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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.'"
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).
I don't mind the ban on plastic bags so much. A lot of grocery stores around me have started giving plastic more often then paper, and the plastic bags are shit and rip too easily. I prefer paper and always ask for them whenever there's an option.
Now, charging for paper bags? Even if its just 5c, that's kinda bullshit.
At least California has legalized marijuana, and New York will likely do so in 2019 or 2020. Jealous? More weed, fewer plastic bags. Maybe some reusable hemp bags, too.
Where do you think most of the plastic bags are made? China and South Asia! Also, the rest of the world tends to follow developed country regarding packaging and environmental rules.
Also, the rest of the world tends to follow developed country regarding packaging and environmental rules.
Only because specifications sent to the factories mandate those changes for the export product - and thus the tooling exists for use for domestic product. The best this will do is cut the output of a few plastic bag factories in China. Not much else.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
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.
The two states that cause the most problems for the US. Fuck 'em.
How so?
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
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.
Environmentally cleaner than putting plastic bags with feces in a landfill. Just wash the sidewalk occasionally.
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.
No it's not kinda shit, it's really just a naked tax grab. And like all taxes, once it's in and more or less accepted as routine, then they'll raise it.
You live and learn, or you don't learn much.
NY: Trying to save the planet (albeit maybe a little too agressively?)
TN: F*** THE PLANET! And how dare you even consider trying to do anything to protect it.
How about freedom to do what you want (the American way), but we tax single use plastic bags at a nickel a piece. Aldi charges 10 cents for an big heavy paper bag and like a quarter for those heavy reusable plastic bags and most consumers make the decision to re-use their own bags or stock boxes from the shelves. I wish every other grocery store would take a hint about the quarter deposit. Amazing what people will do to get their quarter back, but you still have the freedom to walk away from it if you want.
My actual experience with a free disposable plastic bag ban (what these measures really are) in California has been entirely positive, I have truly not heard anyone complain about its effects. You can still get plastic bags, if you want them, most places but they charge a dime for them and they are of really nice size quality, and even though these are "disposable" they are truly reusable and I (and most people) do reuse them. But cheap attractive reasonably strong and durable square polyester carrying bags are everywhere. $2 gets you a nice carrying bag anywhere you go, and you just keep a few in your car, they are very handy.
Before when bags are "free" they really aren't free as right-wingers love to point out (until not convenient). The cost of the bag comes out of the retailers margin, who is in stiff competition in a very low margin commodity retail business. It is a forced march to the bottom, and that bag will be very flimsy. In recent years many "free" bags fell below the level of even marginal usability. Bags that tear, or need multiple bagging just drives up the waste.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
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!
Because you do this with every one of your disposable bags. Sure.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
NY: Trying to save the planet
"Save the planet" sounds like you believe you are a superhero in a children’s story.
You take a walk with your groceries? I wonder how people did it when paper was the only option? I hope they kept a written record of these far ancient times, otherwise you are doomed.
keep sucking putins cock you stupid faggot
You guys sure like making up stories.
Or to put it more succinctly, "Don't anthropomorphize planets. They hate that."
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How about if we all agree not to impose these sorts of religious taboos on each other?
Does it go into general revenue? In the UK, shops are required to charge 5p for plastic bags (with a few exceptions) but that money isn't levied as taxation, instead shops are required to donate it to a registered charity of their choice. This removes any profit incentive from both the shops and the government. It took a little while to get used to, but now I carry a reusable bag, which is a lot more robust than a plastic carrier and still going strong after hundreds of uses.
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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
I live in a no-disposable-plastic-bag city, and most people pay $1/ea for heavy duty plastic bags. Some I've used hundreds of times, and they're only showing minor wear. None have failed on me, ever.
I do also have a couple cotton ones, in case I want to carry it in a jacket pocket. Luxury.
People against this policy don't realize that they're fighting against having higher quality bags when shopping. They're fighting against luxury, to defend the practice of putting one or two items in a cheap plastic bag.
Everything is packaged before it goes into the bag. There is no need for bags unless you have a quantity of items, in which case those disposable bags suck anyways! Are we really sure their primary purpose wasn't some sort of anti-turtle conspiracy? I mean, as bags, they suck.
If I use 6 reusable bags for a couple weeks of groceries, that would have been like 30 disposable bags if they were allowed. That's how sucky they are as grocery bags.
Wait, you're an adult, and you're still trying to shame people for being good? WTF?
New York: laws against people — making life worse for the people there
I don't understand. It was New York that just did something positive for people by further improving the world they live in. Did you get those backwards? Or were you trying to make a point and ended up just sounding stupid?
No it's not kinda shit, it's really just a naked tax grab.
Exactly. But we can stand up for our rights and FIGHT BACK by reusing a fabric sack.
The two states that cause the most problems for the US. Fuck 'em.
How so?
By paying more than their fair share of federal taxes, thus funding oppression of red-state farmers who just want the government to keep their damn hands off their crop subsidy checks.
I'm not jealous, I'm happy. This just means fewer potheads I have to deal with.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I will say one thing about plastic bags: you can carry far more groceries in plastic bags than in paper bags. That means fewer trips from the car into the house and saves me time and effort. I could live without plastic bags, but they are darned convenient.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
You'd rather deal with tweakers, which seem to proliferate in Southern and Midwestern states.
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.
Wait, you're an adult, and you're still trying to shame people for being good? WTF?
Making life worse for people because you think you're a character in a cartoon story is the opposite of good.
If you want to give up plastic bags or pork or booze or toil on the sabbath, that's cool. Be good. Sending the police out to impose those sorts of taboos on others is evil. And not a "necessary evil" either, just a regular evil.
I don't understand. It was New York that just did something positive for people by further improving the world they live in.
It doesn't. Now do you understand?
They created a plastic bag police — to accomplish nothing.
Why are you so obsessed with other mens genitals? Is there something you want to come out about?
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.
I know you're AC and all, and I shouldn't bite, but here in rural WNY, where the number of blacks is less than a percentage point, we have plenty of bags in trees. So, unless blacks make a pilgrimage to my area just to unload plastic bags that end up in trees, there must be more than a few careless whites around here.
You're asking a lot of people who very often don't give two shits about anything outside their immediate sphere of influence, if even that. However, I notice far fewer soda cans lying hither and yon since the 5 cent deposit went into effect. Must be just a coincidence, right?
How about if we recycle them or send them to a landfill nowhere near anyone's home?
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.........
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
People working at the landfill will build houses near their workplace.
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New Yorker here.
I'm a fan of the $0.05 surcharge on plastic bags. Prior to that, people would put 2-3 items in a bag, and sometimes double bag them. Now, it's far more common for bags to be filled to capacity, so an order that would have used eight bags two years ago has reduced it to three or four bags. It's also far more common to see people bringing reusable bags to the store, or even the plastic bags from their last order. The amount of these bags rolling down the road has reduced drastically; it's been over a month since I've seen one (used to be a daily occurance)
Overall, the amount of plastic bags being used has been reduced significantly, and in my mind, it's basically a solved problem. People with reusable bags have an incentive to use them, and people who opt for convenience can cover the cost of their manufacture and disposal.
I don't see how removing the choice of plastic bags is going to solve anything. New York has plenty of other issues to worry about.
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.
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!
Yeah, you can reuse the ones that don't tear apart on your way home from the supermarket, which is like 50% of them...
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.
Government has been empirically shown to be the best way to organize a large society. It's probably and usually not necessary in a relatively isolated society of a few hundred people, where everybody knows everybody. Maybe also for a few thousand, where even when you don't know a person, you know someone else who does. Beyond that, you need some form of government.
A government-less or state-less large society is not some libertarian paradise, it is an oppressive nightmare. Without a government or a state authority of some kind, you get anarchy at first, but since anarchy is not good for most people, order gets imposed "organically" by people who use violence to do it. So you get either some flavour of feudalism (big land owners, rich people, using their wealth to take control and lay down the rules), clan-based society, or organized crime (mafia-type) structure. Go visit a failed state and you will see one or more of these mechanisms at work. After spending a few months in Somalia or Afghanistan, I'm sure you'll yearn for Sweden or Switzerland.
There are many flavours of government, to be sure. Some are terribly oppressive and awful. Others allow an individual to be far more free than he would be in a clan-based system (let alone a feudal of mafia-style one).
Now, government works best when the laws are simple: simple to follow, simple to enforce, and simple to evaluate. If something is bad, it's easier to just ban it than to devise complex regulations about it. How do you propose the government should "make it easier to use plastic bags responsibly"? Start by defining "responsible use of plastic bags", proceed to defining "easier to use" (first figure out what makes them hard to use responsibly today?), and then try to figure out how to put in place the proper laws and regulations to do what you want. You'd find that banning them is just way easier, and way cheaper.
We only have one habitable planet, thus far
It's a big wet rock. It doesn't care what bags you use.
-- pays to treat it kindly.
It doesn't care about your feelings or about the stories you tell yourself about your so-called kindness.
You won't be receiving any sort of payment. Sorry. I know how people love to fantasize.
You know how they say - "it's not the end of the world, it's just the end of you". The planet doesn't care but we should.
Plastic bags are meaningless either way.
People that smoke pot are the most useless faggots in society.
Not so fast. Some of them smoke it for medicinal reasons. And the last thing they want is a high. They're trying to relieve pain or nausea, or increase their appetite, etc.
And I'm not judging those who smoke it for recreational purposes, as long as they do so responsibly. Just like alcohol and tobacco. Don't DUI and don't make the rest of us breathe it.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
I live in a no-disposable-bag state. And so far, I can count a single-digit number of times that I saw someone who brought his or her own bag. Single-digit. But I see people buying new reusable bags approximately every trip I take to any store. I'm sure there are a few people like you. But there are a lot more people who aren't. And now they're throwing away many times as much plastic.
Oh, please, do tell me, someone who lives in a no-plastic-bag state, what I don't realize about the policy that I live with every day.
Luxury is never having to worry about whether you brought enough bags with you, and whether those extra dollars you have to pay for bags mean that you don't have enough food to get you through the week. These policies are hardest on the working poor. Those people I see buying bags every day? They're not the software engineers. They're the people who clean the software engineers' houses. And for them, these policies are appalling. The left should have had an absolute coronary when the bag bans were proposed, but they were too busy drooling over a fictional belief that these bans will somehow save the planet to notice that their policies have basically turned into a poor tax.
So how many ply are the bags you use for trash? Do you reuse your non-disposable bags as trash bags? Because that's what we used to use for trash bags back before the ban. Now, we have to buy trash bags, and they're a LOT thicker. The people who support these laws simply have no clue how many secondary problems that these bans cause further down the line, particularly for the people who have the least ability to afford them. Thankfully, I don't fall into that category, but I'll still gladly fight for the people who are.
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Wash it with what? Vapoorize?
You are conflating unrelated things. A taboo is just a cultural belief and otherwise has no real basis in reality.
Environmental impact of plastic bags is very much real. Dead whales washing up with kilos of bags in their belly is not just a "taboo".
Making legislation on that is no different than making one against littering.
> pork or booze or toil on the sabbath
Now those are normally your business. Environment is everyone's business.
If we discover tomorrow that pigs suddenly have become carriers to some deadly infectious disease that can effect say 10% of the population who don't even eat them, then your taste for pork is no longer a matter of private choice because it has now become a social concern.
By all means, lets not shove each other's opinions onto others. But let's also not be callous of the very real impact of our choices on others and the environment. It is easy to pretend they don't exist when the effects are somewhat removed by time and distance.
Yup. Burnouts suck.
Fuck YOU. I'll die in N.Y., FUCK FLORIDUH. And Fuck Cuomo, he IS an asshat.
No I still don't understand. Are you now trying to say that all those places where plastic bag ban was put in place where plastic waste was reduced and sale of bio degradable alternatives has increased being all around better for the environment is accomplishing nothing?
Really help me here, my math isn't very good.
I don't see how removing the choice of plastic bags is going to solve anything
It's almost like you can make stuff out of something other than HDPE.
If I forget my shopping bag when I go shopping I get given paper bags.
Oh, and while most shops do sell thicker plastic bags that you can trade in for a replacement when they wear out, most people here carry their shopping in something a bit more sturdy (fabric, canvas or higher-quality plastic bags).
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Plastic bags are meaningless either way.
Just like all your posts on this topic. Empty sophistry.
You are conflating unrelated things. A taboo is just a cultural belief and otherwise has no real basis in reality.
Environmental impact of plastic bags is very much real. Dead whales washing up with kilos of bags in their belly is not just a "taboo".
I'm not. I don't believe whales are sacred. You can believe whales are sacred if you want. I think we should have laws to help people, not pretend to help someone's emotional or spiritual attachment to whales.
Also, it's not a whale, it's a story about a whale. And plastic enters the ocean from rivers in Asia and Africa, not because some New York resident forgot her cloth bags on a Tuesday trip to the shop
Making legislation on that is no different than making one against littering.
A dog died from eating chocolate. Ban chocolate?
A woman slipped on a banana peel and fell and broke her arm. Ban bananas?
A baby died of malnutrition because vegan parents wouldn't give her milk. Ban veganism?
Littering is already banned. We don't need to keep banning more and more things. Banning things doesn't lead to a sacred utopia, it leads to everyone looking over their shoulder all the time to make sure the police aren't around so they can live their lives.
... very real impact of our choices on others and the environment. It is easy to pretend they don't exist when the effects are somewhat removed by time and distance.
Getting a bag at the shop does not have the "very real impact" you're pretending it does.
If environmentalists really cared, they could start a foundation to give away cloth bags to grocery shoppers. That would make things better for people and satisfy the sacred whale issue. But they don't. They mostly only do things when they can make life worse for people -- make us sacrifice.
I don't think whales are sacred. But I do think they serve as a barometer of the problem.
I also am not suggesting that we should make policy based on singular instances, but on scientific projections.
Nor am I addressing New York specifically, but societies as a whole. That means Asia and Africa must also be pressed to address these problems. Advanced societies must lead by example.
What you and I differ is that I don't think people will do the right thing individually if they cannot perceive consequences of their actions immediately and in their vicinity. Our brains are just not build to be motivated along those lines.
We built very powerful societies that have impact on the planet like no other organism. Our footprints are greatly amplified by the technologies that we built as a civilization. Those effects can only be addressed on civilization scales, not individually - and that becomes bossy liberalism for you. I agree that people in ivory towers can get detached from the people on the ground. But I also think ivory towers have a very important role. Given what is at stake, I feel that the creature comforts we all gripe about are quite trivial. But individually we simply cannot see the big picture, at least only a few of us have the necessary training to see and that is usually in just one or few areas.
I am not talking just about that paper bag but about on what scales we ought to regulate ourselves. And no I am not suggesting that the processes we have are ideal. I think we need better and more (and understand that you feel we need better and less) when it comes to planet level issues.
That seems unlikely. The amount of stuff you can carry is far more dependent on the volume and strength of the container than it is on the material.
If a specific paper bag can carry less or more than a specific plastic bag, that is due to the relative volume and strength of those bags rather than the material.
The strength may be dependent on the material, but only relative to a chosen thickness. The volume is entirely independent of the choice of material. Don't attribute the volume of a specific bag to some inate property of the material.
I don't think whales are sacred. But I do think they serve as a barometer of the problem.
Slippery slope arguments and "gateway drug" arguments are lazy and phony. Just say you want to choose how your neighbors live their lives and you're happy treating them as your subordinates because you know better than them.
Advanced societies must lead by example.
The examples are our rivers that aren't clogged with trash.
You want to police innocent people's use of ordinary items to somehow communicate to Asians that they shouldn't trash their rivers? Asians don't care about New York grocery bag police. Honestly, whales are sacred is more clearly thought through than that, by a large measure.
Sending the police after people who are minding their own business living their lives -- and not littering -- isn't the answer.
Environmental slippery slope has long passed. Irreversible change is guaranteed now. The only question is how bad it is going to be.
I really don't care how you organize your life. I am as libertarian as one can be on this. And I don't think there is a single person on Slashdot who wants to tell you how to live your life (as long as that does not adversely impact others).
But I am talking about the tragedy of the commons.
I am not basing this on what *I* know. I am basing this on scientific expert consensus.
If nearly every scientific expert agrees that we are headed to an environmental catastrophe - I listen.
And they are not sending police after your plastic bag. It isn't commie town when the shop only stocks reusable bags.
You're missing the point. It's not about the material. Plastic bags have handles. I can hook the handles from 5 or 6 plastic bags on a single hand. You can't do that with the old-fashioned brown paper bags.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I'm not the guy you replied to, but I really do reuse every "disposable" plastic bag that I get from a store, frequently multiple times. I haven't purchased a box of small trash bags in over 20 years. Before I relegate them to trash service I put them in a box in the pantry and use them for other purposes -- carry food for camping trips, or carry things to / from work.
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).
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You probably "don't get out much" and only shop at stores frequented by low income conservatives.
Even before the ban, lots of higher income people had already figured out that bringing your own bags provides a higher quality experience, with never a ripped bag. And high quality handles, instead of disposable plastic handles that are like little plastic wires when the bag has anything heavy in it.
And of course, liberals of all income levels frequently were bringing their own bags all along.
Your argument about trash bags should really make it obvious, even to you, that you're arguing from entirely within the fringes. The disposable bags are not even large enough to fit a kitchen trash can. It was rather fringe to make do without a regular-size household trash bin and just tie off a bunch of individual bags. More often people were putting trash in the disposable bags just to carry them across the room and drop the bag into another trash bag, and perhaps now they simply walk across the room with the dust pan, and empty it directly into the trash can like they did when they were kids. In the olden days, before there were all these extra bags polluting even the insides of many people's houses.
I can pretty much guarantee I'm not going to rub elbows with you in the line at the grocery store; I don't even shop at Wally World. And the big store I do shop at frequently, customers bag their own groceries 100% of the time; they've been a chain since the `70s and they never even offered the service. They always have given a bag credit to people who bring their own bags, too. You don't realize it, but a lot of people only accept those disposable bags because it is a lot of work to keep some stores from giving you so many of them.
If nearly every scientific expert agrees that we are headed to an environmental catastrophe - I listen.
And you think banning plastic bags in New York is the answer. Did "nearly every scientific expert agree" that banning plastic bags in New York would make a significant difference?
No. You don't think banning plastic bags in New York will help in any significant way at all. But you want to do it anyway, because ...? Because you think Asia decides policy based on local rules in New York? (No -- because enacting meaningless restrictions to intrude on New Yorkers' lives provides an emotional release. So fuck them.)