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New York Becomes America's Third State To Ban Plastic Bags (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Associated Press:
Gov. Andrew Cuomo and fellow Democrats who control the Legislature have reached a deal to make New York the third state with a ban on single-use plastic grocery bags as they worked to finalize budget agreements, officials said Friday. The ban would prohibit grocery stores from providing plastic bags for most purchases, something California has been doing since a statewide ban was approved in 2016. Hawaii has an effective statewide ban, with all its counties imposing their own restrictions....
New York's ban wouldn't take effect until next March. The plan also calls for allowing local governments the option to impose a 5-cent fee on paper bags, with 3 cents going to the state's Environmental Protection Fund and 2 cents kept by local governments.
Meanwhile, Tennessee's state House and Senate have passed a different kind of bill -- one that bans local Tennessee governments from regulating plastic bags, according to local channel WMC.
One Memphis councilman had proposed allowing the use of plastic bags, but with a seven-cent tax to support clean water initiatives. "But that won't happen if the governor signs the bill to 'ban the bans.'"
New York's ban wouldn't take effect until next March. The plan also calls for allowing local governments the option to impose a 5-cent fee on paper bags, with 3 cents going to the state's Environmental Protection Fund and 2 cents kept by local governments.
Meanwhile, Tennessee's state House and Senate have passed a different kind of bill -- one that bans local Tennessee governments from regulating plastic bags, according to local channel WMC.
One Memphis councilman had proposed allowing the use of plastic bags, but with a seven-cent tax to support clean water initiatives. "But that won't happen if the governor signs the bill to 'ban the bans.'"
I use plastic bags I get from the stores for kitchen waste, for scooping the cat litter, occasionally to carry packed lunches, and various other things.
So if stores stop giving them out, then I need to buy them instead. The folks who sell (admittedly better quality but also more expensive) bags are probably laughing all the way to the bank.
Laws for the environment = laws for people. We only have one habitable planet, thus far -- pays to treat it kindly.
Good Lord, man, talk about a slippery slope argument. Are you seriously blaming the problem of plastic pollution on lonely garbage men who let plastic bags blow away because they don't have a partner on the truck? And then, due to the banning of disposable plastic shopping bags, forecasting the doom of civilization?
I've been using re-usable cloth shopping bags for the last 5-10 years. I keep them in the trunk of the car. They're durable. I wash them periodically. They work just fine for getting groceries, other kinds of shopping, and even non-commerce related toting. I think I paid about $2.00 for each of them. I've used them hundreds of times.
We should stop producing most disposable plastic bags. Oil is too valuable to make into shitty plastic bags just so someone can use them to carry groceries from the store to the car and then the car to the house. Even if the bags actually made it to the landfill and didn't wind up in the ocean, it would still be a waste. Since they do end up in the ocean, it's even worse.
And there it is, politicians funding their little pork barrel projects.
Or, you know, maybe it's just incentivizing behavior with some harmless service fees that also help serve to cover the negative externalities of paper and/or plastic bags.
Nah. It's just more naked corruption from all those greedy politicians. Good thing there's smart guys like you who REALLY see the truth through the lies.