Ban Production of Short-Term Use Plastic Products

You may not know, because your news agencies probably don't want you to, that just this past January 2008, only four months ago, a country the size of China banned the use of plastic bags.   It is a ban that will take effect  in a couple of months, helping the world save an approximated 37 million barrels of crude oil and doubtless curbing global plastic contamination.   The great city of San Francisco had already seen the light a year ago, instituting a ban on plastic bag usage in all major supermarkets and pharmacy chains.  Similarly, Australia, Bangladesh,  Ireland, Italy, South Africa, Taiwan and the city of Mumbai have either curbed or banned use of plastic bags. The U.S.A. needs to follow suit on a nationwide scale, not only to ban plastic bags, but also to ban all short-term or one-time use plastic products such as plastic bottles, plastic razors, bottle caps, etc., etc.  We have entirely viable options, namely to use starch-based plastics that can biodegrade in a matter of months and that don't pose the toxic health hazards - Google bisphenol-a -  of currently used conventional plastics.