When in Nice on holidays, I gladly paid 5 cents at the Monaco Carrefour for a plastic shopping bag. Upon researching the topic, there are apparently between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags used every year by consumers worldwide. I am glad to see that San Francisco has recently actually outlawed plastic bags. They claim that this move will reduce oil consumption by 800,000 gallons a year. Wow. Imagine if the entire US followed suit. Aside from the fouling of cityscapes (trees) and clogging up landfills, plastic bags are an expense for companies (“price of doing business) without providing much good(will) advertising. However, swapping plastic for paper bags is not the answer. People should be encouraged/forced to bring their own reusable bags. Plastic bags are basically bad for economics, much less ecology. When we bring home a plastic bag, we systematically re-use the plastic bags in our kitchen poubelle (garbage). But that is truly not enough. Paying for plastic bags is a minimum. If a country such as Taiwan is doing so (also Ireland), then surely this should be more commonplace in the US and Europe. Plastic bags are banned in South Africa, Rwanda, Bhutan and Bangladesh (because of blocking drains during flooding). Paris is banning plastic bags by the end of 2007 with the rest of France in 2010. The US should follow the French example.
Getting rid of plastic shopping bags

Minter Dial
Minter Dial is an international professional speaker, author & consultant on Leadership, Branding and Digital Strategy. After a successful international career at L’Oréal, Minter Dial returned to his entrepreneurial roots and has spent the last ten years helping senior management teams and Boards to adapt to the new exigencies of the digitally enhanced marketplace. He has worked with world-class organisations to help activate their brand strategies, and figure out how best to integrate new technologies, digital tools, devices and platforms. Above all, Minter works to catalyse a change in mindset and dial up transformation. Minter received his BA in Trilingual Literature from Yale University (1987) and gained his MBA at INSEAD, Fontainebleau (1993). His books include Heartificial Empathy, Putting Heart into Business and Artificial Intelligence, bowed in December 2018 and won the Book Excellence Award 2019 as well as being shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2019. It's available in Audiobook, Kindle and Paperback. He is also co-author of Futureproof (Pearson, Sep 2017) and sole author of The Last Ring Home (Myndset Press, Nov 2016), a book and documentary film, both of which have won awards and critical acclaim. Minter's latest book, You Lead, How being yourself makes you a better leader, published by Kogan Page, won the Business Book Award 2022 in the category of Leadership. It's easy to inquire about booking Minter Dial here. View all posts by Minter Dial