My pet peeve--plastic bags and how to load them

All hail the LA City Council for becoming the largest city in the US to ban plastic grocery bags! Californians use 12 billion plastic bags a year and only 5% are recycled. I believe a contributing factor is that check-out clerks are trained improperly in loading bags. At Target a few weeks ago, I bought wine, crackers, and toothpaste, among other things. The trainee clerk was told to put my wine in one bag and the toiletries in another, and the food in another. I told the trainer clerk I only wanted one bag. She was very nice but still tried to put the wine in a separate bag. I had to repeat that I only wanted one bag--I only had a few items that were lightweight and easily fit into one bag. And last I checked, the crackers are inside a sealed bag, inside a sealed box. The wine is corked and the cork is sealed. The toothpaste is in a sealed tube inside a sealed box. I'm fine with sealed boxes touching each other for the ride home from the store. I went to Target again today. I bought milk, bandaids and vitamins. The clerk put the milk in a separate bag. I said "This is a waste of bags" and I put the bandaids and vitamins in with the milk. She said "Oh but they'll get wet." Seriously, lady??!! The bandaids are wrapped up inside a box, the vitamins are in a jar inside a box. The condensation from the milk carton won't hurt anything on my 5-minute drive home. And you know what? I got home and nothing was wet. Shocking! This inordinate amount of waste is why we need these bag ban laws on the books. If you've ever participated in a beach clean-up or trash pick-up event, you know that you collect tons of plastic bags. Even if you don't mean to pollute, when you toss them in the trash or a dumpster, they are so light, any amount of wind picks them up and carries them on the breeze until they get stuck in brush or trees or power lines. A car driving by moves them to a new location. They only stop blowing in the wind when they land in some body of water and pollute our lakes and oceans, or end up in the gutter only to be washed into the sewer and out to sea, therefore threatening the fragile ecosystems that sustain life. So I applaud the LA City Council and hope it starts the ball rolling to make this ban statewide. And once that happens, California can lead the way for the rest of the nation to follow in our bag-free footsteps!