Alright kids, today — MARCH 1 — marks the first day of the new ban on plastic bags in NYC and all of NYS. Let’s a have a look back in this fun and rather beautiful at times, Ode to a Plastic Bag photo essay and commentary. Ohhhh BAGS. We hardly knew ya.
If the state ban is successful, these now-familiar objects may eventually become artifacts of a New York City past.
From the NYT | By Annalisa Quinn | Photographs by Tony Cenicola | Feb. 28, 2020
In the four decades since plastic bags became standard in grocery stores, New York has been haunted by these diaphanous, crinkly ghosts. They cluster in drains, spill out of garbage cans and tangle in trees. Together with old MetroCards, Anthora coffee cups, and disintegrating copies of The New York Post, they have become part of the city’s visual landscape, the kind of everyday objects so pervasive that they seem invisible.
They may soon begin to disappear, though. Beginning March 1, single-use plastic carryout bags will be banned in New York state. “For far too long these bags have blighted our environment and clogged our waterways,” said Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in a statement proposing the ban last year.
Plastic bags will not vanish: Enforcement will be lenient at first, and the law allows a number of exceptions, from the expected (dry cleaning, food delivery) to the niche (bulk-buying live insects). But if the ban is successful, these now-familiar objects may eventually become artifacts of a New York City past.
When Sho Shibuya, a graphic designer, moved from Tokyo to New York in 2011, among the first things he noticed was the abundance of plastic bags. He estimates that he has now collected about 200, some of them pictured here.
In treasuring things other people consider trash, Shibuya cites a Shinto belief that every object has a spirit.
“We believe every single object has a god inside, and that’s why we cherish things. Even a plastic bag, even a cigarette butt.”
As a collector, Mr. Shibuya was drawn to the beauty of the bags as design objects, with seemingly infinite, slight variations on the same handful of themes: a smiley face, a bunch of purple flowers, a graphic repeating sans serif “THANK YOU,” a curling “Thank you for shopping here!” banner. “Everything is so perfect to me,” he said.
These imprints are not copyrighted and difficult to trace, but, Shibuya points out, there is an informal taxonomy to New York City’s plastic bags, apparent to anyone paying attention.
Speak to Dave readers: Here’s one last preview gallery for you before we gotta jump to the original piece. Bags. Love ‘em or hate ‘em but it’s time to leave ‘em in the past, man. This last batch here are beauties, and there’s loads more at the NYT … Farewell, bags.
