Two scenes from an out-of-touch industry fighting for its life.

The U.S. plastic bag industry is fighting plastic bag bans and taxes in California at the state and local level, as well as rolling out a major "grassroots" campaign to "save the plastic bag." From Plastics News:

A coalition of plastics industry organizations, including the California Film Extruders and Converters Association, the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc., the American Chemistry Council and SaveThePlasticBag.com, are working to sway public opinion in a state where communities and the Legislature have proposed a variety of bag bans and taxes.

Kevin Kelly [vice president of Rolling Hills, Calif.-based CFECA, chairman of its legislative committee and, in his day job, CEO of Emerald Packaging Inc. of Union City, Calif.] drew a line between what he considers reasonable fees on plastics bags — 1-2 cents — and the 25 cent fee in certain pending California legislation. [Link]

Of course, the whole goal of such high taxes is to discourage the reliance on landfill-ready, petroleum-based plastic bags and encourage the use of reusable bags, which we've been using for years in our household without any hardship (even our four-year-old has gotten into the reusable bag scene). Luckily, U.S. plastics interests have friends across our northern border working on that one. They've turned in a downright misleading study claiming that reusable bags pose a public health hazard. Although, as Barf Blog points out, this would only be true if you (a) never washed them, and (b) drank water from them. Read all about it here. [Via BoingBoing]