide should follow suit. The Virginia Farm Bureau Federation, whose members are weary of damage to machinery and harm to livestock, is already on board.

As the Farm Bureau can attest, there's more than aesthetics - or mowing time - at stake here. In addition to helping livestock and harvests, a ban would benefit wildlife and marine life, particularly sea turtles, that eat or become entangled in the plastic.

Shifting from plastic bags would also reduce the energy consumed to produce the bags, conserve space in expensive and overburdened landfills, where plastic takes decades to degrade, if it ever does.

Virginia lawmakers have shown no inclination to follow the lead of North Carolina and others on this issue. But if Virginians as diverse as environmentalists, farmers and advocates for wildlife and beautification speak up, perhaps there's hope the politicians will eventually listen.