i am leaving

I was in full packing mode until an hour ago. Now I’m leaving for home in the next few minutes (and hitting send on this one before I leave). One crazy habit I have while doing things (packing in this case) is that I get too involved in the process. It’s not any different at the moment.

Now, what caught my eye during this process suddenly was bags. So. Many. Bags.

Tucked in a corner was my stash of paper bags from 10-minute delivery apps, stores, bakeries, and takeout orders. Some pristine, others crumpled, all somehow deemed "too nice to throw away" by my hoarding brain.

As I stuffed a bag within a bag within yet another bag (bag inception), I started wondering: am I the only one with this bag-saving compulsion?

The psychology behind bag hoarding

Turns out, I'm not alone in my bag-saving shenanigans. Psychologists have actually studied this behavior, and there are a few reasons why so many of us do it:

1. The Scarcity Mindset: Our brains are wired to value resources that might be useful later. It's the same instinct that made our ancestors store food for winter.

2. The "Too Good To Waste" Trap: Many shopping bags, especially fancy ones, feel like they have value beyond their function. That sleek black bag with rope handles practically feels like a gift in itself.

3. Future-Use Fallacy: We convince ourselves we'll definitely need that specific size or type of bag... someday. For something. Maybe.

4. Environmental Guilt: We know throwing things away is bad for the planet, so we keep them instead, ironically often never reusing them.

In Japan, there's even a word for the art of beautifully storing bags inside other bags: "fukuro no fukuro" (bag of bags).

From bags to ban

Speaking of bags, did you know the plastic shopping bag was actually an accidental success story?

In 1965, a Swedish engineer named Sten Gustaf Thulin was trying to solve a problem: paper bags used too much material and weren't very strong. His company, Celloplast, wanted something better. The solution Thulin came up with was the simple single-piece plastic "t-shirt bag" design we all know today.

When these bags hit the market, they were actually celebrated as an environmental win. They used less material than paper, could be reused multiple times, and took up barely any space. Plastic bags were so cheap to produce (about a penny each) that they spread worldwide at lightning speed.

By the early 1980s, plastic bags had conquered America. Safeway and Kroger switched from paper to plastic in 1982, and everyone else followed. The phrase "paper or plastic?" became part of our cultural vocabulary.

Then came the plot twist. These bags that seemed so perfect were hiding a dark secret: they take hundreds of years to decompose. And we were making a LOT of them, about one trillion plastic bags per year globally at their peak.

The plastic bag's fall from grace was swift:

• 1997: Sailor and researcher Charles Moore discovers the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

• 2002: Bangladesh becomes the first country to ban plastic bags after they clogged drains during deadly floods

• 2014: California passes the first statewide plastic bag ban in the US

• 2022: More than 100 countries now have plastic bag regulations or bans

A product that conquered the world in a decade is now being eliminated just as quickly.

Convenience often comes with hidden price tags.

Fin. Byeeeeee, I’m running late.