(lots of nuclear weapons testing happened there)
Actually, none did.
I’m not going to get into a tizzy about this. It’s a stupid law, but there are *so many *stupid laws. At least their fixing the “Real ID” fiasco, which actually affects me.
I use doubled-up plastic bags for cat litter; have never had one (two) fall apart.
Arizona adopted a new license plate motto a couple of years ago: Fuck You All Because Just Fuck You.
Greg Abbott is chomping at the bit to try and copy this in Texas. Cause cities can’t make laws about things state law doesn’t cover. And didn’t see any irony at all about the city-state and state-federal connections.
Well, you havent been behind a recycling truck leaving a trail of plastic bags behind it like Hansel & Gretel crumbs. So even if you want to recycle them- good luck!
It’s true that if conditions are ideal, the ecological hit on paper vs plastic is about even. But conditions arent ideal. Plastic bags simply are ideal for getting into the environment.
If you participate in a river clean up project, you will soon learn to hate plastic bags- and smokers, and idiots that drink bottled water. But mostly plastic bags. Paper waste is not much of a issue. One good storm and it’s melted.
And yes, Anne Neville, you are correct- the bags can be eaten by sea-life…often killing them in a nasty way.
I think it’s indisputable that plastic bags are worse from a waste perspective, and not just the finished bags, but all throughout the production process including especially plastic pellets.
The argument for rough equality of them is that the paper production process is more environmentally damaging. Though, again, I don’t know if that argument is correct.
Huh? Who said that “you’re not allowed to reuse paper bags”? I see people bringing obviously used paper bags to the cashier all the time. (I don’t do it myself, because I bought a bunch of reusable cloth bags from Amazon and use those.)
I collect those big brown paper shopping bags (up to a dozen or so), double them up, and re-use them all the time, over and over, until they start falling a apart. I get 1 to 3 dozen re-uses out of each double-up bag. Nobody ever said I couldn’t use those. I’ve done this in about 5 cities in California, in at least 4 different counties.
When I worked in retail in California, we were right in the middle of gradual city-by-city bans on single-use shopping bags. First San Jose and San Francisco, then surrounding towns. In Palo Alto, where I was, they went for grocery stores only at first, then expanded it to all retail. It took a little while but people adjusted. It really isn’t a big deal. By the time I moved away the only people that complained at all were anti-government elderly men.
Really, the localness of the bans is the point. Cities that get tired of plastic bags filling up the creeks should be able to try and stop it. The offensive irony of a stubborn conservative state body imposing itself on more liberal locales is one more example of the lie that is Republicans’ call for smaller government. They’re OK with the government telling you what to do if they’re the ones doing the telling.
It’s a bit of a pain for visitors from places where stores normally do give you shopping bags. I found out about it when we went to Berkeley for Mr. Neville’s sabbatical a couple of years ago. We got used to it after a while, though.
That’s matching my mood today. It also reminds me of something that happened when I applied to grad school in astronomy at the University of Arizona. My aunt told me I shouldn’t go there because there are “BIG rattle snakes” (her words) there. I was telling some friends this, and my friend said there probably weren’t rattlesnakes in Tucson. One of my professors (who worked with some U of A people) overheard this, and said, “Yes, there are rattlesnakes in Tucson. We collaborate with most of them.” Now I know, they’re actually in Phoenix, and in the legislature.
It’s one thing not to get a bag at the supermarket; I’m now in the habit of bringing my own reusable bags with me. But it’s a little weird to go into a department store like Macy’s or Nordstrom and not to get a shopping bag. Who brings reusable bags with them to such places?
When you drive places, it’s really no hassle to throw a few bags in the trunk and leave them there. They’ll always be handy.
But if you use public transportation, what are you going to do? Carry bags back and forth to work with you in case you need to stop at the store on the way home? What if you work at a job where you don’t have room to store them? No more stopping at the store on the way home from work. You have to go home, get bags, and make a special trip. (Or pay for new bags each time.)
Kind of, but it is a little bigger than that
[quote=“[Nat. Geo.]
(Education | National Geographic Society)”]The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific trash vortex, spans waters from the West Coast of North America to Japan…[forming two large patches, to the east and west …]
The amount of debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch accumulates because much of it is not biodegradable. Many plastics, for instance, do not wear down; they simply break into tinier and tinier pieces.
For many people, the idea of a “garbage patch” conjures up images of an island of trash floating on the ocean. In reality, these patches are almost entirely made up of tiny bits of plastic, called microplastics… The microplastics of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can simply make the water look like a cloudy soup…
Marine debris can be very harmful to marine life in the gyre. For instance, loggerhead sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellies, their favorite food. Albatrosses mistake plastic resin pellets for fish eggs and feed them to chicks, which die of starvation or ruptured organs.
Seals and other marine mammals are especially at risk. They can get entangled in abandoned plastic fishing nets, which are being discarded more often because of their low cost. Seals and other mammals often drown in these forgotten nets—a phenomenon known as “ghost fishing.”
Marine debris can also disturb marine food webs in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. As microplastics and other trash collect on or near the surface of the ocean, they block sunlight from reaching plankton and algae below… If algae and plankton communities are threatened, the entire food web may change…
[/quote]
And I think Arizona has a river or two that can carry shit seaward. Of course, no one in Arizona eats seafood, ever.
Dear Mexico. We want a refund*, you can have Arizona back. Oh, and take Texas too.
Please.
- actual refund is optional and can be paid in really good tequila.
I live somewhere that banned plastic bags a few years ago. At first I hated it, I liked the bags and use them for trash, but in fact you can still get plastic bags at other places, and occasionally I shop outside the city and get bags there. I use a reusable bag right now but I’ve never run out of plastic bags.
The rule here is that you cannot have free plastic bags for groceries but there are exceptions for hot food. Plus, places like Target or Walmart which isn’t exclusively groceries still get to use them for free. One trip to Target every couple of weeks and I fill up my bag quota for a month. Its really not a big deal
New bags are only 10 cents. Its annoying, but hardly a deal breaker.
I got some reusable bags in Berkeley that could be balled up small enough to fit in a purse, backpack, or laptop bag.
I would say I have a better use, and that the better use would be for putting them over the heads of people in favor of the idiotic bans, but we aren’t supposed to wish harm on people here, so instead I’ll just say “good for you, Arizona legislature.”
I’d give them a break if this was their only sin. But they just ordered doctors to tell their patients unscientific nonsense also. Yup, that is increasing liberty, isn’t it?
Just like the bag ban ban is all about pushing power to local communities and thus closer to the people.
Our bag ban was voted in by our City Council, and I enjoy the bag free roads very much, thank you.
The space required to carry the number of bags which you can carry on public transportation filled is not going to be a big problem. I don’t have one of the bags Anne Neville mentioned, but I see them. I carry a few bags in my car just in case, and as mentioned you can buy them if you need to.