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Paper or Plastic: Profound Impact

Douglas J. Lanzo

Checking out at the local grocery,
I noted the thermal bags I had brought
for frozen and refrigerated goods. Given
the large volume of food, the clerk called
over a bagger and asked me whether
plastic bags were OK for the rest
of the food. My reply elicited stern looks,
raised eyebrows and a snarky
riposte following the bagger’s
disbelieving sigh: “Huh? Paper bags? Those
are a pain to bag and break easily. Not sure
why you’d want them.”
“Well because plastic bags do a lot of damage to the environment.”
Another shrug from him, followed by an equally disagreeable sigh.
Then a resigned expanding of the first paper bag with exaggerated noise and effort.
Disappointed at the reaction,
and wondering whether it stemmed merely
from a long day of bagging or an ignorance of the
dangers of plastic bag waste, I felt
like asking him whether it is OK for
green turtles, great migratory
sowers of ocean seeds of life,
to starve in undersea kelp forests
from plastic bags that prevent
their intestines from digesting food;
Or whether it is OK for
Layson albatross chicks
to starve or bleed to death
from partially degraded plastic
skimmed from the ocean’s surface by
their majestic, broad-winged parents,
which can sweep the North Pacific for years
without making landfall but cannot discern the
difference between shimmering plastic
and squid, schools of sardines or flying fish eggs;
Or whether it is OK for
sociable seals, compassionate dolphins
and even hauntingly intelligent whales,
to have repeatedly saved human lives in the wild
only to succumb to internal bleeding
triggered by manmade microplastics;

Or whether it is OK for
non-degradable microplastic waste
to seep toxins into our drinking water,
soil, fauna, flora, rivers and oceans,
recently astounding scientists when
the deepest-diving submersible ever
recovered a plastic bag at 11 kilometers depths from
the Pacific’s remote Marianna Trench;

Thinking better of the matter, I decided
to write this poem. If published,
I think I’ll send him the link.

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