One of my big pet peeves is single-use plastic bags. I think

Hear the thunder in the words of Philippe Cousteau, Jr.: “One of my big pet peeves is single-use plastic bags. I think it’s one of the stupidest ideas in the world.” Though uttered in the language of our time, the weight of this statement carries the force of prophecy. For he does not speak merely of bags, but of mankind’s folly, of waste born from thoughtlessness, of a creation that endures for centuries yet is discarded after moments. It is a rebuke to a generation lulled into ease, and a warning to those who come after: the world groans beneath our careless inventions.

The ancients, though bereft of plastic, understood the danger of excess and arrogance. They told of Icarus, who flew too high with waxen wings, scorning the limits of nature, and so fell into the sea. Our single-use plastic is such arrogance: fashioned for convenience, yet heedless of consequence. For what is a bag that carries fruit for minutes, yet lingers in the ocean for ages? What is an invention that spares us effort today, only to poison the fish, the bird, the turtle, and even our own descendants? Indeed, it is as Cousteau declares: among the most foolish contrivances of humankind.

Let us recall a real tale from our modern chronicles. In the Pacific Ocean lies a vast and terrible gyre of floating debris, called by sailors the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is larger than nations, a monstrous testament to waste, where countless plastic bags drift like specters, strangling sea life and suffocating the waves. A sea turtle mistakes a bag for a drifting jellyfish and chokes upon it. A seabird, weary and starving, feeds its young fragments of bright-colored plastic until their bellies fill not with food, but with poison. This is the fruit of thoughtless invention, the harvest of our own hands.

Yet, Cousteau’s lament is not spoken to condemn alone, but to awaken. He calls us to recognize the absurdity: a material of permanence used for a task of fleeting seconds. To craft something nearly immortal, only to cast it away after a single use, is folly so profound that even the gods of Olympus would shake their heads. We stand guilty of wasting eternity on the trivial, and the earth, our mother, bears the scars of our carelessness.

But there is also hope, as there always has been when men and women turn back from folly. Just as nations of old abolished practices that brought ruin — slavery, dueling, the burning of forests without restraint — so too can we cast off the habit of single-use plastic. Already, cities and countries awaken to this truth, banning the bags, weaving instead cloth, hemp, or recycled fibers into vessels that may be used again and again. This is wisdom reborn: that the strength of humanity lies not in invention alone, but in the discipline to use invention rightly.

The lesson for us is clear. Treat the earth as a sacred trust, not a marketplace of endless waste. When offered a plastic bag, decline it. Carry your own, sturdy and reusable, as a badge of honor. Refuse the fleeting convenience that buys comfort today but curses the ocean tomorrow. In small acts repeated by millions, empires of waste shall crumble, and the seas will breathe again.

Therefore, O children of the future, remember this saying of Cousteau. Let it burn in your hearts when laziness tempts you to accept the bag of a moment. Think of the turtle, the bird, the unborn generations who will inherit the earth you shape today. Choose wisely, live simply, and walk lightly upon the soil. For the earth is not ours to exploit, but ours to protect, to guard like a sacred flame.

And so the truth resounds: to use single-use plastic bags is to mock eternity with foolishness. To cast them aside is to stand among those who honor the sea, who protect the air, who leave behind not poison, but blessing. Let each of us take up this duty, not with resignation, but with joy — for in such choices we join the eternal guardianship of creation itself.