When did plastic shopping bags come ruin our planet?

I miss brown paper bags. From lunch to helping my mother carrying groceries, I miss its plain, but comforting texture.....

I always wondered when plastic bags became the norm. The earliest piece of research I got my hands on was from the book Working Daughters of Hong Kong by Janet Salaff. It's a fascinating book from around the 1970s where Janet and her infant daughter Shana travelled to Hong Kong to interview working daughters of various classes and employment sectors. One of her subjects worked at a plastic bag factory making bags for the Esso gas stations. Does Esso gas still exist? Just asking.....

I always knew plastic took a while to decompose, but not over 200 years! The worst is diapers!!! EWWWWWWWWW..... Can you imagine the George Jeffersons of the future digging up artifacts and asking the next person what this amorphous and foul smelling bag is and he/she says its something that held baby's waste! LOL

Go cloth diapers!