Pakistan Bans Single-Use Plastic Bags (npr.org) 111
In July, the coalition government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has been in power for the past year, announced a ban on disposable plastic bags in Islamabad and surrounding areas, including Saidpur. "When the ban takes effect on Aug. 14, residents may be fined about $70 for being caught using a bag -- nearly a month's wages for a laborer," reports NPR. "Manufacturers will face larger fines for making plastic bags, as will shops for distributing them." Pakistani provinces have imposed bans on single-use plastic bags in the past, but they have faltered. The current government hopes this time will be different. From the report: According to Hammad Shamimi, a senior official at the Ministry of Climate Change, "Polythene bags have been banned. There is a provision that for hospital waste, for municipal waste, big bags will be exempted ... subject to the condition that they will submit a recycling plan to this ministry." Aug. 14 is Pakistan's independence day, and the ban will celebrate the beginning of Pakistan's independence from plastic, says Zartaj Gul Wazir, the minister of state for climate change.
Looming in the minds of environmentalists and officials is nearly a decade of failed attempts to ban single-use plastic bags. The provincial government of Sindh -- home to Karachi, the country's largest city, with some 13 million people -- first tried to ban bags in 2006. It largely failed. Then in 2009, the federal government tried to ban plastic bags that did not contain biodegradable materials. It failed. The Sindh government tried again in 2014 to ban the bags -- effectively copying the federal government's law, says Waris Ali Gabol, the deputy director of the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency. It also failed. The climate minister, Wazir, says that this new ban will be more likely to succeed because it has the full backing of the prime minister, Khan, who has thrown himself behind environmental projects in the past. Khan's political party, for example, was part of a provincial government that planted over 700 million trees for the three years ending in 2017, earning praise from the Pakistani branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Looming in the minds of environmentalists and officials is nearly a decade of failed attempts to ban single-use plastic bags. The provincial government of Sindh -- home to Karachi, the country's largest city, with some 13 million people -- first tried to ban bags in 2006. It largely failed. Then in 2009, the federal government tried to ban plastic bags that did not contain biodegradable materials. It failed. The Sindh government tried again in 2014 to ban the bags -- effectively copying the federal government's law, says Waris Ali Gabol, the deputy director of the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency. It also failed. The climate minister, Wazir, says that this new ban will be more likely to succeed because it has the full backing of the prime minister, Khan, who has thrown himself behind environmental projects in the past. Khan's political party, for example, was part of a provincial government that planted over 700 million trees for the three years ending in 2017, earning praise from the Pakistani branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature.
New Zealand did it first. (Score:2)
Just saying.
CA did it first. (Score:3)
On November 8, 2016, California voters approved Proposition 67, the statewide Single-Use Carryout Bag Ban
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On November 8, 2016, California voters approved Proposition 67, the statewide Single-Use Carryout Bag Ban
Hawaii banned single-use plastic bags statewide in 2015.
My home town, San Jose, California, banned them in 2012.
Re: CA did it first. (Score:2)
Closer to Pakistan, on a visit to Bangalore in 2006, bags were everywhere on the ground. Within a short walk from the tech-plex along Hosur Road, there was a bedraggled
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On November 8, 2016, California voters approved Proposition 67, the statewide Single-Use Carryout Bag Ban
Gee, they didn't ban them very hard -- the local grocery stores still ask "Paper or plastic?"
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Gee, they didn't ban them very hard -- the local grocery stores still ask "Paper or plastic?"
Are you certain that they aren't asking for the means of payment?
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Gee, they didn't ban them very hard -- the local grocery stores still ask "Paper or plastic?"
Are you certain that they aren't asking for the means of payment?
Not sure exactly what you're asking. If you're asking whether the stores charge for the bags, the answer is yes, of course they do; they're 10 cents each. So 6 bags ads a grand total of 60 cents to my weekly $140 grocery bill. This is what we call "buried in the noise." And that isn't a ban; it's a fee. The money goes to the store, so it doesn't get used to fight the dreaded climate change. In light of the fact that California's recent $1.00/pack tax increase on cigarettes didn't seem to put much of a dent
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Not sure exactly what you're asking.
It's a joke. A person can pay in paper, that being cash as in paper money, or plastic, that being by electronic transfer with a plastic debit or credit card.
If plastic bags are banned and the cashier is asking "paper or plastic?" then they must be asking how the buyer is going to pay what's owed.
Re:CA did it first. (Score:4, Informative)
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On November 8, 2016, California voters approved Proposition 67, the statewide Single-Use Carryout Bag Ban
Yes, but did CA (or the others claiming "firsts") also impose a direct penalty of a month's worth of wages for possession of a bag?
residents may be fined about $70 for being caught using a bag -- nearly a month's wages for a laborer
Didn't think so.
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Yes, but did CA (or the others claiming "firsts") also impose a direct penalty of a month's worth of wages for possession of a bag?
Don't give them ideas.
A month's wages fine for HAVING a bag is nonsense. "Single use" is a handy term to throw about, but most people have figured out that they can reuse that "single use" bag many times.
Putting a draconian fine on having a bag will mean that a lot of people will throw them out, thus increasing the number of bags littering the environment.
Re:New Zealand did it first. (Score:5, Informative)
That would have been last year?
South Africa banned plastic bags in 2003 and since numerous African countries has followed.
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Try last month.
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So that means Pakistan is only the 70th country to ban single use plastic bags nationwide. Thanks for that clarification, would hate for them to have claimed 69th place without merit.
Reuse, Reduce and Recycle (Score:2)
I am always at a loss with plastic bags being the main evil. They never were single use, I just throw my rubbish out in a different bag. It just makes car drivers feel better.
Personally I think a better approach is to ban excess packaging, moving to "concentrate food", water bottles banned and cars having a pollution charge parking at supermarkets. And electrical goods fixable electronics.
Bags at best is a stepping stone, and a weak one.
Re:Reuse, Reduce and Recycle (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Reuse, Reduce and Recycle (Score:5, Informative)
I don't agree. plastic bags kill a lot of marine life. See for example: https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
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To a degree you're right, I think the reason you don't see many plastic bags in the ocean though is due to being relatively thin plastic they degrade into microplastics quite quickly, a plastic bag won't last long against razor sharp coral and will quickly tear apart. Those that do float around get eaten by whales, turtles and the like that mistake them for jellyfish.
I think plastic bag bans are great, but as a diver I agree their impact on the marine environment isn't the biggest offender. Far and away the
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I don't agree. plastic bags kill a lot of marine life.
This is true. But what is the source of those plastic bags? If the answer is Pakistan then this ban is good. If not, then it's not helping. I'm all for getting plastic out of the ocean, but doing something that doesn't help isn't going to solve the problem.
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plastic bags kill a lot of marine life.
This.
And that's why it's particularly good news in places like Pakistan. Not so much in the USA, where we have a well developed system of garbage handling and waste dumps. Plastic bags get buried in landfills. Even the ones that are tossed out of car windows have a difficult time making it into the marine environment (unless you are on the California coast). City maintenance picks them up and into the garbage they go.
Pakistan, on the other hand happens to be one of those third world shitholes where nobody
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True. An American or European can't use their experiences with plastic bags in comparison to less developed parts of the world. Plastic bags get used in all sorts of ways you'd never see here, e.g. a food stall covering their plates so it doesn't have to be washed, or just serving food in them, in places like Thailand you can get beer served in a plastic bag with a plastic straw.
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The problem here is attempting to force our environmental footprint to become zero, and rejecting anything which isn't zero (banning paper bags). You're never going to accomplish that. Even reusabl
Why is this on Slashdot? (Score:2)
News for nerds; stuff that matters.
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News for nerds; stuff that matters.
"Stuff that matters". You might not agree, but you do not speak for me.
Pollution is important to nerds (Score:2)
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Because nerds care about nature.
Troll-mod ahead (Score:2)
I think some people don't get this post. It's not "news" because people are implying Pakistan did it first. It is "news" because we're all surprised that a " shithole country" did it.
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I think some people don't get this post. It's not "news" because people are implying Pakistan did it first. It is "news" because we're all surprised that a " shithole country" did it.
That is your interpretation. To me, this news is interesting because some people are trying to do something positive. People who do nothing but complain can get rather tedious.
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I just came here to read why this would be a bad idea for the USofA. Luckily I was not disapointed.
I'm sure if you stretch it enough, the ICC would cover a federal ban on purely local commercial activity.
When the local "single use" reusable bag ban went into effect here, it was pushed by a large local grocery story (as part of a consortium to mitigate blowback on them), and they got a mandatory charge for paper bags enacted at the same time. (Banning plastic doesn't require a charge for paper, it was just a convenient use of the current "crisis" to save money for the grocery store.)
What's funny is that
Rejoice!!! (Score:2)
"Ministry of climate change" (Score:2, Troll)
"Ministry of climate change", yet plastic bags have absolutely nothing to do with climate change.
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"yet plastic bags have absolutely nothing to do with climate change."
I bet that in the process of turning oil into plastic, some CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere. Not as much as burning diesel or petrol, but it all adds up.
Great (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if they could only ban terrorism [wikipedia.org] too. And maybe the Killing [bbc.co.uk] and forced conversions [thehindu.com] too.
But hey, banning plastic bags is a good start, maybe it will stop them suffocating young women with plastic bags [metro.co.uk]for wearing short sleeves.
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Has US govt. misguidedly sponsored terrorism in the past? Check.
Do people in the US sometimes target minorities for killings? Check.
Do people in the US kill their family members for utterly stupid reasons? Check.
Then what are you yapping about?
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I know you're being facetious, but better is better.
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So crime exists, what's your point? That no other things can be taken care of until your specific scenario is resolved? Maybe America should sort out their gun violence issue before providing you internet access.
Where is the problem exactly? (Score:2)
I look at the pictures with all the plastic litter and I think that this is not a problem with single use plastic bags but a problem of not having a proper waste management system.
Did anyone actually look at the litter? How much of that is actually single use plastic bags? It looks to me like all kinds of plastic containers, mostly for beverages and home cleaning products. What is next after this fails to solve the problem of litter? Are they going to ban plastic containers for milk, juice, dish washing
Re: Where is the problem exactly? (Score:2)
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"Your future" (Score:2)
The West can feel proud it pressured the Pakistan government into something so vitally important to us, rather than freedoms or other crap.
Your future is saved, Pakistanis!
Fine (Score:2)
Fining someone for using a bag seems punitive and counter-productive. If I have a plastic bag, is it better for me to use it again or throw it away right now and replace it with a more durable alternative?
Single-use plastic bags (Score:2)
What do you put your trash in?
Not considered (Score:2)
Customer-owned reusable bags come with disadvantages that are not being considered. They're fabric, and absorb spilled juices in the supermarket bagging area which subsequently become moldy, and the mold and diseases from the home are transferred back to the bagging area on the next visit to the store. To avoid that problem, the customer must wash the bag, at significant cost (compared to a single-use plastic bag) of customer labor, water heating, and detergent chemicals. Another disadvantage of customer-ow
Re:Ban Single Use Plastic Bags (Score:5, Insightful)
Every country in the world should do the same
Banning "single use" plastic bags does nothing except cause manufactures to use more durable plastic to get around the restriction. "Single use" plastic bags are probably more often than not used more than once (e.g. as bin liners) anyway, exactly the same number of times as those made using more durable plastic except that the "single use" ones degrade more quickly. So it's all bullshit.
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Banning "single use" plastic bags does nothing except cause manufactures to use more durable plastic to get around the restriction.
My city banned single-use plastic bags in 2012. People mostly switched to reusable canvas bags.
You can buy a canvas bag for $1 at the checkout. Or you can buy a single-use paper bag for 10 cents (the minimum they are permitted to charge).
I use canvas.
Re:Ban Single Use Plastic Bags (Score:5, Informative)
Banning "single use" plastic bags does nothing except cause manufactures to use more durable plastic to get around the restriction.
My city banned single-use plastic bags in 2012. People mostly switched to reusable canvas bags.
You can buy a canvas bag for $1 at the checkout. Or you can buy a single-use paper bag for 10 cents (the minimum they are permitted to charge).
I use canvas.
Not necessarily a good thing. Studies show that you would have to use a cotton bag between 131 and 7,100 times to have the same impact as a single use plastic bag [theconversation.com]
Re:Ban Single Use Plastic Bags (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Not necessarily a good thing. Studies show that you would have to use a cotton bag between 131 and 7,100 times to have the same impact as a single use plastic bag [theconversation.com]"
Yep, and if banned, many people (like myeself) I will have to BUY disposable plastic bags. This is because I reuse EVERY SINGLE bag I get for litter disposal and wet trash. Something that cannot be done realistically with any other type of bag. Many others recycle their bags at the stores, as evident by the containers everywhere that I see being used.
The problem (if there even really is one in many countries) is their proper use and disposal, not their mere existence. Microplastics come for tons of other sources (like our clothing) and the disappearance of plastic bags will make almost zero impact on "global warming". Same with plastic straws.
If one don't like single use plastic bags or straws, the option of not using them exists, and always has.
Re: Ban Single Use Plastic Bags (Score:2)
many people (like myeself) I will have to BUY disposable plastic bags.
Which you should be doing anyway because those bags you buy are designed to be degradable unlike the singe use bags the shop gives you.
Same with multi use plastic bags and cotton bags. The article quoted above is extremely disingenuous because it doesn't count degradability.
Secondly, if you're using single use bags afor refuse at the same rate as you are collecting them, you are being stupidly wasteful. For me, when I still used single use bags most of them ended up in landfill as I collected far more
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>"if you're using single use bags for refuse at the same rate as you are collecting them, you are being stupidly wasteful. For me, when I still used single use bags most of them ended up in landfill as I collected far more than I could use for general refuse. Try recycling and consuming less. "
Most of the time it is collecting cat barf or some other stinky wet something..... I can't use less for that, or wait for it to fill more. It does seem quite strange that I end up reusing exactly the same number
Re:Ban Single Use Plastic Bags (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sounds like the same sort of Dipshit Calculus used by the sort of people that argue that a Prius pollutes more than a Hummer. [thetorquereport.com]
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Nah, the science is settled on this.
Re:Ban Single Use Plastic Bags (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, that Danish study [www2.mst.dk] uses a variety of unusual or unrealistic assumptions in its methodology. For instance, their base use case (pg 32):
Emphasis mine. I don't know about the grocery stores around you, but that use case is a wild fantasy, at least in the United States. I routinely see baggers put single items of fruit into a bag, 3-4 cans (at most) into a single bag, bagging 1-gallon jugs that have integrated handles, etc. Never, ever, have I seen a bagger put 12 kg (~25 lbs) of stuff into a single-use bag. Nor do I see single-use bags with 22-L capacity.
Another flaw about their methodology, or one that doesn't necessarily translate well, is the assumed end-of-life. They assume the single-use bag, whether used for secondary purposes or not, ends up being incinerated for heat and electricity. That is rare in the United States, and almost non-existent in Asia. In other words, the negative effects of plastic bag pollution do not factor into the Danish study.
I could go on, but in my own examination of their methodology and results, I found the headline number of 7100 (which, of course, is the one that everyone focuses on) to be, shall we say, inflated. It's a laughably unrealistic number, too, if one considers the economic argument it makes: that the cost of a single organic cotton shopping bag ought to represent the price of 7100 single-use bags, if one were to properly take all cradle-to-grave externalities into account.
My weekly shopping ends up in 5-8 large canvas bags, which I have used weekly for well over a decade. I estimate it's the equivalent of 20 single-use plastic bags. The canvas bags are holding up just fine, and will probably outlive me. While I will grant that reusable bags are more environmentally intensive to produce, it is also not all hard to use them long enough to get well past the break-even point.
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Landfills aren't really a problem, and cities will have bidding wars in about 50-100 years to rip them open with robots anyway for recycling.
We're arguing furiously about how to deal with a quarter inch of horse poop dust on your furniture each morning, when cars are right around the corner.
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What? That article is describing how often a canvas bag could / should be used "before being used as a bin liner and then discarded".
It also says the plastic bags should be used 4 to 37 times which people only use once, thus the phrase "Single-Use".
The higher numbers for canvas are better because it's more uses before it needs to be discarded.
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" same impact as a single use plastic bag" What? That article is describing how often a canvas bag could / should be used "before being used as a bin liner and then discarded". It also says the plastic bags should be used 4 to 37 times which people only use once, thus the phrase "Single-Use". The higher numbers for canvas are better because it's more uses before it needs to be discarded.
Read it again:
https://theconversation.com/heres-how-many-times-you-actually-need-to-reuse-your-shopping-bags-101097 [theconversation.com]
Given that reusable bags are much sturdier, how many times must we use them to compensate for their larger environmental impact?
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Banning "single use" plastic bags does nothing except cause manufactures to use more durable plastic to get around the restriction.
My city banned single-use plastic bags in 2012. People mostly switched to reusable canvas bags.
You can buy a canvas bag for $1 at the checkout. Or you can buy a single-use paper bag for 10 cents (the minimum they are permitted to charge).
I use canvas.
Not necessarily a good thing. Studies show that you would have to use a cotton bag between 131 and 7,100 times to have the same impact as a single use plastic bag [theconversation.com]
Do you use reusable bags?
I do, of canvas and cotton manufacture.
And I can tell you I've used them all way more than 131 times.
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""Single use" plastic bags are probably more often than not used more than once "
I know my neighbors appreciate when I walk my dogs and one of them has to "go", those grocery bags come in handy (especially doubled up) for not leaving the mess behind in other's yards....
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I don't even to these things to be environmentally friendly. To me, these items are a perfect fit for th
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Every country in the world should do the same
Banning "single use" plastic bags does nothing except cause manufactures to use more durable plastic to get around the restriction. "Single use" plastic bags are probably more often than not used more than once (e.g. as bin liners) anyway, exactly the same number of times as those made using more durable plastic except that the "single use" ones degrade more quickly. So it's all bullshit.
I've been going to grocery stores a long time.
Actually I worked at one for a while.
I've seen the changes from only paper, then paper or plastic, to people bringing their own bags.
Mostly I see people bringing their own bags, especially at places that encourage it or don't use plastic bags.
Kind of a peer pressure thing that I think is good.
Single use plastic bags, regardless of durability are a disaster on many levels.
The sooner they are gone the better.
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Banning "single use" plastic bags does nothing except cause manufactures to use more durable plastic to get around the restriction
An end result being a more durable bag that gets reused over and over again because stores don't give them away for free.
Net win for the world.
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Obviously you don't throw away the same volume of material as you buy, and you don't pack shopping bags as densely either. So even if people end up buying plastic bin liners it's still an overall saving.
Yes, but you don't let the bag sit around until it's full, either, as that attracts insects and rats. The process for those of us who live in apartment buildings (and thus have no place to store a large plastic bag outside) is as follows:
-Weekend: buy groceries, obtain 10 plastic bags
-Weekdays: use 1 plastic bag per day for the kitchen, use 3 over the course of the week for bathroom.
Right around the time we've run out, it's grocery day and we get more bags.
Banning bags screws with the whole system.
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How do you need three a week for the bathroom?
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Yeah. That one is a bit of a head scratcher. Seeing how most bathroom trash is stuff like shampoo bottles, paper wrappers from the soap, the cardboard toot-ta-doos from the TP roll, etc.
I hope GP isn't implying that they put their used shit tickets in the trash instead of flushing them down the crapper.
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I had a parent who used adult diapers, you can't really flush those down a toilet...
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No, 32 countries have not banned plastic bags. Some countries have banned what are called "single use" plastic bags. The vast majority of those countries still allow plastic bags that are not labelled "single use", so what's happened is that they now manufacture the bags using more durable (less biodegradable) plastic bags.
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Re:Ban Single Use Plastic Bags (Score:5, Informative)
Puerto Rico has also banned them. Paper bags are free, but break shortly after due to condensation if you put cold things in them, such as a six pack of beer, a quart of milk / orange juice, etc.
This change has severely impacted the poor, because now they have to buy what once was free (trash can liners, bags for recyclables, bags for dog poop, reusable bags for groceries). I grew up in a poor Puerto Rican household and the number of things we reused plastic bags for was staggering, to the point where we actually would run out of the grocery bags and would start to ask stores to double bag things so that we'd have more when we got home.
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Those single use plastic bags happened as a response to environuts screeching over paper bags. That knee-jerk reaction has become so bad that in the end, it's worse for people and the environment. Taking up the mantle of doomsday accelerationists might be a better fit.
Re:Ban Single Use Plastic Bags (Score:5, Interesting)
I was around when paper bags got replaced by plastic bags here in New Zealand. I don't recall people complaining about paper bags being bad for the environment. If you think about it, paper bags are biodegradeable and can be burned cleanly. It was simply more convenient and cheaper for the shops to give customers a thin single-use plastic bag. I remember thinking at the time that it was not a good idea to be throwing away so many plastic bags.
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...as they can be recycled...
That's the real problem. No one wants to make the effort to recycle, and that even includes the recycling centers themselves [nytimes.com].
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I was also around when those paper bags got replaced by plastic, in Canada and the US. Plenty of environmental groups, and small organizations were protesting the use of paper bags and claiming they were being made from old growth forests, or endangered habitat and so-on. Ever wonder why the US forestry industry started to collapse in the 1980's, and the US then started mass importing softwood lumber from Canada? The environut backlash was nowhere near as bad. I do agree that paper bags are a good choic
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It made it much more difficult for us to cover our school text books once the paper bags went away. The plastic bags are good for the cat litter, though, as well as any other household waste that will generate an odor.
We mostly use canvas bags now, though occasionally get plastic bags. We only dispose of them if they have holes, every other
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I remember thinking at the time that it was not a good idea to be throwing away so many plastic bags.
Why is it a bad idea to throw away the plastic bags? It's taking the carbon from the plastic and burying it back into the ground.
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Because many of them don't make it back into the ground, and end up blowing around or causing problems for marine life.
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That's an interesting alternative history you've got there.
Nobody was screeching over paper bags and demanding plastic. Stores started providing them because they were cheaper than paper bags.
In fact, when stores went to plastic bags, there was a huge amount of pushback from customers and they went back to offering both.
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That's an interesting alternative history you've got there.
That's funny, because I remember the ad campaigns in California when I was visiting there in '87 in the UCR area. I can also remember the campaigns(especially in schools) that were being pushed heavily up here in Ontario, Canada with claims that the paper bags were being made from old growth forests, and replacing them with plastic was a better environmental choice.
In fact, when stores went to plastic bags, there was a huge amount of pushback from customers and they went back to offering both.
I remember that too. Why not think a bit harder over say the last 10 years of the latest social justice-type "it's bad for x reason and so we
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If you did see ad campaigns pushing plastic bags, has not not occurred to you that those were probably paid for by the companies that were trying to sell plastic bags?
Astroturfing is not a new thing. It's been around since the early 1900s.
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Even if we assume that the first part of your statement is true, did the "environuts" claim that single use plastic bags were better? Or are you simply blaming them for retailers' knee-jerk reaction to move to an even cheaper and crappier method of bagging items? Because I think that it's the second one...
Now you
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Yeah and we've seen the upswing in man-made synthetics used in so many of those bags in just the last 5 years or so. Oh, and those same synthetics used in making those bags...being material matches for all those micro plastics showing up in all those what? 8 rives in Vietnam and China washing out to sea...
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You're doing it wrong [merriam-webster.com].
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'single-use' supermarket bags were rarely single-use for me (bin liners, etc). Now they are banned and I've nearly run out, I'll be buying heavy duty bags to accomplish the same purposes. A lot more plastic, a lot more waste. I don't see any net benefit anywhere.
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Here's your sign: if you're buying plastic bags for trash, you'll almost certainly be using those plastic bags for trash, where they will end up in a land fill. Not blowing around the country making a mess on fences, or in the ocean where they will be eaten by animals like turtles who then die.
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as everyone has seen their local environment polluted with these bags
Not so much. We tend to get more abandoned tents, rotting mattresses, pallets, blue tarps and broken bicycles littering our landscape. And all those single use needles.
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Re: This thread is a good test (Score:2)