Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, takes an exceptionally dim view of the thin, single-use plastic bags that have become a staple of contemporary life in almost every corner of the globe. They “should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere,” he says bluntly. He’s got a point.

Mankind is beginning to drown and be smothered in plastic bags. The bags, typically used to carry groceries, produce and other items from marketplace to home are a blight. Need proof? Look around the next time you take a drive, visit a lake, vacation at the beach or travel the nation’s back roads. Wherever you go, the plastic bags are an unfortunate and disturbing part of the landscape.

The ubiquity of the bags is hardly a surprise. The exact number is uncertain, but Americans tote over 100 billion single-use bags home each year. The majority are not recycled. They’re simply discarded and end up in landfills, in inland waterways, along roadsides and even in the middle of the oceans of the world.

Indeed, Mr. Steiner reports that plastic — the bags and related items — is the most common form of ocean litter. That’s not a statistic ginned up by an environmental activist out to make a point. It is fact supported by evidence.

The recent search for a missing Air France plane that went down in the mid-Atlantic was complicated because of sea-borne trash, much of it plastic. And the Ocean Conservancy, which has sponsored International Coastal Cleanup Day for more than two decades consistently reports that plastic bags are the second most common form of litter after cigarette butts. Organizations that sponsor land-based clean-ups report that bags and other plastic detritus always rank high among categories of items collected.

Mr. Steiner’s draconian suggestion that the manufacture of the single-use bags be banned or phased out makes sense. Eliminating or limiting their use would improve the environment and preserve natural resources. Those aren’t the only benefits.

Manufacturers use millions of barrels of oil each year to make the bags. Businesses spend billions of dollars to purchase them — and pass along the cost to consumers. Governments and private groups spend billions more collecting and disposing of them. That’s all wasted money and effort. Ending or severely curtailing the use of plastic bags is a better policy. Doing so need not create hardship.

Consumers elsewhere do quite well, thank you, without plastic — or paper — bags. Europeans, in particular, are accustomed to providing their own bags when they shop. Typically, the bags are made of net or another serviceable material that can be used over and over again. It’s a habit foreign to these shores, but it is one that is gaining adherents here.

A small but growing number of U.S. consumers now insist on using environmentally friendly bags. Many businesses, particularly grocery stores, are starting to meet that demand. They either sell such bags at a nominal cost or give them to regular customers. Eventually, the shift in consumer preference will reduce or eliminate the widespread use of thin plastic bags, but additional steps are needed to expedite the process.

San Francisco has the right idea. It has banned the bags. Los Angeles will follow suit next year. A city council vote this month in the nation’s capital will determine the fate of plastic bags there. Other communities are considering similar rules, though some places — New York and Philadelphia most prominently — have rejected similar laws. Legal action alone, though, is not enough to end or reduce production and use of plastic bags.

Personal responsibility on the part of consumers and corporations also is necessary if the current plague of single-use plastic bags in the environment and every-day life is to be ended. There’s little doubt that such an effort is needed. The difficulty, so far, is in summoning the collective will to do so.