| The City Council on Thursday green-lit a controversial bill that puts a 5-cent fee on plastic and paper shopping bags at grocery, convenience and other stores. |
I'll be honest at first I hated the soda tax and the no smoking in bars rule. I have since come around to them.
I HATE this right now but who knows in a few years.
This seems like a lazy way to generate revenue and could get expensive for low income families.
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If you ever go overseas to other countries you would see how absurd our country of convenience actually is.
100% correct
I just can't stand all the rules being imposed on us. In my almost two decades as an adult, this country has definitely become more moralistic and regulatory.
So I am not sure it has accomplished what the county council wanted but we do drive around with quite a few cloth bags in our trunks.
"I classify them as pretty dirty things, like the bottom of your shoes," said Ryan Sinclair of the Loma Linda University School of Public Health, a co-author of the study."
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well played
Personally, I think this is absurd.
Plastic bags that end in the water do a lot of damage. We have a place in Cambridge MA and they charge $.10 per bag there. We always use our own except for take out. It's not a big deal and worth it to get rid of plastic bags.
BB, you did not notice a difference between Germany and Asia with regards to daily trash?
If you're using paper bags for recycling, that's cool. If you're using plastic, that's bad. Plastic bags are a no-no for curbside recycling. They foul up the sorting machines they use and contaminate other recyclables.
Most grocery stores have a bin to recycle *just* plastic bags. That's the only place they're OK.
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for recycling. So, not only do I need to buy reusable bags, but also recycling bags.
If you're using paper bags for recycling, that's cool. If you're using plastic, that's bad. Plastic bags are a no-no for curbside recycling. They foul up the sorting machines they use and contaminate other recyclables.
Most grocery stores have a bin to recycle *just* plastic bags. That's the only place they're OK.
The government doesn't get the money.
The initiative will go a long way to both helping the environment and cutting the city's refuse costs. But wouldn't you know it - people hate it. Why? It's different, it's a pain in the ass, and we never had to do this before.
Nothing but good can come from it, but people will bitch about it incessantly, try to throw around political bullshit, and wax poetically about the good old days. It's no different with the plastic bags.
Eventually, we'll be able to get to a point where we'll be more conscious about what we waste, and we'll maximize recycling/re-use. Sure, because it's a government program there will be waste/bureaucracy/graft, but overall it'll be better for the planet and we'll all be better off for it.
Same. I use plastic bags for the incinerator.
Huh? How is cutting down on plastic bags being snobby? Using your own bags for the store to cut down on plastic and using the smaller doggie bags for your pet (the whole purpose of them is that they are small and more efficient and less wasteful) seems incredibly logical.
People are lazy, its really what is comes down to. Laws limiting soda size are ridiculous; trying to cut down on waste with less plastic isn't.
Big Blue Blogger : 7:31 am : link : reply
...you get used to it very quickly. And the real incentive isn't to save money. It's avoid in the scorn of other shoppers. The idiot who doesn't bring a reusable bag slows down the line, because the whole checkout process becomes geared for shoppers to bag their own stuff in bags they already have. Plus, he gets abused for not caring about the earth. I know, because I was that guy a few times before I got with the program.
Every store in Germany (and most of Europe) has you use your own bags for small items, or you pay for the bags. When I go to the grocery store there, I grab the plastic bag at the checkout line for 10 euro cents and then bag the items as they are getting rung up. It is a fine oiled machine, even though I'm usually the only person without their own bag.
More like 'I don't give a shit, so why should you?'.
I'm glad you pick up your dogshit with your plastic bags, that's a productive use for them. Plenty of people use them for garbage bags as well.
And the rest? End up floating around sewer systems, rivers, landfills - for no good god damn reason.
Do I think I'm better because I don't take a plastic bag when I buy a half gallon of milk from the grocery store? I never thought of it that way, and I didn't ever look down on the people who took the bag. But apparently some of those people have a complex.
One thing I think SHOULD happen is for grocery stores to train their staffs. There seems to be a mentality that they should use the maximum bags possible, like it's sort of perk for the customers. Even when I say "all in 1 bag please" they still find a way to use mores, like wrapping a fully wrapped package of chicken in another bag and then putting it into my single bag.
Again, this isn't a tax: the government doesn't get the money.
Anyway, if you don't like this solution, what's yours? Plastic bags in waterways are a ecological scourge. If this is the wrong solution, what's the right one?
I suggested a partial solution in the post immediately above yours. My guess is that you could cut the use of plastic bags by 15-20% simply by changing the habits of the check out people at grocery stores.
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If this is the wrong solution, what's the right one?
I suggested a partial solution in the post immediately above yours. My guess is that you could cut the use of plastic bags by 15-20% simply by changing the habits of the check out people at grocery stores.
You don't think those stores have already been trying to get their people to lighten up on bags? They're working on razor thin margins, they'd do it to save the money before anything else.
As for 15-20%, that's very optimistic - I doubt you'd ever see that from this measure, let alone trying to socialize better bag usage.
It's not just oceans, it's rivers, streams and lakes as well. Plus, the ocean is downstream of everything. What goes in your local stream or river eventually finds it's way to the ocean.
It's not just a coastal problem.
You don't think those stores have already been trying to get their people to lighten up on bags? They're working on razor thin margins, they'd do it to save the money before anything else.
I think they accept it as a cost of doing business because a small number of customers like it. Perhaps they're worried about slowing down check-out by simply asking "1 bag or 2?" But I've seen supervisors watch an incredible amount of overbagging go on and come back the next week (or year for that matter) and see nothing change.
I'm perfectly comfortable disagreeing with you and others on this, but that's my opinion
Plastic imposes high costs on others who aren't even at fault; $0.05 price increases have been found to be incredibly effective in other places (nearly 80% reduction in plastic bags) where they have been utilized.
On one hand you have free market economics. The free market allows the impact to people decide how behavior is affected. Through intervention in the free market we drive behavior (often with unintended consequences or as a willful tool to feed crony capitalism).
The lady didn't really think anything of it and I can't really fault her, 9 times out of 10 her customer probably just takes the bag within a bag.
Like most things it comes down to education and a tiny bit of forward thinking. Moms seem to be the most keen on bringing bags for two reasons. First 2-3 large bags is a hell of a lot easier to carry than 8-10 smaller plastic bags. Second, Moms like to set an example for their kids and are generally around their kids more (atleast form a shopping perspective) than the dads.
A plastic bag floating in a river is kind of the modern day equivalent of dumping lead into the waterways. And, since we know that many people are impacted, free market solutions become less viable.
Rejecting (or endorsing) incentives for bag re-use based on ideology, rather than a careful analysis of costs and benefits, is a recipe for bad policy.
I don't know if its about feeling good for paying for them Bama, I just think its a step in the right direction and its not a real hefty one at that