Posted on 03/06/2021 2:03:05 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Maryland lawmakers advanced a bill Monday that would prohibit stores from providing plastic bags to customers starting July 2022.
An iteration of this legislation passed the House and was voted out of the Senate Finance Committee last year, but it did not reach the Senate floor due to the abbreviated legislative session.
With an amendment from Del. Brian Crosby (D-St. Mary’s) that would allow orchard farmers to provide plastic bags to customers for its fruits and vegetables, the Plastic Bag Reduction Act, sponsored by Del. Brooke Lierman (D-Baltimore City) and Sen. Malcom Augustine (D-Prince George’s), moved out of the House Economic Matters committee 16-7 on Monday.
Some Republican lawmakers worried about a paper bag shortage and argued that the bill would increase costs for small businesses and transfer extra costs of paper bags onto customers. Although large retail stores could swallow the cost, smaller ones would have a more difficult time, they said.
“It puts the small guys, and the small business women, at yet another disadvantage to the Walmarts of the world,” Del. Mark Fisher (R-Calvert) told the House Economic Matters committee Monday. “For the small guys, it’s a big deal.”
But Del. Kathleen M. Dumais (D-Montgomery) contended that customers are already paying for bags now. Grocers would simply have to buy paper bags instead of plastic bags and that will similarly get incorporated into their cost of doing business, she said.
Stores have already been adapting to this change, as Montgomery County, Howard County, Baltimore City, Takoma Park, Chestertown and Westminster have all passed legislation that either prohibits the sale of plastic bags or requires stores to charge a fee for them.
(Excerpt) Read more at marylandmatters.org ...
Combined Maryland “Freak State” and Nanny State PING!
But, but, but, but....
Whut about the covid?!?!
BUT BUT, what about the trees?
They can’t help themselves.
One can only hope that the paper bags (which originally came BEFORE the plastic bags) have post-consumer content.
What about plastic packaging for bread, meat and seafood ?
Hell, for at least 50% of the items on store shelves.
It would be far more productive to outlaw brain-dead politicians.
The Maryland legislature only meets 90 days a year. I can’t imagine the damage these morons can do if they were year round.
Costco will have big boxes of them, cheap.
I would like to see them cut their employees' pay by 10 cents per hour to pay for it. That should have enough focused pain to get the legislators' attention rather than getting them to say stupid stuff like saying the store could absorb the expense.
Out here in California we’ve already been through every different version of this ( banning plastic bags ) that you can think of
and what they ( the crazy super lib commie legislature )
finally came back to is :
they have paper bags and plastic bags - But note the old ones.
Nope these new ones - they just happen to be very strong !!
sturdy green plastic bags With perfect handles that will never fail
that I can use one of these green bags. approximately 100 times m
on my bike handlebars , going to and from the store on my bicycle
so it’s actually a plastic bag , that I reuse hundreds of times
And then when they finally failed and have holes in them , I recycle them
That’s California for you
I’m good with it... Wished it was Michigan!! Since all our new neighbores moved in from years of the Obama administration pushing the Ghetto Afro Americans out to our subs, our streets are littered with platic bags and other garbage daily... 12 years ago litter on our streets was a rare sight... today, it looks like the city... fkn garbage everywhere...
Unfunded mandates should be paid 100% out of the pay given to the legislators who vote in favor of this kind of ****. Let the law be called, "The Virtue Signaling Prevention Act".
Better to take your Meeeeeeechigan sales tax and make it a consumption tax on all goods and services, while getting rid of your income, corporate/business, inheritance and capital gains taxes and your state property tax. Hopefully, conservation will be encouraged, while people won’t be punished for working or owning property.
In the meantime, some of the proceeds from this Meeeeeeechigan combined conservation/Fair Tax can be used to clean up the plastic bags left by your neighbors.
Just my opinion. I wish they would do the same in Maryland; people who bothered to make something of themselves get taxed out the wazoo on their income here, although nowhere nearly as bad as in Kookiefornia.
bttt!
“Nope these new ones - they just happen to be very strong !!
sturdy green plastic bags With perfect handles that will never fail
that I can use one of these green bags. approximately 100 times m
on my bike handlebars , going to and from the store on my bicycle
so it’s actually a plastic bag , that I reuse hundreds of times”
Yup, millions of people get sick from reusing those nasty germ filled bags. Good job CA!
Autocratic politicians ignorant of the capability to recycle such material, are just power freaks who exist because of an uninformed public.
Those processing centers for such materials should be located in the United States. Those Asian countries have no regulations. When their processing centers get overloaded with too much material, they actually load up a ship and dump it in the ocean. Countries that are doing this will have their shores littered with that material as it drifts back to shore.
Perhaps I will start tossing my waste, organic or otherwise in their streets. I have no problem driving a few hundred miles Single handedly wrecking the entire earth along the way
Remember when Paper Bags were bad?
You know, those Biodegradable, Recyclable and Renewable Paper Bags that were all the rage when we were younger.
And they are unsanitary as hell.
If you don't wash that bag EVERY TIME you use it, you are risking cross contamination from foods that require cooking (meats and such) onto foods you eat raw (vegetables and such).
How many people have to die to "save the planet"?
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