Semi-hypocritical me, who ends up with plastic grocer bags every time I forget the reusable bags in the car (asking for paper bags means that plastic bags will end up tucked inside the paper ones), thinks taxes should be levied on the plastic bags to fund litter clean-up.

Sigh. Unfortunately, neither the state of Wisconsin nor the city of Milwaukee is paying me much mind.

Rajasthan, India’s largest state, though, has the right idea. From the Environmental News Network:

From the beginning of August 2010, the manufacture, storage, import, sale and transport of plastic carry bags will be illegal in Rajasthan.  No shopkeeper, retailer, trader, hawker or vendor will be allowed to supply goods to consumers in bags.

The measure was proposed after local municipalities had complained of blocked sewer lines, drainage systems and water distribution pipelines due to plastics buried in the soil, providing breeding grounds for malaria and dengue fever. In Mumbai in 2005, India experienced massive monsoon flooding partially as a result of drains blocked by plastic bags, resulting in over 1,000 deaths.

Only a few percent of all plastic bags are recycled and the rest of the bags can theoretically persist for centuries in landfills, floating in the breeze or, as in India plugging water lines and creating disease sources.

Let’s just do it.