A proposal announced this week would ban plastic bags from stores larger than 5,000 square feet in Manhattan. Nearly 700 large department stores such as Macy's and Target would be required to set up in-store plastic bag recycling programs and sell reusable bags.

The bill may take more than a New York minute to pass, but should be voted on within a few months.

If passed, New York would join environmentally-forward thinking communities, such as Ireland – which introduced a tax on plastic bags in 2002 that reduced their use by 90 percent, and San Francisco – which in March banned them from large supermarkets.

Banning the bags is a great move for the environment. If more cities took similar actions Americans could curb their habit of using more than 80 billion of plastic bags a year that often end up in landfills where they won't biodegrade in even our great-grandchildren's lifetimes, and lessen our consumption of petroleum required for their production.

But recycling them is not without drawbacks. It is time consuming and expensive, and some so-called recycling centers actually ship them off to China and India to be incinerated.

The best bet is to establish a ban or a high tax and encourage the use of reusable bags. Idea for the day – perhaps if cities established taxes on plastic bags, they could afford to purchase reusable bags for their residents.