Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Our governor is a complete asshat. Screw Cuomo.
The two states that cause the most problems for the US. Fuck 'em.
This is just more nonsense like the red state backlash over incandescent bulbs. Eventually they'll fall in line, silently accepting the inevitable. Until then, let them froth at the mouth with their outrage while simultaneously polluting their own shithole (to use Trump's term).
But what has orange baboon to tweet on this? Will he overturn this law too and make plutonium and arsenic mandatory ingredients of plastic bag?
Systematically dump more plastic and pollutants everyday into their rivers which drain into the ocean, than the US does accidentally in one year.
Yet straws and plastic bags makes shallow environmental progressives feel so much better about themselves without having to tackle the bigger global problem.
These days, it seems like all our governments are doing is solving artificial problems of their own creation. The government-paid garbage haulers cut down the number of people on garbage trucks down from two to one, and suddenly they litter more, and plastic bags start turning up in our streams. So how do they solve it? By properly staffing the garbage trucks? No. By fining the garbage haulers for not cleaning up after themselves? No. Instead of blaming the people who litter, they blame the litter itself, and ban the plastic bags.
So what happens as a result? Do people start bringing reusable bags? Maybe somebody does, but nearly every person I see in front of me at the grocery is buying bags, which suggests that we're really just using a LOT more oil for the same benefit. And although there are about half as many bags blowing around because of the heavier weight, the bags that are still blowing around are an order of magnitude thicker and take decades to photodegrade instead of disintegrating into tiny bits after a year, which means they create far more environmental contamination per bag.
So what's next? Obviously, they'll ban the reusable plastic bags and demand that everyone move to paper. And we'll be back to the 1970s, with bags tearing all the time, people complaining about cutting down too many trees for no reason, etc. And then they'll ban that, and folks will go back to the 1960s, and start getting things delivered to their houses. And when you add up how much oil gets consumed as a net result, well, to make a long story short, this is how the planet burns. All for want of a plastic bag.
No, these laws are just plain silly. They're a great example of environmentalism run amok, in which a bunch of people who don't have enough to do come up with hare-brained ideas and don't bother to do a proper cost-benefit analysis before ramming them down everybody's throats. Plastic bag bans are about as poorly thought out as laws can get. At least in theory, Tennessee has the right idea... but only if they also fix their garbage truck problem. I won't hold my breath on that last part.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Imagonna keep it close for a long time!
I'm not playing games!
I am The Trump!
Looks as much like a money grab (taxes on the replacement) as anything to protect the environment.
As california learned: When you ban plastic bags the homeless population no longer has a convenient way to poop and throw it away. Instead they poop on the ground and it runs onto the sidewalk. I suppose NY will now enjoy feces rich sidewalks, congrats!
allowing local governments the option to impose a 5-cent fee on paper bags
And there it is, politicians funding their little pork barrel projects.
You can use them again as, say, trash bags, or to hold your dirty shoes when you travel, etc.
Why is the left is so myopic and un-creative?
Single use?! No wonder leftists are always in debt!
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.
Tennessee: laws for people — protecting people from local government bullying
New York: laws against people — making life worse for the people there
Fo baby daddies and 6 chillun. That's a natural disaster!
You keep popping up, levying those exact same "insults".
If anybody is a paid troll, I'd put my money on you.
You let them naggers into your neighborhood, and they'll leave bags in your trees.
They'll just declare them "multiple use", maybe make them thicker (= even more waste), charge a nominal amount for them. And people will just throw them away like before. Or collect them in a drawer and then throw them away when Konmari comes. Effect, none.
We need a ban on plastic. Or a prohibitive tax. Anything short of that is useless, as can be seen in the countries that already "banned plastic bags".
I'm sick and tired of other people telling other people what they can and can't do that has nothing to do with them. It's one thing to prohibit the dumping of toxic chemicals in the lake and a completely different matter to come up with a scam like this. To remove control over every day life decisions deprives those who prefer plastic or of there hard earned money is just wrong. Society works because we mind each others business and DO NOT control other people. The more control you exert the eventual state of affairs is slavery and all sane people agree this is immoral even if not illegal. If you back enough of the population into a corner the eventual reality is war. What is humorous is these are the same people writing the anti-gun legislation. If you don't know have guns your going to lose the war.
This policy sucks for anyone that has to wait at a bus stop in the rain. Or take a walk and get caught in the rain.
You should make it easier to use plastic bags responsibly, not force people to do the "right" thing at the point of a gun.
Government is seriously a dumb man's way to organize society.
You know how you build a nice society? You get people to agree with your idea of a nice society; you don't bully them with the threat of force. Government must follow society, not lead it.
I really do! I don't even buy trash-specific bags.
Like, how ironic is that? They've outlawed plastic bags that are actually multi-purpose (grocery bags), but not plastic bags that are actually single-purpose (trash bags). Ha!
Stupid, myopic leftists.
Have lived in Europe, where you have to pay something significant for a single use plastic bag, and I got used to it. I don't think the single-use bag bans are going to make a substantial difference for the environment (they tend to promote moral licensing, as people feel entitled to buy a bigger car if they feel good about recycling, etc). But seeing conservatives and liberals using environmental policy as a club to beat each other with, or feel all victim-chic put-upon by, is getting kind of tiresome.
Gently reply
Libs love all things plastic. They love plastic water bottles, bags, gloves, knives, etc. Dumb redneck racist love things real. I am guessing this will piss of soo many entitled new york elites they will move to Texas and hang out with all the illegal aliens invaders that they love. However the red neck racist Texans will see all the cool things the urban hipstars are doing in broklyn and move out there to start urban chicken farms and fixed gear bike collectives.
New york will turn red, and Texas will be blue.
Such is change
The stories about plastic in the oceans usually fail to mention that it got there because some countries allow plastic in their rivers! For example: Five Asian Countries Dump More Plastic Into Oceans Than Anyone Else Combined: How You Can Help (Apr 21, 2018)
... Revenue: US$ 5.1 billion (2017)"
Banning plastic bags is supported by paper bag manufacturers. Stores in and near Portland, Oregon stopped supplying plastic bags. The underlying reason appeared to be that International Paper (world map) has a plant near Portland. Grocery stores there don't fill the paper bags because the paper bags are fragile, especially when they get wet in the rain.
Paper is FAR more damaging to the environment. First, a huge truck must go to a place where there are trees. The trees are cut and trucked to a processing plant. The plant uses poisonous chemicals to make the paper.
There are MANY examples of paper plant pollution. Here is a Slashdot story: Chile Becomes First Country In Americas To Ban Plastic Bags.
"CMPC is a Chilean pulp and paper company, being one of the biggest in Latin America.
Another plant: CELCO Valdivia Pulp Mill pollution: "The company had been dumping more dioxins and heavy metals than had been approved by the regulating agencies into the river from a waste tube that had been approved by the authorities. It had also been producing far above levels approved in its Environmental Impact Assessment, and was cited for multiple violations of environmental and health laws."
"In July 2007 CELCO agreed to pay CLP$614 millions to Valdivian tourism companies to avoid legal actions for supposed losses of the tourism sector of Valdivia due to contamination of Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary."
"The Secretary of State for the Environment said that, despite having large financial and technical resources, CELCO had an extremely poor environmental record."
We re-use plastic bags to line wastebaskets, and to throw away wet materials. We always throw paper bags away.
Paper buried in trash areas can eventually degrade, but that usually doesn't happen because there is usually not enough oxygen to support the breakdown process. How much oil is used to make plastic?: "Although crude oil is a source of raw material (feedstock) for making plastics, it is not the major source of feedstock for plastics production in the United States."
The natural gas used to make plastic bags is less polluting. Still a problem, but not as much of a problem as using oil.
I grew up with parents who disliked plastic bags, always asked for paper when buying groceries. Guess they were smarter people back then. Should just go back to paper which as we all know degrades a lot better then plastic. Guess plastic lovers wanted to save tree's back then, now they want to save the Earth. Imagine that.
I'm all for banning plastic bags where it makes sense.
But to do this at the same time?
The plan also calls for allowing local governments the option to impose a 5-cent fee on paper bags
This is just stupid. Why would you do this? Ban one item and tax the other? STUPID!
Should be more like 25 cent tax on using a plastic bag and no tax on the paper bag. That would achieve behavior change. But this plan? I'm not sure what it's trying to do, ban one item and discourage use of the alternative?
now I carry a reusable bag, which is a lot more robust than a plastic carrier and still going strong after hundreds of uses.
And how many washes? Reusable bags tend to pick up coliform bacteria rawther quickly.
ENVY is one of the seven deadly SINS. REPENT SINNER.
You are a citizen of your state first, and then of the United States second.
This is how the US was designed, if you don't like what they're doing in a state, you are free to move to a different one, that has laws, taxation and regulations that you agree with....
One size does not fit all, and this is what is great about the US.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Data just wants to be free. It told me so.
They now charge you 10-25 cents for a paper or reusable plastic bag, or a few dollars for a permanent bag (most places stopped selling these when it turned out bags weren't going away COMPLETELY.) These new plastic bags are more like the ones department stores have always used and less like the ones grocery stores moved to using. They are pretty durable made out of material that doesn't tear on the first carry to the car.
In practice, other than being out an extra dime or quarter (which is far less than a lot of the sales/electronics recycling taxes) and getting a better bag to use, it hasn't affected Californian society much.
The root of your country's ills lies in the failed belief that individual freedom is the single most important thing. From it springs greed, avarice, narcissism, and all the other problems inherent with that attitude. Your society is crumbling under this weight. You have no respect for yourself, or others. If you can't respect yourself, how can you respect others. You deserve your president whether you voted for him or not.
That's a common misconception by the left - that the red states oppose anything the left favors out of spite or ignorance. The left advocates a government-centric approach to decision-making. Some government official (elected via what's basically a popularity contest, not an appraisal of competency) decides or appoints people to decide what the population should do.
The red states don't oppose things the left favors per se. They typically favor a market-centric approach. So using your example of incandescent light bulbs, the red states would've preferred CFLs and LEDs compete with incandescents based solely on price. Once their savings in electricity and longevity versus incandescents made them a better buy, then people would've started buying them naturally and incadescents wold phase themselves out. It's pure democracy in action - every individual buyer gets to vote on what type of light bulb they prefer every time they buy one, unlike the statist top-down approach favored by the left. In that respect, the red states will "eventually fall in line". It was never a question of which technology was better long-term. It's a question of which technology is better now and how the transition should proceed.
Likewise, the right has no problem with solar or wind or EVs per se. If they're the better, more cost-effective product, the right will gladly embrace them. They just don't want those things shoved down their throats by government decree - they think every individual should be allowed to decide for themself whether or not to adopt these products.. But the left can't seem to grok this, so they concoct this fantasy where the right oppose anything the left advocates out of spite or ignorance.
Neither method is always right. The market approach can fail in the case of monopolies and certain niche cases summed up by the tragedy of the commons (pollution is the most common example) and the prisoner's dilemma. The government approach fails when the people deciding fail to anticipate unforeseen consequences to their actions (cable and phone monopolies are granted by the government in exchange for things like guarantees to cover low-income areas - arguably the harm of those monopolies far outweighs the good of covering the low income area), or don't adequately search the solution space before mandating a single solution (GSM nearly doomed us because it used TDMA which is horribly inefficient with bandwidth because it assigns a full bandwidth timeslice to users who only need a little or no bandwidth; fortunately the US allowed CDMA to compete and prove itself a superior solution; and eventually GSM adopted CDMA into its spec and modern standards like LTE are based on the orthogonal signaling proven by CDMA).
That's what makes the U.S. approach to government so effective. Tens of thousands of local governments get to try both the regulatory and free market approach. Those who picked one can compare notes with those who picked the other to see who seems to be doing better. If the regulatory approach seems to be working better than the market approach, then numerous states will try adopting it, while others will retain the market approach. And when a clear majority of the states see a benefit to the regulatory approach, then that creates enough political support to pass the regulation on a national level. When you immediately regulate at the national level without sufficient trials at the lower government levels, you short circuit this weeding-out process and could doom us with something like GSM, except we'll never know because you prohibited the alternative before it could ever be tested.
"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."
^ As a California resident, I know that's a lie. Plastic bags are available in just about every grocery store for 10 cents. Even at self-checkout usually.
That said, the bags you pay 10 cents for can be re-used hundreds of times -- I've been using the same 10 cent bags for years. So perhaps in that sense single-use bags that disintegrate after use are gone. So the outrage-causing tragedy here must either be that we have better quality bags or that they cost an obscene 10 cents which is like a day's pay for a Victorian sweatshop worker.
This space intentionally left blank
in my experience. Certainly not in my city. Around here taxes like this are meant to be regressive. In other words, they disproportionately impact the poor and working class so that the wealthy don't have to pay taxes for the services they use. It lets states cut income taxes for top earners without sacrificing services that either go to those earns or that are too popular/essential to cut.
Lotteries, Sales Tax, flat Vehicle Taxes (and flat taxes in general, like alcohol tax) are all good examples of regressive taxation. The goal is to have a tax system that applies (mathematically) equally to all while ignoring the very real differences between a millionaire and the lower working class.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
then unless you're from an unusually long lived family you'll be dead before the problems you caused come home to roost.
I know, I know, what about your children. Thing is, it's taboo to say you don't care about kids, especially your own, but I guarantee you that the "I got mine, FU" crowd exists and doesn't care.
This is the problem we're having: We are not negotiating with people in good faith. You can't reason with the people raping the earth and leaving a disaster for the next generation because they're being reasonable. Evil. But perfectly reasonable. You can't win negotiations with a bad faith actor when you act in good faith.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Why does it seem like the more evangelical a person or region is, the anti-environmental attitude one encounters? It is almost like being environmentally concern is a sin
1) Grocery stores always supply plastic bags for fruits and vegetables, for example. When articles say "banning plastic bags", they mean not supplying large plastic bags at the checkout stand.
2) Putting everything in a shopping cart, going to a car, and transferring everything to cloth bags owned by the shopper works well.
Here in Australia they banned single-use plastic bags (at least most states have now done it) and the supermarkets adapted. They sell a range of reusable bags that are made out of strong material and last for many many uses as well as providing a thicker plastic bag that is thicker than the old bags and reusable multiple times.
So there should be no reason why a ban on single use plastic bags has to be a problem or why supermarkets would have any reason to use paper bags as a substitute for single use plastic bags instead of going with the aforementioned thicker reusable plastic bags.
We re-use plastic bags to line wastebaskets, and to throw away wet materials. We always throw paper bags away.
You don't use paper bags to carry and throw away your recycling? I love doing that.
I can fill a paper bag with cardboard and paper waste, and just chuck the whole thing into the paper recycling container. I can also use it to carry plastic, metal and glass, and after sorting those out into their proper containers, throw the empty paper bags into the paper recycling container. Hands clean, everything recycled.
When I use plastic bags for that, I either have to walk over to the nearest garbage container and throw them away, or carry them back home.
Why are you bringing race into this???
They're talking about Bags Naggers.
Just to be clear, I see the media constantly reporting that plastic bags are banned in CA. They abolutely are not. I get a plastic bag every fucking time I go to the grocery. What the law did do is require MORE plastic in the bag. So when I throw it away, it wastes MORE plastic, not less.
And when I am not in the mood to pay for and waste extra plastic, I bring the same old T-Shirt bags I get off Amazon for pennies, and we bag groceries just like we always did.
SAME FUCKING BAGS.
THE BAGS ARE NOT BANNED.
What has changed is that the *grocer* cannot use the lightweight bags. The CUSTOMERS have to bring them. They can pass laws restricting commerce in these bags, but they cannot pass a law that prevents me from using them. It is still, sorta kinda, America. For bags, anyway. (But not for lawn darts -- those fuckers are totally illegal because, well, lawn darts. You cannot buy lawn darts in CA, even on Amazon, for shipment to CA. But you can have as many plastic bags as you can pay for.)
That is all. Carry on, with your plastic bags in CA.
Thank you.
The stories about plastic in the oceans usually fail to mention that it got there because some countries allow plastic in their rivers!
I get sick and tired of people telling us that they are going to ban plastic bags.
...
The following bags are made of plastics
https://cf.ltkcdn.net/charity/...
https://www.hyperdrug.co.uk/im...
Are they going to ban these as well ??
They banned plastic bags across the country over the period of a few years. The supermarkets have a loophole in place which sees them selling plastic bags to customers for upwards of $2AUD each!
Fucking nuts.
On top of that, the plastic industry has doubled down on packaging food stuffs like meat, fruit and veg in various amounts of plastic. This makes sense, you can't abolish plastic from one sector overnight and see that industry want to shrink... Kinda dumb to think they won't behave like the tobacco industry and shift by pushing the product elsewhere...
My Tinfoil hat has large holes in it. Time for a new one.
Any rule can be maneuvered around. If at all possible, NEVER follow someone elses rule.
Anyone tries to make decisions for me will be disappointed.
When there are no plastic bags I use the ones in the produce section and double bag everything with another bag.
When your store has rules about not allowing open carry for license holders, I cover my firearm legally with a clear plastic bag and walk in the store. And then I get a lot more bags from produce for my groceries.
Want me to pay too much for garbage pickup? Nope, won't fund cartels and rackets, so I refuse and handle my own refuse.
Want me to pay to recycle, but you are actually burning and burying the plastic and not recycling it? No, do not play with them.
Fuck rules.
Fuck the bag snowflakes.
Fuck the tree-huggers and all the fake posing they do.
I will do that which you do not want me to do. The more your regulate and complain the more I will do what is not wanted.
Are you sure it wasn't Mr. Tricorder simply claiming Data wanted to be free? (He really just wants his Necco wafers back before attempting to run a worm farm again).
This space unintentionally left blank.