Nussbaum: Here's why plastic bags shouldn't be in the green bin

The decision made last week at Ottawa Council to allow plastic bags in the composting stream is a short-sighted one on which I and two of my colleagues (councillors Jeff Leiper and Catherine McKenney) dissented.
Increasingly as a society, we are recognizing the costs of single-use plastic bags. At the production end, plastic bags are a non-renewable, petroleum-based product that take energy to produce – 12 million barrels’ worth worldwide each year. On the consumption side, these bag