Not very funny nor cute. Many plastic manufacturers use animal renderings to make plastics, making them highly desirable for cats to want them. Cats have been known to eat plastic bags leading to panicked owners, emergency surgery to remove the plastic from the cat's system . Please keep all plastic bags away from your cats.
I'm sorry, I wasn't yelling at you. Just informing you. I have one cat that is so attracted to the darn things he will pull open the drawer where they are stashed and run off with one. He has already had a surgery to remove plastic from his belly.
As Hissy said, they love plastic because of the animal fat used to make them. I thought it was funny too, until one of my cats had a bowel movement of pure blood followed by part of a plastic bag. Until that moment I thought she was only licking the bags, not eating them. She was lucky that she didn't need surgery.
They use the oils and fats to make the bags shiny. Thus the attraction.
Plus the cats can get the handles wrapped around their body and take off in a dead run with the darn thing billowing out behind them, scaring them even more and making them difficult to catch and rescue. I now cut off all the handles and stash the bags away so the cats don't get to them.
I've had the situation with the bag handles happen too. It's awful because the cat can easily hurt himself from running around in a panic. Cats love to play in paper bags, but the handles have to be cut to keep them safe.
Teddy used to eat bags... it took us a long time to figure that out. He wouldn't digest them, so maybe eat isn't the right word, but he'd bite them - there were teeth marks in all kinds of bags. And it wasn't just bags - we used to get these huge cases of water that are wrapped in plastic, and he would gnaw those too. We now put away all plastic and anything that has associated plastic as soon as it comes home. He also licked bags too - and would throw up as a consequence of the gnawing... so watch that plastic!
I have never known that about plastic bags, and will be sure to stow them away from now on! My cat once got the bag caught and then ran, but after that I didn't leave the bags out, but when I get home from grocery shopping, they bombard me to lick the bags. No more bags for them!!!
My male Hobbs pees on plastic bags. I asked in this forum about it, and someone told me that bags contain fish oils in them, so it makes him pee on it. Could be similar as to why your kitties lick the plastic