Unadulterated

I was in Ireland back in 2002 just after that country passed a tax on plastic bags equal to 24 U.S. cents per bag. I wasn’t aware of the tax and had just bought a week’s worth of groceries when I was informed of it. It had obviously become socially unacceptable to use plastic bags at all – everyone I saw had cloth bags or boxes. I pressed my three-year old twins into service and we all carried armloads of groceries out the door.

With leaves off the trees and no snow to speak of here in New England, I can’t escape the sight of graying plastic bags flapping in the wind, held hostage by unwilling tree branches...