Ramesh Ponnuru: Plastic-bag bans have disgusting results

Junkscience.com is a great resource that exposes the hype we are constantly exposed to on global warming and other overblown dangers.  I've got a couple of articles to share with you about the plastic bag bans. This article goes over many of the studies I've already covered.

From The Commercial Appeal:

Conservatives often point out that laws, no matter how benign they may appear, have unintended consequences. They can reverberate in ways that not many people foresaw and nobody wanted: Raising the minimum wage can increase unemployment; prohibition can create black markets.

The efforts in many cities to discourage the use of plastic bags demonstrate that such unintended consequences can be, among other things, kind of gross.

...

The best course for government, then, is probably to encourage people to recycle their plastic bags — or, maybe, just let people make their own decisions. Plastic-bag bans are another on a distressingly long list of political issues where I cannot see eye to eye with Eva Longoria.