The city council of Toronto enacted a new city by-law. As of January 1st 2013, it is illegal for grocery stores to supply plastic shopping bags.

In part, the passing of this regional law was a maverick ambush by council to sabotage the mayor. Rob Ford, a no-nonsense, enigmatic leader, won the election for the mayor's job,and did so with campaign promises to cut municipal spending. The by-law was passed while the mayor was snoozing, without debate, in a blatant effort to make council appear altruistic and garner attention for the 'wanna-be' councillors who were already campaigning for the mayor's job in the next election.

Arguably, there was some basis for concern. The number of plastic grocery bags that make it into land fill locations is in the millions.

For the last two years an imposed purchase price of five cents for each supermarket bag was legislated. The surcharge was meant as a constant reminder to consumers of waste and the damage to the environment. The environmental movement began as the campaign issue of the Green Party, a political sect that has to date only elected one member to Parliament. But, their ideas took hold in main stream politics, and eventually filtered down to individual citizens. We began to feel guilty if we stopped to buy a few items and forgot our burlap sacs.

The cloth shopping bags remain readily available, sold at every check-out for less than a dollar. Ironically, manufactured in China, the country that is globally acknowledged as the greatest polluting country on earth, our regional efforts allow their disregard for the environment. The growing number of factories in Asia producing the replacement bags spew pollutants into the atmosphere, without thought or regard to the toxins released. Some people will simply demand paper bags, increasing the number of trees harvested to supply the new portable containers. Consequences should always be examined before decisions are implemented that will shift the problem elsewhere.

It reminded me of another irony that happened within the last year in Canada. Brantford, an obscure town in south-western Ontario, made a proposal to make serving shark fin soup within its regional borders illegal. The law was passed and the town became the first jurisdiction in Canada to take a bold stand against inhumane fishing practices of sheering off the tails of the sharks and throwing the bodies back into the water to die a merciless death. The only hypocrisy in this heroic, altruistic law was the fact that there was not a single bowl of shark fin soup being served in any restaurant in the entire town.

It's easy to stand up for values when they don't impact one's life. I, for one, would gladly sign my name for a petition to ban smoking in the arctic. It seems highly logical to me that any heat source contributes to melting the glaciers. While I smoke recklessly below the forty-fifth parallel, without thought to the pollution I cause through my bad habit, intellectually I can support legislature that makes me feel like 'I'm doing my part.'

It matters not to me whether they ban plastic grocery bags in Toronto. I'm an hour west, in a small city that has merchants that don't remember, or bother to charge me when I need one of those suckers, though I do try to remember my 'Made in China' symbols of an environmentalist. Like Brantford, Toronto has made a valiant gesture that has nothing to do with reality. Most of the city's garbage was shipped to Michigan*, courtesy of a waste management program that sells environmental integrity for a lucrative contract between countries.

Still, not withstanding any comments on serious global responsibility or political posturing, I choose instead, to mourn the plastic shopping bag.

We take for granted the daily importance of this last free-with-purchase symbol of consumerism, the many uses and humble place it serves in our lives. At the very least, for those of us frugal folks who like to re-use, it is the liner in our waste basket, the camouflage that allows us to smuggle our sloth to the bin without shame. However, the most notable use has been part of the stoop-and-scoop campaign. Folks actually take pride in dangling their laden sacs, swinging them with fearsome pride as they wait for accolades from their neighbours for being responsible pet owners.

The bags transport lunches, separate yarns, buttons and ribbons, but alas, the virus that has begun in Toronto is gaining momentum, and the movement is sure to catch on in other cities and countries.

I questioned how many jobs would be lost, local jobs, by this legislation. It was rhetoric, but my pondering question lay in the air until someone, less prone to abstract thoughts, explained the repercussions. There was no legislation to prevent the use of plastic bags. The supermarket aisles would simply expand, as major manufacturers take up the slack; produce the products, packaged in rolls and boxes, adding more trash we might send to Michigan*.

It led me to wonder how many households survive without the proverbial green garbage bag, and how that impacts our landfill sites. But, I've left these questions to more learned people, like Toronto City Council.