Posted on 05/27/2012 5:21:43 PM PDT by Mark
If you get home delivery of this newspaper, and I hope you do, it arrives in a plastic bag.
There's a reason for that.
Despite Southern California's reputation for sunny weather, occasionally rain does fall.
And then there's that pesky marine layer - the so-called June Gloom - plus your neighbor's poorly aimed sprinklers, and maybe even some residual tears after another early Lakers exit from the playoffs.
So your newspaper needs protection.
So do your rights.
But the L.A. City Council doesn't believe you should have the right to choose paper or plastic when lugging your oatmeal and bran muffins home from Ralphs. Which doesn't mean we can't get plastic bags at Ralphs or Vons or Gelson's.
Try aisle three.
They still sell all kinds: kitchen bags, big lawn and leaf bags, even plastic litter box liners for our cats. But when we get to the checkout counter, the store can't give you a free 100 percent recyclable bag to lug the other bags home.
Does this make any sense?
It does to the Philosopher Kings on the L.A. City Council. Last Tuesday they backed a ban on plastic bags at most stores in Los Angeles.
Why? Because they know better than us.
We're selfish pigs. They're enlightened custodians of the planet, saving marine life from the evil plastic-bag cartel while watching out for the taxpayers' money. Councilman Paul Krekorian claims, "L.A. spends five, six or more millions every year cleaning up plastic bags."
Nonsense.
That number, like nearly every number fed to us by government, is phony. At best it's an extrapolation from the total cost of trash cleanup; at worst it's an outright fabrication.
Are we to believe the Department of Sanitation keeps records for each category of litter?
Plastic bag, check. Pepsi can, check. Pizza box, check.
The city can't even tell us what the real response time is for the Fire Department, but we're supposed to believe they know how much it costs to clean up just plastic bags?
And what is the cost? $5 million? $6 million? More?
That's quite a spread.
Then again, we should be used to numerical gymnastics. The bullet train was $38 billion until it was $98 billion and then back down to $68 billion, while the state deficit was $9 billion in January but $17 billion today.
The city was going to fire 231 employees until they magically "found" $13 million that somehow became $16 million.
I asked Krekorian's office for the source of the "$5 million, $6 million or more" figure and was promised a copy of a Sanitation Department study - purportedly the basis of the councilman's claim - but had not received it prior to the deadline for this column.
Litter is a serious problem.
But personal freedom is also serious stuff.
The council's bag ban is eco-theater masquerading as environmental protection.
It's another arbitrary intrusion into our lives that punishes businesses while accomplishing nothing of substance to actually help the environment.
California's "Statewide Waste Characterization Study" says "Plastic grocery and other merchandise bags" make up 0.3 percent of the state's waste. Three-tenths of 1 percent! And that's the problem?
Our consumer culture is often wasteful, and right-wing media and politicians routinely mock environmentalists, blinding millions to very real ominous ecological realities.
But equally dangerous is the relentless indoctrination from the left that anything labeled "green" is good without giving a thought to how intrusive or feckless a law may be.
Symbolism and substance have become interchangeable.
Littering is a crime. The city should prosecute the guilty as aggressively as they do parking meter violations.
Leave the rest of us alone.
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Doug McIntyre's column appears Wednesdays and Sundays.
You can reach him at Doug@KABC.com.
OOPS! Title should be: Doug McIntyre: L.A.’s bag ban sacks common sense
I read somewhere that the “majority” of trash is cigarette butts. Nonsense. IMO it’s fast food garbage and Starbucks cups left ON TOP of the garbage cans.
Your post is utter nonsense, its political junkman
Junk Mail sorry
If California really wanted to get serious about reducing landfill waste, they would just ban garbage.
Could you correct title - Bag BAN Sacks Common Sense
Or do you honestly believe that the majority of garbage is cigarette butts?
Hell, attack everyone else!
This, from ignorant "elected" (arguable) criminals who vote themselves, and their private "constituents" (read public union employees) raises at least annualy for merely breathing and having a pulse.
So what do we do about it?
By the way, all grocery plastic bags that we get are totally recycled, without exception, via use to get rid of pet refuse or recycled materials in the properly political correct refuse bins.
I agree. Stomp on litterbugs financially seriously, whether they are on welfare (the majority) or not.
Leave the rest of us alone!
There’s going to be alot of sick people about when more folks bring in their funky cloth bags for groceries. Heaven knows where some of those have been. What will happen to all the plastic gloves that will then be worn by checkers to protect themselves from pathogens?
Large grocery stores have deep pockets, so employment of lawyers should jump.
Actually, I think Los Angeles is not overly obnoxious ... there are still people (other than illegals) living and paying taxes there! When the last taxpayer leaves, then I will rate Los Angeles as overly obnoxious.
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