Posted on 04/07/2018 4:13:46 AM PDT by calvincaspian
In recent weeks, more towns have joined the more than 60 Massachusetts communities that have municipal taxes or bans on single-use plastic shopping bags. On Beacon Hill, a plastic bag ban bill is slowly working its way through the legislative process.
Advocates of the bans point to multitudes of the discarded bags strewn about on city streets, in trees, storm drains and in the oceans, where they threaten fish and birds. They talk about the bags being made from dirty crude oil.
Progressive elected officials in cities and towns will always vote for laws and ordinances that provide the euphoric fix a symbolic, green gesture will provide. We see the same true believers in grocery stores beaming with self-satisfaction when handing their cloth bags over to the cashier.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
Banning paper bags was even less smart. Trees, at least, are a fast renewable compared to the oil for the bags. Paper ones are great for filling and burning junk mail. :)
Yes, I repeated what above, but find myself thinking about it whenever I ask for paper.
Yeah, it’s just about the same thing as seeing people in their hospital scrubs on the train or out to eat. You have to think, “What infectious disease have these people come in contact with as part of their work?”
With cloth grocery bags, you have to think, “What communicable disease is being retained on that thing?”
Actually. Just ask for what was used prior to the plastic bag. Paper.
This “editorial” is largely nonsense.
The bags are not a problem. It’s idiots who let them fly loose in the environment, where they pollute, get into rivers and oceans, and never degrade. (They break into small particles which are eaten by fish, and ultimately by us.)
Not just disease. I met my first cockroach when I was in college. My roomies and I discovered they were hitching a ride into our apartment in our grocery bags. Our local grocery store, it turned out, had a YUGE cockroach problem.
Those were in paper bags, however. And I still prefer paper and/or plastic to reusable. I’m more concerned about the bugs I can’t see.
I stuff my sweaty gym clothes into them and then into the gym bag after work outs. Keeps the gym bag itself fresher.
Also they make great trash bags for those small wastebaskets in the bathrooms.
People will not wash them after every use and cannot see or smell what could cross contamination. Some liquids from meat packages might go unnoticed.
There is a bit of irony related to the use of these plastic T-Shirt bags.
When the plastic bags were first introduced there were people who supported and praised the change from paper to plastic
and those who opposed or were cool to the change.
The group who was for the change to plastic were the greenies and tree-huggers who claimed the plastic bags
would save the trees and be better for the environment.
Those who weren’t so keen on the change to plastic were more or less traditionalists and conservatives.
After all - even then we knew that the paper bags were easily and quickly biodegradeable and plastic wasn’t.
To put it in context a little - this was the same era when McDonalds introduced those foam clam-shell style containers
for their sandwiches and abandoned the traditional paper and cardboard containers.
Those used foam cotainers soon became a blight in every town with a McDonalds, littering streets and rivers.
It’s been years since McDonalds wised up and moved back to the paper and cardboard.
Many supermarkets still offer paper bags as an option to the T-Shirt style plastic bags so we take the paper option
much of the time and reuse them at home in different ways.
Are they not washable?
—
How often are they washed? Most in my experience are never washed unless something spills in them.
Spray on germ killers are not any good they are mostly a placebo for those who ae afraid. Most germs are resistant. There are some studies out there defining this problem. Basically very hot water will kill most germs, with soap to get the greasy stuff to come free. Hence the warning: always wash your hands - you never know where they have been.
paper is great, but bags made today are too weak to be dependable when carrying from store to way out in the parking lot, and then from car to kitchen. They tear too easily. Hence plastic.
What’s next???? A ban on single use TAMPONS?
Single use for groceries. After that they are fair game for other uses.
Years ago, at the dawn of the environmental movement, there was a scholarly journal with the title "Garbage" (no kidding). It published scientific studies of the things that end up in landfills. Very interesting mag. But because the real science contradicted the eco-politically-correct memes, it didn't last long.
They published a study laying out the ecological impacts of both paper and plastic grocery bags. Not surprisingly, the plastic bags had a far lower eco-footprint than paper. So the eco-nutcases had to invent the garbage equivalent of "thinning eagle egg shells" of plastic bags strangling wildlife and being eaten by sea-turtles to justify their attempts to ban them.
I’m with you except for the jobs rationale.
If plastic bags are an ecologic disaster, we shouldn’t keep using them just to keep people employed. Reusable bags surely employ a number of people. Also, if it is a cost that can be removed from the retail distribution chain, that will be like any other improvement or efficiency that can increase the net disposable income of consumers.
Most that I have seen would require hand-washing...not something one can just toss in the washing machine.
"BTW spray on germ killers (I won’t mention any names) are essentially insecticides. Chlorine is a naturally occurring antibacterial agent and is recognized leader in sanitizing protocols."
Chlorine is indeed THE best sanitizing agent, especially for drinking water...but it is FAR from being natural. I worked for Dow Chemical early in my career, and spent more time than I care to recall in and around chlorine production plants.
Case of 900 goes for $20 delivered on Amazon, just saying. Not even Kalifornia has asked Amazon to pull the plug on Kalifornia sales like they have on Freon and a few other items. The ban on free bags in Kalifornia is limited to Grocery stores, and Walmart types. Hardware stores, clothing stores are still exempt although I’m sure there is a sunset built into the law on them as well. For our kitchen trash and recyclables plastic bags just do the best job for hauling them outside to the main container’s IMO.
You are exactly right. Back in the early 70s they got the grocery stores to stop using paper bags and to switch to plastic. Started with offering customers a choice. Remember clerks asking “paper or plastic”. If you chose paper you were looked down on. Then they started charging you a nickel for each paper bag. Now you can’t get anything but plastic. And those plastic bags are everywhere. Go up on the Blue Ridge mountains and ya see that trash up in the trees.
Save the Trees bull crap.
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