California bans plastic bags

[Rhea]

Well, partly. But quite a few.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/...ban_n_5904766.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000044


One interesting thing in the article that I didn't know before was the idea that military planes are sometimes taken out by bags? I couldn't find anything about this on google. Wonder whether it happens and how often?

Otherwise, good for the ban. Plastic bag trash is overwhelming.

 

[bleubird]

I work retail.I hate F###King plastic bags!They are too thin to hold much,so two are needed.they are hard to open.
Some villages in Alaska have banned them because they get blown out of the landfills and onto the tundra.
NYC flower!
I use canvas bags when I shop.Is it true that in the EU plastic bags are not used much?
Maybe there are some congressional dicks in the mouths petrochem CEOs?
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/27/3419856/nyc-considers-ban-single-use-bags/

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I work retail.I hate F###King plastic bags!They are too thin to hold much,so two are needed.they are hard to open.
Some villages in Alaska have banned them because they get blown out of the landfills and onto the tundra.
NYC flower!
I use canvas bags when I shop.Is it true that in the EU plastic bags are not used much?
Maybe there are some congressional dicks in the mouths petrochem CEOs?

Telling Americans that plastic bags are bad and they should be banned is tantamount to stealing freedom from Americans! Just put a dollar tax per bag at the store. That'd stop them being used eventually.

 

[scombrid]

My partner insists that we have dogs. I'd rather not but she loves dogs too much to do without.

I'm at a loss as to what to do with their shit if I don't have plastic bags with which to pick up the shit. Our mutant 90lb greyhound has big shits. The miniature dachshund shit small and often. I'm making a composter in the back corner of our lot so I can use a shovel and just scoop the poop in our yard. But we go on lots of long walks and you just can't go leaving shits laying about.

 

[SimpleDon]

I have a 100 lbs. Golden who thinks that he is a cow and eats grass. He has multiple, massive dumps on his walks. Lots of the grocery plastic bags are needed for every walk. The poop bags that are sold for this purpose are just too small.

But I am certain that if the stores in our area stops using them that some enterprising company will jump in to fill the need.

 

[scombrid]

Two dogs. 2-5 miles. 3-4 bags. I do hate sending all of that poop to the landfill wrapped in bags. Do like keeping the poop off of lawns and from washing into the lagoon in the massive wet we are having. Will figure something out. Other than picking up dog poop I'm in the haters camp for plastic bags.

 

[TV and credit cards]

I use canvas and get a discount for doing so from my tree-hugger store I buy groceries from. I hated it when I used to go to a regular grocery, I'd make a point of bagging my own stuff, if I didn't and the bagger got to it first, what I would put in two single bags would be sitting in four doubled up bags. Those people are bag-happy.

Oh, and if I get a piece of fish. It's picked up with a piece of plastic, wrapped in a second piece of plastic, wrapped in paper, and bagged. Then at the checkout, they ask me if I want it bagged separately. You'd think it was hazmat or something.

 

[Rhea]

My partner insists that we have dogs. I'd rather not but she loves dogs too much to do without.

I'm at a loss as to what to do with their shit if I don't have plastic bags with which to pick up the shit. Our mutant 90lb greyhound has big shits. The miniature dachshund shit small and often. I'm making a composter in the back corner of our lot so I can use a shovel and just scoop the poop in our yard. But we go on lots of long walks and you just can't go leaving shits laying about.

You can still get plastic bags, you just can't get them free with groceries inside. You can buy rolls of dog-poop bags. Also you can use the produce bags, as well as any other bag that comes into your house (like the one with the frozen peas you had for dinner last night).

The difference is they are not being given away by the millions to people without dogs.
(edited to acknowledge that we seem to be in agreement)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Reusable grocery bags are actually less green than the disposable ones. The problem is they cost a lot more resources to make and won't last long enough to make up for it.

Not to mention that grocery bags are likely to get reused to contain something else, removing them from the system won't remove this use, something else will get used instead--likely not recycled.

While this isn't the same thing as the pathological altruism thread it's a related issue. It's being done for supposedly ecological reasons but it's actually bad for the environment.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Reusable grocery bags are actually less green than the disposable ones. The problem is they cost a lot more resources to make and won't last long enough to make up for it.

Not to mention that grocery bags are likely to get reused to contain something else, removing them from the system won't remove this use, something else will get used instead--likely not recycled.

While this isn't the same thing as the pathological altruism thread it's a related issue. It's being done for supposedly ecological reasons but it's actually bad for the environment.

Can you provide the numbers instead of just concluding your preconceived notion?

How much energy goes into creating a plastic bag, how much goes into creating a reusable cloth bag?

How many uses of the reusable cloth bag will make it equivalent to the cheaper to produce plastic bag?

Just how many non-recycled processed uses of a typical plastic bag will there be?

 

[ideologyhunter]

Where's your backup for that? My canvas totes last years & years & years -- you're saying that if I use the same tote for 1500 transactions, that I haven't compensated for 1500 plastic bags being made? (And, really, more than 1500, since my totes hold more than the typical WalMart bag.) Also, about the claim that the plastic bags are likely destined for reuse, try walking around the 'blow zone' behind any big retail store, where the wind carries bags and drink cups and whatnot. Guarantee you'll find a large amount of the damn things. (Actually, that's where I get mine for yard waste. Walk the dog there and pick up the cleaner, untattered bags. In one or two walks I can pick up a half year's worth.)

 

[ImGod]

They have already made them so thin that they aren't that useful. Maybe what the plastic bag people need to do it make them 3x as thick and 50% bigger so stores use less of them. Then make the recycle places take them or make them out of corn based plastic so they biodegrade.

 

[Rhea]

Reusable grocery bags are actually less green than the disposable ones. The problem is they cost a lot more resources to make and won't last long enough to make up for it.

This does not pass even the barest sniff test of accuracy.

A reusable bag will replace _thousands_ of plastic bags. If I forget my nylon bag and get plastic ones, they will use 4 to 8 bags for what I would have put in a single one.

But even given that, I don't need to compare the entire value for the reusable bag because it does many other functions as well, that justify its manufacture before it ever goes to the grocery store. It holds laundry, library books, beach towels, school clothes, pillows for kid overnights, snacks for the drive-in, ski boots, car parts, soccer clothes, wine, birthday gifts and mail.

And then it ALSO goes to the grocery once a week, and to every other store I use. My favorite style that I've had for 10 years has easily surpassed 5,000 grocery bag equivalents. Easily.

So where do you get _your_ numbers?

 

[coloradoatheist]

Here's a report. The one thing I'm curious is that the paper bags are compared to cotton bags. Is that what the normal bags we get with the reusable ones?

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/291023/scho0711buan-e-e.pdf

 

[Rhea]

Here's a report. The one thing I'm curious is that the paper bags are compared to cotton bags. Is that what the normal bags we get with the reusable ones?

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/291023/scho0711buan-e-e.pdf

Yeah, that's more what I thought. So my nylon bags, call them LDPE as an approximation, are four hundred times better than the disposable in the most conservative case. And their life is not yet over. My cotton bags, at least 10 times better.

So, yah, that.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Here's a report. The one thing I'm curious is that the paper bags are compared to cotton bags. Is that what the normal bags we get with the reusable ones?

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...achment_data/file/291023/scho0711buan-e-e.pdf

Yipes!

Now there are a few considers, a cloth bag can hold more, meaning fewer bags, so that could cut the numbers in half or to a third, but still, a significant amount of reuse is required in order for cloth bags to be more friendly, and perhaps minimally at best.

Fuck!

 

[Archimedes]

That'd stop them being used eventually.

Here in Ireland they introduced a 25 cent / plastic shopping bag levy and people quickly adapted to using reusable bags. They made an exception for smaller bags for loose produce like nuts and fruit or for meat and fish and for bags of ice.

I can of course still purchase plastic bags of various sizes and sorts for wastepaper bins, kitchen bins, etc. so it's not like people have to survive without them. And thankfully plastic bags blowing down the street and stuck in trees and hedges is pretty much a thing of the past where I live.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

One possible side note, production of bags. Plastic bag production is on going and will continue. Cloth bags are reusuable, so while they require a lot more in the way of resources, wouldn't we get to a point where production of cloth bags is down because of a saturation in the market? That saturation can not be met with plastic bags.

Here's a report. The one thing I'm curious is that the paper bags are compared to cotton bags. Is that what the normal bags we get with the reusable ones?

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...achment_data/file/291023/scho0711buan-e-e.pdf

Yeah, that's more what I thought. So my nylon bags, call them LDPE as an approximation, are four hundred times better than the disposable in the most conservative case. And their life is not yet over. My cotton bags, at least 10 times better.

So, yah, that.

How are you coming to that conclusion? The table in the report implies, or at least how I interpret it, cloth bags need to be used hundreds of times to match the energy consumed relative to plastic bags.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I'm glad to know that the State of California no longer suffers from unemployment above the national average, a severe water shortage, prison overcrowding, an absurd level of government fiscal irresponsibility, very high taxes, a shrinking tax base, poverty, and in some areas rather high levels of crime, so that the legislature can take time out to deal with issues like this.

 

[ImGod]

It's not just about energy consumption. It's about trash. I think if they didn't blow around all over the place and/or decomposed when they did, there wouldn't have been a need to regulate them. There's probably and Indian that's stopped crying somewhere.