Smoking in bars, drinking in public parks, and even metal bats in New York City little league games have all recently fallen prey to ravenous city councils. Starved of further social woes to devour, local legislators are rummaging in the trash—literally—for something new to ban. It may have taken decades, but they finally found a product too dangerous, too noxious for legal possession: plastic bags. And if plastic bags are outlawed, only outlaws will have plastic bags. This absurd, yet true formula hails an emerging era of extreme social restrictions.

Recently, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors approved a ban on nearly every plastic bag currently used by grocery stores and retailers in the area. Set to take effect in five months, the legislation will mark a new low in the broader, ever-accelerating race to corrode liberties in the name of social improvement.

But what is bureaucratic gluttony if not fed by saccharine promises of social improvement? No ban would be complete without the usual overblown rhetoric. Not surprisingly, San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, as quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle, has already labeled the still-in-use plastic bags as “relic[s] of the past.” When the city eliminates plastic bags, 180 million a year, it will save an estimated 774,000 gallons of fuel that would have gone towards their production. However, the principle “benefit” of this ban, says Mirkarimi, comes after they’ve been made. As they cannot easily be recycled, these plastic bags commit the unthinkable—they occupy space in a landfill.

In the place of these deviant social menaces come new, recyclable bags. The new bags, whose fourfold cost will be deferred to grocers and consumers, are so highly touted that the Board does not foresee objections to the government-mandated expense. For instance, Mirkarimi has highlighted their durability to appease a public supposedly fed up with the contemporary feeble plastic sacks. In an audacious display of brawn, the new grocery bags successfully withstood a massive 55-pound payload. Perfect! Suburban moms can now shop with a clean (green) conscious and tote their obese toddler in a bag next to the ham.

Ban-happy legislators appear to forget, however, that too much indulgence in these sweet, socially “beneficial” temptations is not without its sour costs. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a standard plastic bag costs 2 cents to produce, while the new replacement bag will cost between 5 to 10 cents. Calculating an average increase in cost at 5 cents, and with a population estimate of 800,000 (taken from the latest US Census), the financial burden of these bags will pile up as fast as the trash they create: a per capita expense of $11.25. For a family of four living in California, this is roughly equivalent to an additional $45 annual tax. While this math is less-than-exact, the point is evident.

Of course, the added expense of recyclable bags is trivial when compared to the gravest cost of this ban—that of the civil liberty to produce a product in the free market. But it is surprising to see the front lines of governmental paternalism lower itself to something so trite. Is not this ban just another extension of the social contract trade-off between liberal trade and external management?

Even libertarians agree that prohibiting things that threaten public health is necessary if externalities are to be paid for in a free market. Restrictions on carbon emissions and river pollution are only two of the measures often established to protect the public good. However, the issue of plastic bags is, in actuality, as petty as the preferences of a few hyper-progressive council members. The bags themselves do not create any unique or direct harm for the public. And remember, it is the bags themselves that are being restricted, not the processes or emissions used in their production. Unlike carbon emissions or public smoking, the presence of plastic bags hurts no one; their only true “damage” is done at the landfill. They are, therefore, guilty of no crimes against nature.

Instead, plastic bags are guilty of a “crime” attributable to almost every product in America: they are disposable and take up space. Ironically, it appears they are breaking no laws, but rather merely obeying one: the Law of Conservation of Matter. (Which, surprisingly, has yet to be overturned by California courts.)

State legislators have warped free market protection and liberty to a laughable degree. Yes, plastic bags take up space in landfills. And yes, degradable material is always preferred. But for the whims of councilmen to outlaw such a ubiquitous and useful product is troubling. With such thin criteria for a ban, it is unclear what else may meet the jaws of legislative restriction. Plastic forks? Plastic pens? Plastic water bottles? The slope just became more slippery.