Philadelphia's plastic bag ban brings mixed feelings

“It’s a good thing and I like the idea,” Morillo said, “but I think they also have to be reasonable. I don’t like the idea of banning them straight away. For store workers, it’s been very difficult to try to find the other bags that are recyclable. Right now I have like 3 boxes of plastic bags that I can be giving away and I’m losing money because I’m not allowed to.” 

Besides having to deal with trying to find affordable alternatives to replace their single-use plastic bags, Morillo also has to deal with angry and confused customers.

“We even had like three teenagers get angry with us one day,” Morillo said, “There’s a park nearby and we closed early that day, they came with like graffiti and they drew some things on our door which we then had to clean up.”

Millennials have a strong opinion on the matter. Samantha Beato, a 27-year-old Philadelphia citizen agrees that while the change is a good thing, it will definitely take some getting used to. 

“It’ll definitely prove to be a rough transition,” Beato said, “and it sort of does seem like an eleventh-hour thing but at the end of the day, a change like this seems like a small price to pay for avoiding the demise of our entire planet, am I right?”

This opinion appears to be different from that of our younger generation. Alexa Morales, a 15-year-old high school student believes this change seems like a good idea until you think about how it’s probably too late and this is just going to make everyone’s life “harder than it needs to be.”

“They’re trying their best and looking for ways to do it,” Morales says “But I think that if they wanted this to end up becoming a good thing they should have started this a long time ago; Like before plastic became such a big issue.” 

But is this really the best way to go about this? An article by David Murrel in City Life evaluates how banning single use plastic bags in other states has changed their plastic usage and he comes to the conclusion that while single-use plastic suffered a significant decrease, plastic garbage bag (which are made of much thicker material that takes much longer to decompose) waste spiked. Because going grocery shopping with her mother is a common thing for her, Morales also considers the effects this will have on parents all around the city.

“I’ve seen how already this is taking so much more time to get things done,” Morales said “It’s making things, lines and such, longer and harder than they need to be. Imagine a mom in a rush or with her children having to wait forever for people to decide if they wanna pay for their bags or just carry their stuff”

According to Morillo, the younger generations appear to be having a harder time with this than the older generations. 

“The elderly they were very understanding, which I really appreciate,” Says Morillo, “but the younger kids like around our age really didn’t want to adjust. They tried to tell me to give it to them and they wouldn’t say anything and all I could tell them was that I couldn’t because then like I get in trouble.”

While considering the changes that this transition toward a single-use-plastic-free society will cause in our lives, Beato stands by her opinion that it hardly seems like a decision at all when the fate of our entire planet rests on the issue.

“Like I said, I think it’s a no-brainer,” Said Beato, “We’re taking a step towards a less contaminated future, I think. It’s a small step and it’s not gonna make our lives any easier but I think everyone should start getting used to the idea that trying to fix global warming isn’t going to be easy.”