I mentioned that the Bag Monster and Eco Elvis got into a bit of a scuffle last Christmas, but what exactly IS a Bag Monster and what’s he all about? Well for one, the Bag Monster would like to get rid of all these ridiculous plastic bag bans and earth-friendly reusable bag habits. Here he is below asking the Santa Monica City Council not to run him out of town:

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Environmentalists cheered when China announced recently that it would ban flimsy plastic shopping bags. As of June 1st, supermarkets will be forbidden to give free plastic bags to their customers, a more stringent measure than most developed nations have adopted.

But the War on Plastic Bags has caused some predictable collateral damage, forcing China’s biggest plastic bag manufacturer out of business, as the Guardian reports:

The shutdown of Suiping Huaqiang Plastic, which employs 20,000 people, highlighted the social costs of a government drive to clean up one of the world’s most polluted environments.

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by Kerry Trueman

Plastic bags, like diamonds, last forever. But unlike diamonds, plastic bags have lost their luster, which is why–as of today–large grocery stores in San Francisco are forbidden to use them, unless they’re the special compostable kind.

The ban was inspired, in part, by a massive patch of plastic floating in the Pacific about a thousand or so miles west of San Francisco. It’s twice as big as the state of Texas and thought to weigh about 3 million tons. That oughta be enough to crush any consumer complaints about the inconvenience of having to bring your own bag.