Over the past few years, it seems as though the last bastion of protection of rights for Americans has come from one court or another in the state of Texas and perhaps that will ring true again on the aforementioned issue of plastic bag bans. . Notwithstanding the polystyrene foam bans, plastic bag bans and plastic straw & utensil bans mentioned above, the Texas Supreme Court unanimously ruled two weeks ago that local cities and towns cannot prohibit retailers from providing their customers with single use disposable plastic bags. In its decision, which upheld a lower court ruling that overturned a plastic bag ban in the city of Laredo, the court found that the Laredo ban (and by extension, similar bans in about a dozen other communities) violate the Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act. That law prohibits cities from managing trash by banning or restricting containers and packages. As the ban is found to violate a state law, it clearly has no impact on communities in other states around the nation other than perhaps to give them hope that the bans will not take solid hold.