Evidently you missed the “In My Community” qualifier. If it’s an issue where you are, fine. But don’t lecture people elsewhere about it when it’s not an issue where they are.
Ok, sorry if it came off as a lecture on my part, but I just wanted to let you know that plastic bags are a big part of the litter that gets strewn around in these parts. Again, it’s not that there’s an extraordinary amount of litter (well, there’s too much as far as I’m concerned anyway), but it’s the composition that tells me that plastic shopping bags are a problem.
And, yes, I do support some global solution to the plastic, disposable problem. I just think it’s going to take a little bit longer to implement. Because if you ban plastic shopping bags, you just end up with some other non-biodegradable, non-photodegradable plastic disposable to take its place.
“Before the so called plas tax, Ireland was struggling with a plastic bag problem that is typical in much of the world. Frank Convery, a professor at University College Dublin and head of ENFO, Ireland’s environmental information service, said: “You’d be driving in the Irish countryside and the sides of the roads were covered in plastic - when the foliage dropped off in the fall what was left on branches was a bunch of old plastic bags waving in the wind. That’s gone and people love it.””
Here’s another cite, this time the NYT, You’re free to call it bullshit if you want. Granted I don’t have peer-reviewed research on the subject but it seems your anecdotes are somehow less bullshit than my quoted anecdotes. I’m bowing out of this thread. I didn’t know there were people who felt so strongly about this either way.
Sooooo, I’m suppose to suffer because a bunch of Irishmen can’t throw trash away in a responsible manner? I reuse my bags for other purposes and then recycle them. They are far superior to paper bags, cleaner than reuseable sacks, take up less landfill and can be used for a variety of other bagging jobs.
They already do fine littering. It hasn’t made a dent. The things blow out of landfills and collection areas too. Look up the concept of source reduction – not having the bags means they won’t get into the environment regardless, right?
And for the folks who think they couldn’t buy vegetables without plastic bags – can you not think of any alternative? Didn’t we survive somehow before plastic bags were developed?
Only true if your definition of “no one is taking aim at the people who package my food” is limited to the most popular mainstream media. Packaging is a problem many environmentalists have been concerned about since at least the days I was in elementary school – we’re talking at least 40 years of debate on the topic. Legal changes to encourage reduction in packaging are hampered by business lobbies, but scientists and environmentalists are very interested in reducing packaging as much as we can.
That’s part of the reason I stopped shopping at an upscale store near me. Place called “Wild Oats” which was like a downscale, hippie-run version of Whole Foods (I think Whole Foods ate them, actually). I didn’t abuse the employees, but I did let them know that I didn’t like the policy and asked them to tell their bosses.
Plus, every time I went in, they’d have some new bullshit way of making me pay for their political goals. Fees for bags that went to organizations who’s goals I might not have agreed with, a couple of days a week when 5(?)% of your purchase went to some (possibly dubious*) organization or other.
It’s the reason I don’t buy Ben & Jerry’s–I hated a number of what their so-called charities (lobbying groups, actually) were and simply quit buying them.
An ethical business would lower their price and let ME decide which political lobbies & charities my money goes to, if any. Besides, that money they confiscate from me and donate is a tax deduction for them–so my money gets them a tax break instead of me.
*I don’t know which organizations or if I’d object. But that’s the point, I can’t be arsed to look up every organization that they choose to give my money to.
It’s is extraordinarily rare that the market will solve environmental problems on its own. Free markets usually cause environmental problems.
You are right. Environmentalists and scientists are interested in reducing the packaging. Sadly, the companies (through the business lobbies) are not having to step up to the plate. We, as consumers, are forced to. There is so little that we can do in comparison that it frustrates me.
A huge problem with reducing package size is theft. Most items that can be reduced are the ones that are easiest to steal if put into minimal packaging, like a CD.
I highly doubt that any company would want to maintain an expensive packaging system if they didn’t have to.
So buy a bag of bags, dude. It’s gotta cost what, like a dollar? Are you really so self-absorbed that you think “I personally like to use them” is a good reason to hand out millions of bags for no real reason all over the world?
For starters, I’m not the person trying to run other people’s lives. And yes, millions of people who want the bags are a good reason to use them. They are not handed out for no real reason, they are used to carry stuff.