Photo credit: Susan Reimer

This time of year, when the trees are still quite bare, they look like the work of giant tent caterpillars.

But they are not that at all. They are plastic bags. Windswept, ripped, grimey gray in color, caught in the branches of trees.

This is just one of the places the plastic bags land. They are also clogging storm drains and waterways and they are found in the nests of large birds and in the digestive tracks of fish.

But they are most noticeable when they are stretched across the barren trees, looking like mishapen sails.

Laws to ban plastic bags have been introduced in Baltimore City, Annapolis City and in the Maryland State Legislature. They have all failed.

Jeffrie Zellmer, legislative director of the Maryland Retailers Association, says his clients oppose any ban on plastic bags.

"The plastic bag doesn't jump up and litter," he said. "And these aren't bags from the large grocery stores. People take those bags into the house and unpack them.

"These are bags from the little convenience store on the corner. Somebody goes in, buys one thing and throws the bag down."

He says there is no evidence that the plastic bags take longer to decompose in landfills than paper bags. It isn't known how long it takes either one to disappear. 

And he says those that are recycled are refashioned by a company in Virginia into plastic decking material.

Soon enough, the trees will fill in with their canope of leaves, and the ghostly plastic bags in their branches will be invisible for another year, and maybe many more.

It isn't known how long it takes plastic bags to decompose in trees.