Can you love a plastic bag?

These days plastic bags don’t get much love. If you look out the window of your car or bus, you will see plastic bags stuck in bushes and trees along almost every road in the world.  Right now, sitting on a dock in Nassau, I watch them float by constantly.

 A tangible symbol of a wasteful modern society, plastic bags have been replaced in some places by their reusable cousins, a sort of small tote bag made of canvas, or cotton or hemp or anything that is not plastic. These bags have found their way into our vehicle trunks and our kitchen closets, if not into everyday use. Some towns have even enacted laws banning plastic bags altogether.

Given all the understandable animosity, I must take a moment to sing the praises of a plastic bag. Not plastic bags in general, but one that I came to love.

It all began on a sunny afternoon in January 2009, in La Paz, Mexico. I was about to lead my first sea kayak guide training course around the islands near La Paz and needed a way to keep my sleeping bag dry. I purchased a roll of 15 white trash bags, heavy duty, designed for trash compactors.  One was destined for greatness.

I used the bag to line the stuff sack of my sleeping bag. With this system, you put your sleeping bag into the lined sack, squeeze out the air and twist the top of the trash bag tightly. Then, tuck the tail down in the stuff sack and cinch the stuff sack tight.  You have now created a nearly full-proof dry bag for something that needs to stay dry no matter what happens out there. It worked well on that 24 day Mexico trip, but that was just the beginning.

The trash bag traveled to Alaska, where it kept glacial water away from my sleeping bag even when a kayak hatch flooded. It went on backpacking adventures in the mountains of northern Canada, and made many return trips to Mexico. It went to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, not once, but eight times, ensuring each day that no matter what was happening outside, I have a cozy and dry nest to climb into by bedtime.

Once, in the wilds of Patagonia it was missing one morning after a ferocious wind the night before. “You’re missing your trash bag?” my companions asked, clearly not getting it. After a frantic 45 minutes I found it lodged in a tree (of course) none the worse for wear and tear.  Over the four- year period between 2009 and 2012, I spent more time outside than in. My work took me to four continents and too many amazing and wild places to count. Stuffing and un-stuffing my sleeping bag day in and day out, the humble trash bag never let me down. It actually outlasted two of the sleeping bags it was charged to protect, and several stuff sacks, with never so much as a tiny hole.

This winter I new the end was near. A bad smell had permeated my faithful servant, and then the first dreaded hole. After one last trip to the islands in Mexico where the great odyssey began, it was time to say goodbye. Not knowing what else to do, I threw my beloved bag in the trash It’s gone now, replaced by another compactor bag, but the lessons I learned from it live on. Recycling is fine, but lets not forget the part about reusing and reducing. If a simple trash bag can last four years and travel the world, what can this morning’s plastic iced coffee cup sitting on your desk do? How about bringing it home and starting a tomato plant in it?