I’d just give her one of my bags. Or a couple. (I swear the things breed in the trunk of my car.)
No kidding.
By that logic, they shouldn’t sell beer in cans or bottles, because they just end up on the side of the road. Better have people bring their own reusable beer containers.
Normally I’m very much a “let the market solve it” person but unfortunately it doesn’t work in this situation. The problem is the bags end up as litter and there’s no way for the market to apply pressure to get it solved. It is an externality. Any solution (assuming you think the bags are a problem, and I do) will require some sort of legislation. If it were left up to me I’d make the cost higher, like 25 cents.
Mismanaged plastic waste is not a significant problem in the United States.
I have little to add to the debate; but the great George Carlin has a lot.
I live in an area with a plastic bag ban, and I don’t see those bags stuck in trees and flying around parking lots anymore. So it may not be a significant problem by your definition, but the ban has definitely reduced trash. (Just as the can and bottle deposit laws reduced the number of those I see on the street.)
In the mid-80s I lived in a country that mostly used string bags and plastic totes. I got in the habit and have tended to use non-disposable grocery bags since then. Every once in awhile I’ll forget one and pay a few cents. It doesn’t take much effort, though.
Exactly. Every time time I turn around, someone is handing me a tote bag. What’s the big deal about sticking one in your pocket or trunk when you leave the house?
My city has a bag ban and if people don’t bring their own bags and don’t want to pay a dime for one they can get paper bags or cardboard box for free at Market Basket . We’ll be having bag ban in whole state of Massauchettes in 2 years. Our city looks a lot cleaner now, there are no plastics bags hanging from trees anymore . It use to look like we had plastics bags trees growing around the city and I am not picking up plastic bags at the duck pond anymore .
Another note from an Aldi fan… there is another alternative to buying reusable bags or plastic, as I remembered tonight when I went shopping. They have free boxes to put your stuff in left over from whatever they’ve stocked. The same is also true at Costco (and probably any wholesale place), so I’m sure that if this eventually picks up steam country-wide, the same will happen pretty much everywhere else.
They’re doing things the way they’ve been done in all of Western Europe for decades. Some people said it wouldn’t work, Americans’ idea of “good service” involves having others do their bagging and chasing their carts. Looks like those people were wrong.
The latest trend: Buying beer in growlers. That is, large (and very large) returnable bottles. PremiumDraught is in my neighborhood.
They also have a fine selection of bottled & canned beer. I’ve preferred canned to bottled since Houston stopped recycling glass. Well, you can take glass to the recycling centers–but curbside pickup has ended. Many fine local beers are available in cans–so easy to carry home in a sturdy bag!
What poor people need is a marketing strategy to help them all remember their bags. You could pull a group together and the creative types could come up with a good slogan or jingle, the poors would sing the catchy jingle together throughout the committee. The artistic folk in the group could paint BAGS signs with a little image of a finger with a string tied around it, BAGS graffiti too. Before you know it, even the stupid mentally ill poors are remembering their bags!
And there’s something in it for them too. I live in a beach city and plastic bags are always all over the beach-people walk around picking them up, but still. Since the 9th, there’s been a major reduction. I think because outraged bag ban opposers went and grabbed them all up in fear of the fee & now they’re passing on the bag when they stop for their chips and soda on the way. So now, when poor people go to the beach, it’ll be much cleaner!
I’m amused that the OP has picked this hill to die on. Of all the arguments against a bag ban, the “unjust tax on the poor” stance is weak sauce.
This is type of bullshit is what’s wrong with the world these days.
Yep, he cares about the poor… but not enough to actually step up and help someone he sees in visible distress because they may hit him up for money.
BAGS. Be A Good Shopper.
no… Be A GREAT Shopper!
I think we’re onto something here.
“Significant” being defined as “Not a problem for Ruken,” obviously.
Interestingly, the supermarket lobby groups have supported the bag bans. It reduces the costs of giving away free bags, and is a revenue generator to the store through the sale of re-usable bags. You ask why haven’t the store done this voluntarily…well some have, but many feel pressured by competition to offer free bags as a benefit to their customers. When the state says you can’t do that, then the store just blames the state.
The plastic bag manufacturers and the plastic companies that make resins that go into the production of bags, have been some of the largest lobby groups against the bag bans, as expected.
That’s one difference between the beer bottle/can issue vs. the bag issue. Here in Chicago, both cans and bottles are easily recyclable with curbside (well, alley-side) pickup every two weeks. Plastic bags cannot be recycled this way, so they most often end up at the landfill, unless you collect all your bags and bring them to the store with you to the store’s bag recycling bin (which not all have.) And if you’re already bringing your bags with you…
When I asked, the evidence provided for it being a problem all focused marine pollution, of which the United States’ contribution constitutes a rounding error.
If people are littering–not a problem in bag-friendly VA as evidenced by my commute and stroll this morning (although apparently it was where Dewey Finn lives)–we can use the same strategies we’ve already very successfully used to decrease littering.
If plastic is being blown from landfills, we can implement better landfill practices.
If well-to-wheels production and use impact is an issue… well I’ll want to see some data on production and use because I honestly don’t know where that points. Infinite-use bags should win, but they do wear out. And they need to be sanitized, potentially an issue in water-stressed areas like CA.
It isn’t. California is a fucking nanny state, we’ll come up with a way to give them money so they can afford the bags.