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Mumbai Bans Plastic Bags, Bottles, and Single-Use Plastic Containers (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Mumbai has the become the largest Indian city to ban single-use plastics, with residents caught using plastic bags, cups or bottles to face penalties of up to 25,000 rupees (~$365) and three months in jail from Monday. Council inspectors in navy blue jackets have been posted across the city to catch businesses or residents still using plastic bags. Penalties have already kicked in for businesses and several, reportedly including a McDonald's and Starbucks, have already been fined. Penalties range from 5,000 rupees (~$73) for first-time offenders to 25,000 rupees (~$365) and the threat of three months' jail for those caught repeatedly using single-use plastics.
I've used a lot of plastic bags quite a few times.
I have a Fuji water bottle I bought at an airport that I like the size of, so I've been refilling it for a few years.
Almost anything CAN be reusable if you try. What a shame they are getting rid of some really useful items that took a long time for human to advance enough to produce.
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and the threat of three months' jail for those caught repeatedly using single-use plastics.
If people are repeatedly using them, they're not single-use plastics, by definition.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
So when you walk your dog - where do you put the poo? In nice breathable paper sacks?
The individual penalty is regressive affecting the ones who can least afford it. Do the wealthy do their own shopping? Go out to a fast food restaurant?
Yeah! What DID we do before disposable containers? I mean, go back to drinking out of coconuts and shoes?! Or just our hands?!?!
And my disposable fast food containers.....
Paper.
Paper food containers work just fine. So do thicker -and thus reusable- plastic shopping bags. Your disposable pen is actually a quality item with long durability.
Coming from Europe i was stunned by the amount of thin plastic bags the USA customers consume. Walmart happily packs 1 bottle of soda in a plastic bag. Spending $50 gets you home with at least a dozen of useless plastic bags.
I'm used to buying a (slightly thicker) plastic bag for $0.15 that's actually usable several times (and i will, because i'm cheap), and will contain most of that $50 groceries in one bag. Alternatively, i bring my own sturdier bags. Sometimes filled with refund plastic bottles. Once you're used to it, it's really not such a big deal. And yes, we still have those thin plastics for certain goods, like fresh fruit or veggies.
I'm not saying our streets and highways are not littered with trash, cause they are.. Plastic drinking bottles or cans all around, cause people are *ssh*s. But removing those thin disposable plastic bags really does make a difference.
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...lots of Tupperware parties.
Coming from Europe i was stunned by the amount of thin plastic bags the USA customers consume. Walmart happily packs 1 bottle of soda in a plastic bag. Spending $50 gets you home with at least a dozen of useless plastic bags.
Most people reuse those bags as liners on small trash cans, but I do agree people tend to get a few too many.
They still poop in the street in that Indian city (this, sadly, is cold-hard fact).
The problem is 99.9999999 of the bottles aren't a "Pet bottle" like your's.
They are the trash that line our citie's surroundings.
They're PET bottles, not reusable, not recycled as a matter of fact.
aaaaaaa
Was about to mention similar... these bags more often than not get a second life around the household - as small trashcan liners, to package used cat litter (or any other animal waste), to toss stuff in that the kid has to take to school that day, as a quickie it of waterproofing for a small laptop bag, etc.
I can also agree that you end up with way too many... some stores often use a bag for like 1-2 items (while others cram it full... kind of a crap-shoot, truth be told.)
I much prefer the reusable bags (especially the insulated ones for cold stuff), but usually that's because it's 25 miles to the nearest grocery store, and you end up carrying the same amount of stuff in less bags when it comes time to drag it all into the house.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
context matters. Very, very few people will reuse a thin plastic bottle. I use plastic bags from the grocery store but a) I get more than even I can use (only have 1 dog) and b) they're too flimsy for much else.
You have to consider what the majority of people are going to do and not what a few outliers do when you make policy.
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>> What DID we do before disposable containers
Glass
Ceramic
Metal
Paper
Plastic(multi use)
etcetcetc...
Get used to it.
aaaaaaa
Worse than you think: Some of those rivers get half-burned human (and various un-burned animal) corpses dumped into them on a very regular basis (and if we're talking about the Ganges, we're talking near-industrial-scale corpse-dumping), let alone the massive amount of un/semi-treated sewage.
I guess this little step is better than no step, but yeah, you're right... there are way bigger problems that could be addressed here.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
OK, working on the assumption that this isn't a joke/troll/misplaced irony:
- supermarket purchases were put in paper bags - which were quite large and reinforced - or boxes - of which the supermarket has an oversupply for obvious reasons.
- glass bottles... ever heard of them?
- no, you do not need a straw. No-one needs a straw, ever.
- milk, juice etc came in waxed cardboard cartons that did the job just fine.
- ever heard of a pencil (wood and graphite) or a non-disposable pen?
In more recent news... are you honestly telling me you've never got take-away in a box (pizza? noodles? hell even my local curry joint has figured that out, though they still try and put said box in a plastic bag for reasons unknown). And cutlery - try putting "bamboo knives and forks" into your google machine. And, supposing you do find a foodstuff that can't be housed in a non-plastic container (I don't know: soup made from sulfuric acid?) then how about growing a pair, putting on some pants and actually eating it in the restaurant from a non-disposable plate/bowl/other with a non-disposable fork/spoon/other?
No, the law isn't forcing you to do that ... your inability to buy yourself some re-usable grocery bags is.
My wife and I have a stack of them, folded up and kept inside one of them ... when we go for groceries, we bring the bag because otherwise we'd have to pay for them. I think we paid about $0.99 each reusable bag, and they've all been used dozens if not hundreds of times, making their cost per use practically nothing after all these years.
We've had some of those reusable bags for a decade or so, and while on keels over every now and then, they've been pretty durable. As I recall, they're actually made from recycled soda bottles, and then they've been reused for years and washed as needed.
Are you seriously trying to equate being too stupid and lazy to buy some reusable bags so you don't have to pay 10 cents for a thicker plastic bag with the fucking holocaust? Really?
The law isn't forcing you to use thicker plastic bags, your own stupidity is. Bringing your own bags to the grocery store is hardly a taxing prospect.
Also remember, we actually re-used those paper bags, because they weren't flimsy. Go a bit further back, I can remember one of my grandmothers with a small foldable grocery cart, of which I saw many in use in the neighborhood.
I remember some sturdy melamine type utensils, that you used in car hops (ie, those Happy Days type drive-ins). You didn't take them with you. Today at work we have biodegradable utensils that are cheap.
I really liked the old paper bags. They would easily hold up over multiple uses, and were handy for storage and the like. Back in the 70s many people saved those rather than treating them as disposables (even though disposable was all the fashion in the 70s). You start talking to people who were around in the great depression and they didn't treat anything as disposable.
You REUSE those bags! In europe those were one euro per bag. I get cloth bags send to me by some charities as a thank you give, and those last a very long time. If youre spending 10c every trip to get a bag, you're doing it wrong. There's nothing silly or unusual about the California rules.
There is no such cost (at least, none worth measuring). There is a cost to not disposing of them, however - letting them litter the streets, dumping them at sea, and so on. Really hard to keep assholes from dumping trash at sea, though.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I live in Pune, about 120km east of Mumbai and its the same. Its strange not to get straws to drink soda in McDonalds now. But a good change anyways. The country is getting littered way too much.
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Although I use them to save money, I don't agree with the idea that cloth reusable grocery bags are the way to go to reduce resource usage. I can definitely agree that they reduce litter which is an important consideration as well. There have been studies that show it is vitally important to regularly wash reusable grocery bags to prevent cross contamination of groceries purchased, along with any surfaces the bags come in contact with. The overwhelming majority of RGB users don't do this. Aside from health risks of this, an emergency trip to the hospital likely costs far more resources than you'd save in a lifetime of re-using bags, and while motivated individuals may be vigilant against cross contamination, the population as a whole will not be which makes forcing this as the only cost-effective strategy to grocery shop somewhat short sighted.