California Banned Single-Use Plastic Bags. Now It's Tossing More Plastic. (latimes.com) 192
An anonymous reader shares a report: When California state legislators passed a 2014 law banning single-use plastic bags, the hope was that it would notably reduce the amount of discarded plastic. But fast-forward nearly a decade: Californians are tossing more pounds of plastic bags than before the legislation was passed. That's according to a recent report by the consumer advocacy group CALPIRG, which took population changes into account and found the tonnage of discarded bags rose from 4.08 per 1,000 people in 2014 to 5.89 per 1,000 people in 2022. How could this happen?
As Susanne Rust reported this week, plastic bag manufacturers replaced one kind of plastic bag for another. You've probably noticed them at grocery stores or had them loaded into your car during a drive-up order. These newer bags are thicker and meet technical specifications to be called "reusable." As Jenn Engstrom, CALPIRG'S state director, explained to Susanne, the switch created a loophole because the newer bags -- which typically cost 10 cents -- "are clearly not being reused and don't look like reusable bags and ... just circumvent the law's intent." The pandemic was also a contributing factor. COVID restrictions led many to get groceries, restaurant dishes and other products delivered to our doors, often in thick plastic bags.
There's an effort to close the loophole, though. New legislation is being proposed that would also ban the thicker plastic bags from grocery and large retail stores. Clearly, not enough consumers have changed their plastic bag habits at the checkout stand. But the onus isn't on individuals. Plastic manufacturers create these products. Businesses buy the bags so customers have somewhere to put the goods they buy from businesses. [...] Under the new law, at least 30% of plastic items sold, distributed or imported into California must be recyclable by Jan. 1, 2028. It also stipulates that single-use plastic waste be reduced 25% by 2032. But as Susanne pointed out, plastics companies will have notable oversight and authority over the program "via a Producer Responsibility Organization, which will be made up of industry representatives."
As Susanne Rust reported this week, plastic bag manufacturers replaced one kind of plastic bag for another. You've probably noticed them at grocery stores or had them loaded into your car during a drive-up order. These newer bags are thicker and meet technical specifications to be called "reusable." As Jenn Engstrom, CALPIRG'S state director, explained to Susanne, the switch created a loophole because the newer bags -- which typically cost 10 cents -- "are clearly not being reused and don't look like reusable bags and ... just circumvent the law's intent." The pandemic was also a contributing factor. COVID restrictions led many to get groceries, restaurant dishes and other products delivered to our doors, often in thick plastic bags.
There's an effort to close the loophole, though. New legislation is being proposed that would also ban the thicker plastic bags from grocery and large retail stores. Clearly, not enough consumers have changed their plastic bag habits at the checkout stand. But the onus isn't on individuals. Plastic manufacturers create these products. Businesses buy the bags so customers have somewhere to put the goods they buy from businesses. [...] Under the new law, at least 30% of plastic items sold, distributed or imported into California must be recyclable by Jan. 1, 2028. It also stipulates that single-use plastic waste be reduced 25% by 2032. But as Susanne pointed out, plastics companies will have notable oversight and authority over the program "via a Producer Responsibility Organization, which will be made up of industry representatives."
People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:4, Informative)
To me it's a pity, because the 10 cent bags are good if you use and re-use them, and they are good enough to re-use. Much less likely to burst open and drop all your stuff in the parking lot, too.
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Oddly enough, the Connecticut ban on non-reusable plastic bags has been somewhat successful. Only a handful of restaurants still use them for takeout, and all of the grocery stores have all migrated over to paper bags for people who forget to bring their own.
Most people are going to the store with burlap or heavy plastic reusable bags now, to avoid paying 15 cents for each bag when you're at the store.
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> Oddly enough, the Connecticut ban on non-reusable plastic bags has been somewhat successful.
You literally go on to describe the exact thing that is happening in CA and still think it's working? The extra few people bagging their groceries in old potato sacks has nothing on the fact that the rest of the people are still tossing plastic bags that now use 5x as much plastic as the old bags. By that metric, any "ban" must reduce bag usage by 80% before it can even be break-even with the prior situation. Un
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> 9 out of 10 shoppers walking into a store with their own bags
I just wanted to reiterate that I mean every shopper, every store, every time. Not just the people who post on Slashdot and shop at Whole Foods. Put that nerd brain to some critical thinking tasks.
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Don't forget societal changes over time. When I was a kid, the grocery checkers would carefully pack stuff in to maximize use of bag space (eggs on top of course). Which was very convenient also if you had your portable shopping cart to wheel home (my grandparent A) or needed a months worth of groceries at a time (grandparent B). Todays checkers sometimes seem to maximize the number of bags than to actually be good at bagging. Sort like the Amazon school of shipping; if you have 3 items be sure that at
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Don't let them get wet though, they dissolve pretty quickly.
Re:People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:5, Insightful)
is there a reason you think they're better for the environment?
Paper is biodegradable, unlike most plastics.
Re:People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:4, Informative)
Paper is biodegradable
Paper does not degrade in landfills. It lasts for centuries.
Re:People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it keeps carbon sequestrated for centuries then! /s
Re:People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:5, Insightful)
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In certain circumstances paper can survive long term, but in most environments where people live paper will break down quickly.
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Re: People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:2)
I have a stack of paper lawn waste bags under my deck for a couple years now
Just used one not too long ago to toss some pumpins and decorative squash in to give to a local pig farmer worked fine
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30 seconds of searching suggests that paper lasts between 2 weeks and 6 months depending on specific conditions (and presumably type of paper)
So what makes you say paper lasts "centuries" in landfills?
=Smidge=
Re:People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you ever been near a paper mill? Especially on that recycles paper? There are few industrial processes more damaging to the environment than a paper mill, including oil refineries.
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Yeah sure the sulfide smell coming out of a paper mill might stink, but it's not as harmful to your health.
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I have. Refineries are ecological disasters when things go wrong. Paper mills are ecological disasters when things work right.
Re:People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:4, Funny)
Even if that's true (can't be bothered to check), the fact that paper bags don't become microplastics or sit in landfill for centuries is a big environmental benefit.
Paper is also much easier to recycle, and many places (at least in Europe) do recycle it. Before you go off on how bad recycling paper is, much of it is turned into things like shredded insulation and compost.
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Re:People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:5, Interesting)
IMO, thin bags with easy recycling is probably the best way forward. I get thin bags here and actually recycle. Recycling for them needs to be as easy as it is for other recyclables, though I think recycling need to be easier than they are now. One container and let the people who sort this stuff for a living handle it from there because they know what they're doing.
The trouble is plastic bag recycling is largely wishcycling. I "recycle" all my plastic bags too but I have little faith that the bags I drop at store recycling boxes actually end up in products. The local recycling center doesn't even take plastic bags.
Re:People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:5, Informative)
The trouble is plastic recycling is largely wishcycling.
FTFY
Plastic recycling is expensive, inferior, and largely not done [reuters.com]. The greatest trick the plastic industry ever pulled was convincing us of plastic recycling actually being done and working.
Re:People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:5, Interesting)
Question is, why should we recycle plastic bags? Is it because of land-fill pollution, ocean pollution or CO2?
- Regarding CO2 we are talking about a few percent. There are plenty of much easier ways to reduce CO2, like big ships.
- Regarding ocean pollution, this happens mainly in the Asia where people just dump everything into the river. All the money you locally use to prevent ocean plastic, just figure out a way how to donate and use that in the Asia and you will get results that are many magnitudes better.
- Land fill... Well, there is easy solution for this, just burn it. Obviously filter the toxins out.
It seeps into growdwater (Score:3, Informative)
The only fix is to use less of it. Which the plastic industry doesn't want. And they make the rules.
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Well, the cynic in me says: why recycle when most users of plastic bags don't bother throwing them away when they can just toss them out the window. Yup, we have a society where littering is still extremely common. And other people just don't care - we have a recycling bin and a garbage bin in my condo complex, and the recycling bin is always full of obvious garbage including decomposing vegetable matter.
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The biggest problem with plastic recycling is that it convinces people they are "doing their part" when they drive a four-ton SUV to the recycling center to drop off five grams of grocery bags.
Recycling of aluminum and cardboard makes sense. Recycling of plastic and glass does not. We should reduce consumption instead of telling people that recycling is the solution.
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Recycling of aluminum and cardboard makes sense. Recycling of plastic and glass does not. We should reduce consumption instead of telling people that recycling is the solution.
Not sure where you're getting the glass portion of that. My understanding was that glass is 100% recyclable, just the US does a shit job of doing it and delineating where it is done and where it isn't.
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The non-insane way, just clean the bottles off and steam blast them to sterilize and ship as new, is super economical for the same reason melting them isn't: it takes a huge amount less energy.
Re:People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:5, Interesting)
My understanding was that glass is 100% recyclable
Saying something is "100% recyclable" doesn't mean it is cost-effective and doesn't mean it makes any sense at all.
Glass is inert. It causes no harm when dumped in a landfill or even tossed in the ocean. It is silicon dioxide, the same thing most rocks are made of.
It only makes sense to recycle glass if recycling consumes fewer resources than making new glass. It does not. Collecting, shipping, cleaning, sorting, melting, and shipping again uses more energy than making glass from sand and produces a lower quality brownish product worth much less.
Recycling glass makes people feel good, but it is not cost-effective and is environmentally harmful.
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> If a permanent bag has five times as much plastic as a single-use bag, it is losing policy if more than 20% are tossed.
Humm, depends on the scenario.
Even when the permanent bags are very not permanent:
1 light bag a week for 10 years equals 520 bags tossed.
1 heavy bag a month for 10 years equals 120 bags, if 20 % or 24 of those are tossed that's the equivalent of 120 light bags tossed.
In other words even in that scenario it's far from a losing policy.
(I'm not saying thick plastic is good. Maybe providin
Re: People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:3)
New glass requires collecting (sand), shipping, melting and shipping again as well. Apparently 100% reused glass requires 25% less energy, mainly because of a lower melting point than sand used for new glass. Practically, the savings are about 15%
Re: People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:3)
Recycling glass doesn't make sense, but reusing does. Back in the day, when you turned in your Coke bottle, it would be sterilize, refilled, and resold. Still happens in some places. It's one of the most sustainable forms of beverage packaging. Sometimes bottles break, but most survive dozens or even hundreds of cycles.
But try to get rich Westerners to drink from a Coke bottle where the logo has been all scratched up due to heavy use.
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Correct; the metrics I have seen suggest only about 10% of plastic that is specifically put into the recycling stream ends up recycled. This of course has a lot to do with the simple fact that most plastics are either impossible or economically prohibitive to recyclable in the first place.
I personally think this will change in the near future as we get better at engineering enzymes, but this also means I that I think all efforts to do large-scale plastic recycling today are essentially just feel-good money
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They should sell woven nylon bags for at least 1 or 2€ each: They're very lightweight, strong, & durable, easily washable, & fold/scrunch down very small, & for all these reasons very convenient & environmentally friendly. Yes, it's still plastic but if it cuts down on the total substantially, it'll do until we come up with a better idea. I had
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I gave up on the supermarket bags and bought some insulated picnic baskets six years ago. I still use them. The insulation has kinda torn on a couple of them from use and accidental rips because stuff has sharpish edges, but I just use those for stuff that doesn't need to be kept cool anyway.
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They should sell woven nylon bags for at least 1 or 2€ each
That has been tried many times. What happens is enough people throw the bags away that the net effect is even more plastic in landfills.
If a permanent bag has five times as much plastic as a single-use bag, it is losing policy if more than 20% are tossed.
I had a bunch of them that have lasted over 15 years
Good for you. But I hope you don't believe a normal person would do that.
Policy should be based on how people behave, not on how we wish they behaved.
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I've been using most of the same permanent bag for many years. It's not that hard.
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I've been using most of the same permanent bag for many years. It's not that hard.
Nobody is saying it isn't hard. What we are saying is that PEOPLE DON'T DO IT.
They aren't gonna start doing it just because you think they should.
If your policy depends on changing human nature, it isn't a good policy.
I live in San Jose. We banned plastic bags in 2012. I was an enthusiastic supporter of the ban. I was already using a canvas bag and still do so today. Yet, when I check out, I notice about a third of the people are buying bags with five times as much plastic as the old flimsy bags. So, net pl
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Maybe it's just Americans who won't do it, and reading the comments here it seems to be as much out of spite as anything.
The UK introduces a charge of 10p per bag. Use had dropped 98 %.
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It's not an American thing either at least not to any meaningful extent. Who throws several dollars in the garbage every time they go grocery shopping?
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I still have them sitting otherwise unused somewhere in my house here in the US. IMO, thin bags with easy recycling is probably the best way forward.
Thin compostable bags are even better.
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Most places that "recycle" plastic bags either ship them overseas to India, where they're burned for cheap, heavily polluting fuel; or they burry them in the ground right alongside other trash.
These bags should be burned domestically in a vacuum incinerator/coal-like reactor and/or converted into fuel by one burning other trash.
Re: People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:3)
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Re: People just don't care about 10 cents (Score:3)
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Lego is from Denmark and "food joints" which I can only presume are fast food places already serve their food in free paper bags. Your post reads like it was written by an alien who had only read about the US and Belgium. Get your shit together.
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Sell a good reusable attractive bag with the store's name on it and it's a marketing department win for the store. Instead they
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> To me it's a pity, because the 10 cent bags are good if you use and re-use them, and they are good enough to re-use.
Great news! You can buy 10 cent bags and reuse them all you want, you legend you.
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The problem (stating the obvious) is that the ban should have been to "ban all check-out bags that can not be recycled in the recycle bin"
So PET (soda bottles) made bags should have been what the reusable bags got made out of.
But as the article states, I go shopping, I don't have a car, so I don't remember to take the bags. The "reusable bags" get coated in bacteria, viruses, or deteriorate in the trunk/backseat of people's cars, so they spread more diseases back into the store from being carried around. It
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We used to live above a major chain grocery store. I had my own private "shopping cart" and would elevator down, put things in the cart, check out, and then instead of putting it in bags, it just went back in the cart, and back up the elevator. There was never any question of how much I could haul back upstairs. Unfortnuately with the sole exception of a handful of neighborhoods, sidewalks universally suck and this isn't viable for about 99.99% of the population
I still have mine (Score:3)
We spent a week in California in 2022. We went grocery shopping once and got some of these thick bags.
We're still using them at home.
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I live in a state that allows the original disposable bags, but we also reuse them at home. We have a "bag bag" in a closet where we put the grocery bags. We use them to hold used cat litter, or to carry items to a picnic, or line trash cans.
The bags don't necessarily have to be thick, to be reusable.
paper for the win (Score:2)
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Re:paper for the win (Score:5, Interesting)
We used to use the single-use plastic bags as trash can liners. Now, we use thick, reusable bags as trash can liners. The more things change...
Re:paper for the win (Score:5, Insightful)
"recyclables"
The only recyclables are things you can put in dirt and have rot.
There are very few places which recycle "recyclables". It's a scam, really. Usually they end up in the landfill with everything else. Some urban areas will ship them overseas to secondary markets (read: more carbon, more waste, lots of pollution NIMBY).
For these green initiatives to have any meaning, we need to have reclamation added to "reduce, reuse, recycle". That's the problem: nobody ever did anything about it other than push costly, meaningless feel-good initiatives. The best thing to come out of it all was composting newsprint - and of course, nobody reads newspapers anymore so there's no newsprint to recycle.
Source: child of an environmental engineer, I grew up with those mantras and saw them perpetually fail because of green warriors not wanting anything meaningful like vacuum incinerators to generate power or reclamation of materials through industrial processes in their back yards...
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Paper for the lose (Score:2)
Just buy some reusable bags people. Pay for them by skipping that next overpriced coffee, or cooking your own meal instead of ordering out. That's literally all they'll cost.
Dupe? (Score:2)
This was reported on previously, maybe a week ago.
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Even California can ban dupes or force Slashdot editors to... read Slashdot.
I must have 200 of those reusable bags (Score:4, Insightful)
And in fact, I do reuse them! They're in my minivan. When I go do the groceries, I use 2 or 3, load them up with groceries, load the bags in the van, drive back home, take the bags into the kitchen, and then fold the bags and store them in the kitchen.
Evern few months, I start to realize the stock of bags in the van is running low. So I'll go to the kitchen get the big pile of used bags and "reload" the van.
You might ask yourself: how did I end up with that many bags and why do I do that?
Well, sure enough, at the beginning I had maybe 5. Then I'd forget one at home and buy another. Then another. Then another... Before you know it, half the minivan or half the kitchen, depending on the season, was full of fucking reusable bags.
They're a pain in the ass but I still prefer than over throwing them away. Not so much for the environment, but I have throwing things away. Single use plastic bags are sheer madness to me. Also, they're much more solid and convenient than single use bags.
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Same here, Grocery Outlet has the best bags in the area so I reuse their bags when I shop anywhere else. I do have cloth bags but these are better in many ways. I do also then go on to use them when I need a trash bag that size, for example for dirty blue shop towels.
On the other hand that doesn't mean most of them won't just get thrown out, because ten cents isn't expensive enough. If you have enough groceries to fill a bag these days, you've probably spent more than $10. Adding 1% or less to the bill for
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If you have enough groceries to fill a bag these days, you've probably spent more than $10. Adding 1% or less to the bill for a bag doesn't move the needle.
I've gotten used to reusable bags since they were mandated, I just keep some in my car all the time and have slowly adapted to taking them with me into stores. I still have to buy bags for kitchen trash and cat litter, which is annoying, but at least they are cheap. That said, with the price of groceries these days (and perhaps owning to the fact I thankfully don't have to buy the cheapest foodstuffs available), I find a full reusable bag of groceries averages around $50 CAD. A 2 bag shopping trip is $10
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Re: I must have 200 of those reusable bags (Score:2)
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I get a few paper bags from the fruit and veg aisle. I use them to carry my fruits and vegs, and then I use them in the bathroom trashcan. Meaning they're not single-use bags anymore.
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They're available. Mostly scented. Looking up, they're 5.6 cents each in a pack of 100 or so. 4 gallon size, so a bit larger than disposable shopping bags.
Took me longer to find bathroom bins small enough to take the disposable shopping bags, but I'm back to using them instead.
I throw away more plastic after the NY ban. (Score:3)
Re:I throw away more plastic after the NY ban. (Score:4, Insightful)
Do people actually shop anymore? The bag aisle has all sizes and strengths(thicknesses) from office to kitchen to garbage can to leaf bags. Next time pick the right one.
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"Frankly, I'm sick and tired of the "But I use them as garbage bags!" refrain. This is not reusing them. It is literally turning them into garbage."
Then you're buying other bags (usually made of even heavier plastic) to turn them into garbage. What's the gain when you still need a bag to put your garbage into, either a "free" one or a bag you had to buy specifically for the purpose.
California can't legistate everything... (Score:2)
Look, it was always a stupid idea to introduce thicker 'reusable' bags to the public.
Why?
BECAUSE THE THINNER BAGS WERE ALSO REUSABLE! BUT NOBODY REUSED THEM!!!
Why California thought people would suddenly start reusing plastic bags just because they were thicker is beyond me.
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BUT NOBODY REUSED THEM!!!
I take it you don't have a dog.
Go ahead and ban the "single use" thin bags. We'll just have to buy special purpose thin doggie poop bags. Either way, it's a win for the plastics indiustry.
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I think at the time the cutout for "reusable" plastic bags was meant for the kind of nylon bags that folks spend dollars on instead of dimes. The problem is that people who were used to single-use bags are more likely to single-use not-quite-as-cheap bags than to switch to buying bags that they'll use multiple times.
Heck, I have reusable bags in my trunk and still usually get one or two. But I use them to scoop kitty litter into, so I'm at least reusing them once...
"green" initiative expected outcomes vs reality (Score:3, Interesting)
This is almost identical to every other government environmental overreach - going back to the 'preservation' efforts in Yellowstone which almost resulted in multiple extinctions and a century of population/ecological imbalance, or preservation efforts which introduce foreign unintentionally invasive species in the interest of... whatever.
Without fail, these well-intentioned initiatives (laws, which they will fine and arrest you for) seem to have more negative "unintended consequences" than the positive consequences they could have foreseen. Except, it's extremely predictable that this happens because they're always pushed without consideration for holistic system impact, human psychology, economics, etc. - they're pushed as feel-good demographic pandering almost exclusively.
It was true when we were forced to move from paper bags to plastic ("they're recyclable!"), and it's true again with the banning "single use" plastic bags. It was true with recycling in general, which is almost universally more destructive ecologically than simply burying or burning the material as a source of fuel (which has less waste and negative ecological impact than anything else). Biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel? Just a massive subsidy to add to the Farm Bill for corn, with a significant net loss in energy efficiency once you consider the ethanol energy lifecycle.
Now we're seeing a similar long tail on the 'lithium battery' fad start to develop due to a lack of foresight into the comparably short lifespan of such technology and reclaiming materials before they leech into the environment... and so-called "carbon offsetting" is, quite simply, racketeering fraud: it does nothing but shift things around and does nothing to actually reduce environmental carbon (regardless of whether you think that's good or bad, the result isn't as claimed).
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That's because no one cares about gov-back green initiatives that worked.
CFC ban
DET ban
Lead gasoline ban
Congestion charges
Food and drug safety
Did you even read the summary? (Score:3)
Sorry this really pisses me off. Society sees a problem and solves it with government action and because we didn't get it right the first time, likely because of industry lobbying sneaking in a loophole, we're all supposed to pretend that we should dismiss any attempts to solve problems in
that math doesn't work (Score:2)
it translates to 1178 bags per person per year at the average 5g/single use grocery bag...
The only difference is now you pay for the bags (Score:2)
This is a text book example of unintended consequences; the kind of feel-good policies that end up causing the contrary of what they intended to do.
The first time I saw one.. (Score:2)
.. of those thicker bags, I immediately knew that they would end up in the trash
It's hard to believe that lawmakers were that stupid. It's easier to believe that the bagmakers have great political power
How about we change the attitude on plastic. (Score:2)
If it's not recyclable then the waste can be dumped onto the property of the manufacturer/importer of that type of plastic. The manufacturer/importer must use/recycle/dispose of the product in an environmentally safe manner.
It's easy to create waste. If there is no cost to the disposal then there is no incentive to change. Why bother with making something recyclable when you don't suffer the consequences of your actions.
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Hardware box stores are even worse, a set of drill bits comes in a nice 'indestructible' hinged plastic case that is itself contained in a plastic clam shell that is twice as big and twice as indestructible and infinitely harder to open. We have reached anti-theft enshitification, environment be damned.
don't need bags (Score:3)
Stores always seem to hate it when I put everything back in the cart without bags. Truth is I don't really need the bags, they save me nothing at the store, and a few steps at home. Do you really need that bag? Sometimes but not usually.
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Stores always seem to hate it when I put everything back in the cart without bags.
How can you tell? I put groceries into the cart without bags most of the time and I've never given any thought to the store's feelings. It has never even occurred to me to consider that a store could be capable of hate.
I've certainly never paid for bags for groceries. I do occasionally bring bags into a grocery store, but not often. If I buy something in a state that hasn't banned plastic bags, I do stuff the bag into my suitcase and bring it home instead of throwing it in the hotel trash can.
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Re: don't need bags (Score:2)
It's more like being married, you can never tell what mood it's in when you walk though the door and eventually you stop caring
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Pedantic much?
At one place I shop the cashier is required to scan the cart, as a way of noting that they checked the cart for large items that were too big for the conveyer. The cashiers at that place do not like it when I start refilling the cart before they've scanned the cart, if I wait until they scan the cart then their area gets filled up and they don't like that either. At least there, they prefer to put everything in bags because if those bags make it back into the cart they know they've scanned the
feel good versus effective solutions (Score:2)
The current governmental obsessions with plastic waste is maybe well intentioned, but utterly ineffective.
1) plastic straws. Does anyone think the landfills are full of plastic straws, so that annoying everyone with paper straws will alleviate the world's plastic problems?
2) plastic bags. Does anyone believe forcing someone to buy a newer, thicker, pay-per-use unrecyclable plastic bag that may need to be washed will fix the world's plastic problems?
3) banning paper bags. Does anyone sane believe NJ's req
Huh... (Score:5, Informative)
"Ban didn't work, let's try a ban" (Score:2)
Wow. Way to deny human agency (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly, not enough consumers have changed their plastic bag habits at the checkout stand. But the onus isn't on individuals. Plastic manufacturers create these products.
It can't be that bags are useful as evidenced by the fact that people choose to use them. No. It's some conspiracy to whisper evil into everyone's ear. What solipsistic anti-human tripe.
On a Similar Note (Score:2)
Give me a break! (Score:2)
I remember when this law was passed 10 years ago. Anyone with half a clue pointed out that glaring "loophole" that our fucking retarded politicians didn't do anything about. Since I don't actually believe they are THAT stupid, it was written intentionally the way it currently stands.
Of course making the bags thicker is going to translate into us throwing more pounds of plastic away then before.
All they really had to do was just straight up ban plastic bags. No exceptions. It would of hurt companies that mak
If you use self checkout do you pay for bags? (Score:2)
My Virginia Walmart checkout screen asks how many bags I've used. It defaults to zero. I always just hit OK.
And their bags are real thin. Double bagging on many things is a necessity.
tax plastics (Score:2)
Tax plastic manufacture and distribution to price it out of the marketplace.
Real green alternatives have to be created.
As electrification reduces petroleum usage, the price of plastics will also naturally increase.
$$$ is the only thing consumers understand
Isn't this the fault of lawmakers? (Score:2)
But isn't it the fault of the lawmakers for making a law that didn't do what they wanted it to do? Shouldn't the onus be on them? Is everyone supposed to guess the intent or spirit of a law and comply with that instead of just complying with what it actually says? Can't they accept that they made a mistake?
Again? (Score:3)
Puppetmastering behavior through whack-a-mole bans accomplishes nothing except indulging the self-justifying power fantasies of petty bureaucrats. If you want to actually help the environment, the solution is to apply fees and taxes to pollution and then let the market decide how to optimize around minimizing pollution. Make polluting expensive. Nothing will change until the money changes, and then it will change fast. Make saving the planet the same thing as making more money, and watch everyone unify around saving the planet.
Re: (Score:2)
Lol at wheeling out poor people as a defence.
That's exactly what I complained about people doing in the last thread.
Somehow in my country, use of plastic bags has dropped by 98%. Even vaguely ok bags last for ages.
Re: (Score:2)
The newer bags are, I would estimate (okay, "wild guess"), twice as heavy as the older ones. Since the tonnage hasn't doubled, the number of bags has decreased... that's something, right? :)