Posted on 03/20/2013 9:21:36 PM PDT by mom of young patriots
Texas State Rep. Drew Springer embraces freedom.
Even for plastic bags.
The Republican from Muenster recently filed "The Shopping Bag Freedom Act," a bill intended to block plastic-bag bans in Austin and other Texas cities.
Such bans are designed to push customers into buying reusable bags at the checkout stand or bringing some to the store.
Supporters praise the bans as a boost for the environment.
Critics deride them as unwarranted government intrusion that could increase costs for consumers.
"At a time of economic recession and with food prices at an all-time high, this hidden social tax on the poor will cause many to have to choose between necessary items such as milk and bread or having a reusable bag to carry their groceries," Springer said. "This type of government overreach must be stopped here and now.
"If a municipality can ban bags, what is to say they won't mandate how large a soda can be or how much salt one can put on their food."
Plastic bags have been a mainstay in grocery and convenience stores and restaurants for decades, edging out paper bags in popularity soon after they were introduced.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/03/15/4703821/texas-lawmaker-wants-to-stop-plastic.html#storylink=cpy
(Excerpt) Read more at star-telegram.com ...
Phone calls and letters to Congresspeople in Texas in support of this proposed Shopping Bag Freedom Act are needed at the moment and would be much appreciated.
Some people just enjoy banning things. Maybe they could get behind this ban ban too.
They just switched overnight at our Target in SoCal and tracing back the origins of the lefty movement, it came mostly from one idiot liberal actress, forgot her name but she played Elaine in Seinfeld. If I had a paper bag and she was across me, I would shove it down her throat.
I hate hippies, fascist dictators every one. Plastic bags are recyclable nowadays anyways. They want us to go back in time, not forward (as they peck on their iphones and computers). HATE THEM!
Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She should stick to acting. Her common sense quotient is a little low to be meddling in real life affairs like this.
Austin has more than its share to be sure. I have lived among them for years now and sometimes I marvel that I am still sane.
My wife bought some of those canvas bags and uses them on her main shopping trips. We still haul in plenty of the plastic bags, though. Certainly enough to use them for garbage bags without running out. ( We used to have to recycle them. ) They’re incredibly strong. Where I live, clerks will unnecessarily double bag with them for a couple of Foster’s oil cans. I think you could haul gold bars without breaking them!
I still prefer plastic bags for groceries, but I have some really nice string bags that I have used for small purchases for years, long before this stupid plastic ban went into effect. I have nothing against conservation when it is a personal choice and not done simply as self righteous grandstanding. What I really hate, though, is to be at a store with one of my string bags and get cooed over by some tree hugging liberal that thinks my shopping bag is just soooo cool and where can she get one for herself. I am disgusted to be mistaken for a politically correct environmentalist and the string bag is a magnet for that kind of assumption. Carrying one now makes me feel like a chump.
I moved to Round Rock just in time.
I’ve been saying nearly the same things myself. Money, money. You know the night the ban was passed down at city hall, a prominent (private) recycling company in the area showed up to beg time to put together a viable recycling program. The city council basically gave them the finger and passed the ban late that night. Anyone who thinks that action was done to protect the environment has compost for brains.
I may not be far behind. I’m considering Georgetown, even.
I love plastic bags, and always say ‘plastic’ when asked my choice at checkout. And I recycle them...I mail a lot of packages...sometimes daily...and I use the plastic bags as ‘filler’ in the box...works great, is light weight, and gives the recipient something for their own use...LOL.
And any that might be left over, if we were to (God forbid) have too many, they get burned with our other burnable trash. We burn what we can burn (and no, CO2 does not cause global warming), and we recycle all our steel cans, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, glass bottles. Food waste goes to the cats or our horses. Coffee grounds, egg shells and other food waste that is not fit for man nor beast goes for compost. We pay for trash service, but they make out big time, ‘cause we rarely have much in our trash barrel.
And btw, I hate polystyrene ‘peanuts’ used in packaging.
I would be interested in research showing whether string bags (mentioned by someone in this thread) are a disease vector, and if so how serious. One the flip side of the question, the string bags I've had were easy to wash off and dry, you just run them under the tap, squeeze out the water in one swipe of your hand, and hang it up to dry.
Walmart bags are the new Texas flag, they are everywhere in the trees.
They also get wrapped into hay bales and muck up cattle feeding on the hay bales.
That said, just enforce litter and nuisance laws.
Why ban plastic bags?
Millions of Grannys depend on them!!
Them plastic shopping bags are perfect for bath disposal cans.
I fail to see why we want to ban stuff that is inexpensive and long lasting.
Should we pay more for crap that falls apart?
Not just recyclable, but reusable. Everyone I know uses the plastic shopping bags as trash bags.
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