On Tuesday July 19th the Pasadena Environmental Advisory Commission had a public hearing on a proposal to ban the use of plastic bags in the city.
This is the Nanny State mentality on Hyper-drive. It is bad enough to ban plastic bags but to implement a charge for paper is the state playing favorites in a battle that should be fought in the marketplace. If there is a disposal cost to plastic bags add it on don’t ban them.
Here are a few facts that sensible people should use to defeat the plastic bag ban:
- Reusable bags are unhygienic. What was spilled in them before you put them on the checkout conveyor? You wouldn’t reuse ziplock bags
- Charging for papers bags is a tax on the convenience shopper. It will unfairly impact the poor who tend to be less organized.
- What will we use to pick up dog poop and scoop cat litter if there are no more plastic bags?
- The bags that consumers use represent less than 10% of the total packaging that end up in landfills. The rest is boxes, cartons and plastic liners etc.
- In the margin it will cause people to shop in sensible town like Arcadia and Glendale where they are free to choose the packaging they want.
Note to Pasadena City Council people: How you vote on this one could be an issue in the next election.
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Many people wash and re-use ziploc bags! And are the poor really less organized?
Marta, Both good points. I still maintain that it is more hygienic to use clean new anything than cleaned and the relative environmental harm has to take into account the resources used in the cleaning process.
About the poor being less organized: organization and planning are more likely when one has time and resources available. So in the margin I think this proposed law would hurt the poor more than the comfortable.
how did we manage before plastic? I can’t remember!
Simon – if I weren’t mellowed out from Elvis in Sierra Madre tonight, I would be incensed! I suspect it will hit me tomorrow…and what about pampers, the greatest plastic of all?
You make excellent points, as always.
I’m voting to let the market place decide.
beside, how could we do a plastic bag henge?
k
Marta: Life before plastic is hard to imagine.
Karen: Good point about the Pampers that proves Marta’s point.
” If there is a disposal cost to plastic bags add it on don’t ban them.”
What of the cost associated with the irreparable destruction caused by plastic bags which are not disposed of as intended? Plastic outnumbers plankton in the remotest reaches of our oceans and threatens to contaminate the entire food chain from the bottom up.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/06/1-in-10-fish-in-northern-pacific-ocean-found-have-ingested-plastic-study-finds.html
Plastic pollution is unsightly to tourists who expect world-class beaches and clean communities and open spaces, therefore hurting the tourism industry as well.
“Reusable bags are unhygienic. What was spilled in them before you put them on the checkout conveyor?”
The same could be said for clothing! Is clothing not “reusable”? Should we create disposable shirts and underwear? Bags can be washed, just as clothing can. Besides, it’s not as if the groceries within a reusable bag aren’t already packaged inside boxes and plastic already…
“What will we use to pick up dog poop and scoop cat litter if there are no more plastic bags?”
Plastic produce bags will still be available. There are also the plastic bags the newspaper comes in. You could even use waxed-paper sandwich bags, or even buy your own plastic bags or bio-bags for your dog poop. The bags at the grocery store aren’t “free” anyway… You think they don’t pay for those? The cost is made up for with higher food prices.
“The bags that consumers use represent less than 10% of the total packaging that end up in landfills. ”
Plastic bags make up 25% of the litter stream in the City of Pasadena!
I am certain that we would all be appalled to witness the burning of the American Flag. Such an act is a symbolic desecration of our great nation. However, how often do we as a people stop to confront the very real desecration of our land through pollution such as plastic? What of our right to live a natural life on this Earth? Our rights are not unlimited. We all have the right to live on a healthy, natural planet. Imagine if our enemies subjected us to the unnatural scourge of plastic pollution we now face! Let us defend our land from the preventable tragedy of plastic pollution and use our resources as wisely as our ancestors did. Nothing we use for a few minutes should last forever!
T. Thanks for replying. I was going to answer you point by point but I have given up trying to argue with true believers. I will point out one factual error you made. You said that “Plastic bags make up 25% of the litter stream in Pasadena” It isn’t possible. A bag weighs on average less than a half an ounce. A bag of trash weighs 5 lbs or more. 16*2*5=160/4=30 plastic bags per small bag of trash would be needed to equal 25% of the litter. I’ve written the answer as a blog post. You can find it by searching for “Nanny State”
That statistic was reported to us during the meeting of the Pasadena Environmental Advisory Commission.
As far as giving up “trying to argue with true believers”… it is a fact that disposable plastics severely degrade the environment, not a belief. What suggestions do you have, other than banning single-use plastics, to address the millions of tons of plastic pollution which are turning the Earth into a giant plastic landfill?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-uncover-new-ocean-threat-from-plastics-1774337.html
Regarding the statistic you took issue with of plastic bags making up 25% of the LITTER stream… you seem to have confused the ratio of plastic bags which make up the litter on the streets, streams and other polluted areas within city limits with the amount of bags sent to the landfill.
You do not have to be a mathematician, however, to understand that the unlimited creation of plastic waste within the limited space of planet Earth is unsustainable.
The vast quantities of single-use plastic we are pumping-out stay with us forever, either in limited landfill space, or eventually as pollution on land and sea. Every piece of plastic ever made is still with us, and the quantity of new plastic being made grows ever higher. Would we like this island we call the Earth to become one giant plastic landfill?
I do not support a plastic bag ban out of a love for government regulation. I support reducing single-use plastics in order to find a solution to the preventable tragedy of plastic pollution which threatens the future of countless generations to come. This debate should should be about the best way to deal with the fact that humanity collectively lacks the conscience to properly dispose of such petrochemical waste. If you disagree with the approach of a bag ban, then please offer up your own solutions! There may be some very good ideas, no doubt, that would benefit us all.
So in Pasadena it is okay to have a corrupt Police Department, a Mayor and City Council that will sell the city out to both the NFL and any developer that wants to build a “mixed use” building with taxpayer money but you, the common folk, have rigid laws that require to use a filthy re-usable bag made in China of God knows what to bring home groceries. The science on this issue is clear, plastic grocery bags take less room in landfills and are made from the gasses you see burning off at refineries. It is MUCH better for the environment to use these bags. If you want to stop the bags from piling up on the streets evict the homeless they are the ones leaving them there. Everyone I know uses these bags at least one more time before properly disposing of them.
So when we see plastic bags on the street remember that you your city council person has let you down by passing another ineffective law that accomplishes nothing.
Good job morons. Sorry I don’t have enough bribe money for you next campaign, maybe that could have convinced you not to enact this ban.
Oh,one more thing La Canada is near by. I think I’ll do my grocery shopping there from now on…
Oh, by the way the real number plastic bags as part of the litter stream is .06%