I enjoy eating fruits and vegetables throughout the year. I take my time selecting apples, peaches, broccoli, plums and cherries. I carefully select the items that are not bruised. Then I reach for a clear plastic bag to put them in. That is when the frustration begins.

Near the fruit aisle, most supermarkets have a plastic bag dispenser. The trick is to pull on the plastic bag until a built-in hook, mounted on the dispenser, separates your bag from the roll. Each bag identifies where to start with the word “Open.” It is not that simple.

Despite many efforts the bag seems impossible to open. I glance around the produce section and see I am not alone in the frustration of these plastic bags. Some shoppers are grabbing it by the sides and trying to pry it open. Another person is attempting to blow air inside to open the bag.  My method is to wet my fingertips and rub around the opening. Eventually, I sense some movement and pull the bag open. 

My jubilation in opening the bag is soon squashed when I realize I have many different types of fruits and vegetables including squash. Each variety requires a separate plastic bag so the cashiers can ring them up. At this rate, my bananas are already challenging me to get them home before they start turning brown. 

How did plastic produce bags become so popular?  Little did I realize that in the 1967 movie “The Graduate” that Benjamin, played by Dustin Hoffman, would be given a hint of what was to come. At his party celebrating his college graduation, his neighbor just said the word “Plastics.” 

The 1960’s saw the proliferation of many plastic items including produce bags. Someone figured out how to manufacture high-density polyethylene, the basic ingredient in produce bags. A Swedish company, Celloplast, was busy trying to figure out how to monetize this new type of plastic. They came up with the concept that a plastic tube could be laid flat. Then it was fed into a machine that sliced off pieces in intervals creating a sealed bottom and opened top. They were granted a U.S. patent in 1960 for their “tubing for packing purposes. In 1965 they were granted another patent that improved their plastic bags by creating a way to punch out part of the tube to create handles. This design known as the “T-shirt” is still widely used in the manufacture of plastic garbage bags.

In my opinion, they should have taken the next step to make the tube-shaped produce bags easier to open. Wouldn’t it make sense to punch out a half-moon piece on one side of the open end? It would make it simple to pry open. Also, it might eliminate customers having to resort to licking their fingers to pry open the bag. A brief note about hygiene and the wet finger method. When you put your groceries on the checkout conveyer, traces of your saliva are deposited waiting to mingle with the items of the person next in line.

Here’s my idea about the plastic produce bag. Stores should eliminate them. I would replace them with reusable small meshed string bags. They could be bought at the service desk or cashier. Of course, initially customers would object to having to pay for them. But I remember when supermarkets stopped bagging groceries in plastic bags and made us buy reusable shopping bags that we now keep in the car to be carried into the store.

The cashiers could identify the produce and the string bag would be more hygienic without the vestiges of your wet fingers. Also, string bags are biodegradable unlike plastic bags that can last for over 500 years.

So, the next time I see someone futilely trying to open a plastic produce bag, I might walk over to them and paraphrase the line from “The Graduate” by saying “mesh string bags”.

Hudson Cooper is a resident of Sullivan County, a writer, comedian and actor.