California Bans All Plastic Bags (nytimes.com)
- Reference: 0175119125
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/09/24/0422213/california-bans-all-plastic-bags
- Source link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/23/us/california-plastic-bags-ban.html
> Paper or paper? In California, shoppers will have only one bag option at the checkout line starting in 2026. A decade ago, California became the first U.S. state to ban single-use plastic bags, the flimsy sacks that regularly blew into waterways, littered streets and collected in landfills. The prohibition, in the nation's most populous state, was considered a turning point in the effort to reduce plastic waste. But the move backfired in a way that few supporters expected. Californians in 2021 actually tossed nearly 50 percent more plastic bags, by weight, than when the law first passed in 2014, according to data from CalRecycle, California's recycling agency. A loophole in the initial ban allowed retailers to provide thick-walled plastic bags and charge 10 cents a piece for them. Though technically reusable and recyclable, the heavier-duty sacks still ended up in many trash cans after a shopping trip.
>
> Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Sunday [1]banning the sale at grocery checkouts of all plastic bags (Warning: source may be paywalled; [2]alternative source ), regardless of thickness. The only option for customers who lack their own reusable shopping bags will be buying paper bags for 10 cents each. "We deserve a cleaner future for our communities, our children and our earth," said Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a Democratic assemblywoman and co-author of the bill, in a statement. "It's time for us to get rid of these plastic bags and continue to move forward with a more pollution-free environment." Plastic bags are typically used for 12 minutes before being discarded, according to the California Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy group. But those bags live in oceans and landfills for hundreds of years, and can contaminate drinking water and food in the form of microplastics.
[3]SB 1053 will go into effect on January 1st, 2026. It also changes the definition of a "recycled paper bag," requiring all bags with that label to be made of at least 50% post-consumer recycled materials starting January 1st, 2028.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/23/us/california-plastic-bags-ban.html
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/22/business/california-plastic-shopping-bag-ban/index.html
[3] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1053
Yet another reason.... (Score:5, Informative)
Yet another reason NOT to live in California.
Now with this...they are making your grocery trip more expensive by making you pay for bags to carry your food home with you.
Single use on the plastic bags?
I dunno about you, but I've long used them to take my lunch to work....and to carry with me while walking my dog, to pick up poop when she goes in someone's yard....and all sorts of things.
You know you can just bring your own bags (Score:2)
I've been doing it for a while because I got tired of having the bags all over the place and because I wanted insulated bags for the summer.
And personally I would rather live somewhere with less stray plastic in my water supply and my balls. But maybe you enjoy having plastic in your testicles. That's fine you do you I'm not going to kink shame but don't bring the rest of us into your.... hobbies.
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Not to mention you can carry about 10 of those plastic bags worth of stuff in one reusable bag. I much rather making 1 trip from the car to the house carrying groceries than making 4 or 5.
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Yeah, if this influences your decision of where to live at all, you were not planning on living in California in any case. You are like all those idiots who claim they will move to Canada if the wrong person wins the election. It doesn't happen.
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Sorry everybody! This guy is why we need to codify these things into law.
> Single use on the plastic bags? ... to carry with me while walking my dog, to pick up poop ...
That's not making the point you think it's making.
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Lots of people are gonna tell you you're wrong about this. And, you know, you are. But everybody else is gonna be all like, "WAAAH you're willfully and demonstrably destroying the biosphere for no better reason than inertia and contrarianism BOOHOO WAAAH".
But I have more immediate concerns with your answer.
You say that you use them to take your lunch to work, and to pick up dog shit. Fine. That makes them, what, two-use bags? Is that... is that better? Does that solve the problem at hand? Well, I gue
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I have one in my desk drawer with my lunch in it right now. We use them in bathroom trash cans at home. We use them for dog patrol and picking up small trash messes too.
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It's truly hilarious how persecuted you claim to be over a law like this in all your posts. Nailing yourself to a cross would be a reduction in drama.
You act like life was utter shit before plastic bags were ever invented.
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> Or you could do like the majority of people on the planet, and bring bags with you. Daiso has extremely excellent fabric bags for $1.50.
I dunno where YOU live, but where I live, visit and shop...I think I've seen exactly 2 people in my life that had their "own bags" they brought with them.
Then again, I don't live in CA....I don't really want to even visit California these days....
> You will still be able to buy plastic dogshit bags.
So, something else to buy...that currently is free....yeah, let's pile mor
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I live in an ultra red rural state and I see people using reusable bags all the time. You're just being a contrarian cunt.
Re: Yet another reason.... (Score:2)
Great, we don't want you to visit with an attitude like that. We're trying to move into the future despite the best efforts of self entitled polluters like you.
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>> Yet another reason NOT to live in California. Now with this...they are making your grocery trip more expensive by making you pay for bags to carry your food home with you.
> Or you could do like the majority of people on the planet, and bring bags with you. Daiso has extremely excellent fabric bags for $1.50.
The problem with cloth grocery bags is that most people don't wash them, so they end up spreading salmonella and other bacterial diseases. And when you do wash them, they usually end up adding microplastics into the water supply. Basically, no matter what option you pick, realistically, you end up causing harm. At least single-use plastic is concentrated in landfills, where the harm can be contained and mitigated.
And if the State of California weren't so cheap that they'll only pay for single-employee ga
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> I've seen dog poop bags which are not packed in the way you describe, so now you're just making up excuses.
You've seen dog poop bags in some form other than a roll packed inside a rectangular cardboard box? Where? Statistically speaking, a cylinder inside a box occupies only 78.5% of the box's volume, ignoring the air space inside the middle of the tube, the air space at either end, and the volume of the box itself. So realistically, when you add it up, those dog poop bags occupy 33% more space because of packaging. Mind you, they're about half the size of single-use grocery bags, so each bag still ends up t
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> And no one has any bags at home already right?
Nope.
> For generations people brought their own bags to a grocery store
And just when, pray tell...was this?
I've never in all my many years, seen people bringing own bags, before this new thing in past 1-2 years.
> People like you would have us still dealing with second hand smoke in bars, restaurants, and airplanes.
I believe the owner of the restaurant or bar should be able to decide what clientele they want to cater too...if they want to allow smoking, why not?
Glad to see California tackling --real issues! (Score:2, Insightful)
This is why I'll never live in California again, and one of the many reasons we moved our company. It's not like they have homeless, crime, and housing issues.
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Oh boy, you're triggered by being forced to pay (part of) the true cost of your choices rather than externalizing the costs to the environment?
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How much do you pay for every post on social media or anywhere on the internet? You'll not paying your true cost of using the internet.
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What, with my privacy being violated left and right and my data being sold, I'm not paying the true cost?
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Nobody is forcing you to use the internet nor divulge your personal information to anyone. You've made the informed choice to use it knowing that tradeoff.
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Yes, that's right. But what's your point? That we don't end up paying one way or another?
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> Oh boy, you're triggered by being forced to pay (part of) the true cost of your choices rather than externalizing the costs to the environment?
Other way around. You're being forced to pay for using products that harm the environment more than the free products that used to be available, but are banned. Assuming Google's AI summary is correct (and these numbers are consistent with my recollection, so they're probably in the ballpark):
Paper bags require 3.5x more energy to produce than single-use plastic bags.
Paper bags require almost 20x more water to produce than single-use plastic bags.
Paper bags produce 3.5x more greenhouse gas emissions than
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I am not an advocate of paper bags; I agree they're harmful for the environment.
I am an advocate of reusable bags, that can be reused hundreds of times. Those are less harmful than either plastic or paper bags.
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> I am not an advocate of paper bags; I agree they're harmful for the environment.
> I am an advocate of reusable bags, that can be reused hundreds of times. Those are less harmful than either plastic or paper bags.
Are they, though? Reusable bags are made of polyester, typically, and when you wash them, you're putting significant amounts of microplastics into our rivers and streams. That plastic ends up in the drinking water of people downstream from you. Which is worse, a plastic bag that has a 99.5% chance of being sequestered in a landfill and a 0.5% chance of slowly releasing microplastics over hundreds of years (or more), or a polyester bag that releases microplastics once a week when you wash it? I'm not sur
Re: Glad to see California tackling --real issues! (Score:2)
Lots of strawmen there to burn.
The issue with bags isn't carbon or energy or water. The issue is plastic pollution in the water.
Paper can be produced using green energy in a place with abundant water.
But when the paper gets landfilled, it's potentially carbon negative. And if it does make it into the environment, it's biodegradable.
If you care about carbon and water, you're not going to fix that by changing bags. You're going to ban ICE vehicles and inappropriate agriculture.
And there's also the fact reusab
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It will reach your area sooner or later, whether you like it or not. Just like recycling and not flushing toilets directly into the rivers and oceans.
California just happen to be in advance on this one.
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> It will reach your area sooner or later, whether you like it or not. Just like recycling
Never done the recycling thing either...I just throw everything in the trash and they pick it up and haul it away.
Re: Glad to see California tackling --real issues! (Score:2)
If recycling hasn't caught on yet where you are, it's unlikely to in the future. Recycling is mostly a myth. And people are starting to learn that. Makes it much easier to interfere with anyone who wants to force recycling without understanding science and economics.
Re: Glad to see California tackling --real issues! (Score:2)
Wish more people shared your attitude and left, maybe then I could afford to live there.
It was the best intentions (Score:2)
I feel another episode of this series shaping up: [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfDqEuZ3zco&list=PLBuns9Evn1w9XhnH7vVh_7C65wJbaBECK
Awesome link (Score:2)
> I feel another episode of this series shaping up:
> [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Oh, that's an awesome link! Thanks for that, I have a new source of entertainment (and it's instructive to boot!).
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfDqEuZ3zco&list=PLBuns9Evn1w9XhnH7vVh_7C65wJbaBECK
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What could possibly go wrong?
It's lucky those videos are only three minutes each. I could easily waste a ton of time watching them laughing.
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The problem: CO2 levels are rising, causing atmospheric warming. The solution? Alter ship fuels to produce less carbon. While we're at it, lets reduce sulfur pollution as well.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions.
It turns out that the sulfur expelled by the ships was creating clouds that were reflecting significant sunlight and heat back into space. Global temperature rise has since accelerating and it is believed that this could be a significant contributor to it.
IMO, it seems as though we
A gift for the bin-liner industry (Score:4, Informative)
> Though technically reusable and recyclable, the heavier-duty sacks still ended up in many trash cans after a shopping trip.
Right. I use plastic grocery bags as liners for my trash bins. If I can't get them, I'm going to have to buy trash bags. This bill doesn't reduce the amount of plastic going into the trash, it just shifts expenses to the consumer.
Re: A gift for the bin-liner industry (Score:2)
Not only do you have to buy separate plastic bags for garbage bins, but when you're getting groceries, the paper bags don't hold up well in the rain at all. The total amount of plastic used on bags is miniscule, too. It's like banning straws - useful symbolically only. Feel good politics for the Dems, an annoyance for everyone else.
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The amount of paper used in confetti is relatively miniscule as well, but try telling that to the guy who has to sweep up after the parade.
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It's also fun when you butt up against something and your mouth get hits by a metal straw instead of a plastic straw. The former bends, the other may require a hospital visit.
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I used to use plastic shopping bags as garbage bags. They weren't very good because they were a bit small and often had small holes in them. More importantly, I had way more plastic shopping bags than I needed to use as garbage bags.
Now I buy kitchen garbage bags that are the right size for the garbage container and don't have holes in them. I use on average between 1 and 2 a week, as opposed to the 4 to 8 plastic shopping bags I used to get per week.
banning plastic trash bags should be next (Score:3)
There is a reason trash cans were invented, to hold trash, we never used to put trash in plastic before throwing it out. Why do we need both trash cans and plastic bags? If it's just for convenience how about simple automation to wash the trash cans out?
Re: banning plastic trash bags should be next (Score:2)
We also used to have rats and roaches and flies everywhere there were humans.
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[Looks askance at New York City, or at least what he can see of it over the mountains of trash bags, rats, and roaches.]
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"it just shifts expenses to the consumer."
That's the one argument that doesn't work, you were paying for those bags in any case.
Argue on sanitation grounds. The reusable plastic bags I've trashed were slimed to death. The cloth bags are polyester and just as plastic. The cost of washing them may be small, but is not zero.
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> "it just shifts expenses to the consumer."
> That's the one argument that doesn't work, you were paying for those bags in any case.
That's not true. With the ban, you are now forced to buy bags at retail prices, complete with both retailer and distributor/wholesaler markup. You're also forced to pay for the small cardboard boxes that hold those bags (versus huge stacks of single-use grocery bags that had almost zero packaging waste), the printing on those boxes, and the transportation costs from those boxes occupying way more space in the delivery trucks going to the stores.
The net environmental and economic impact of that change is h
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Yes, this is exactly what happened here in Canada. You buy the shopping bags (every time you forget to bring them) and you buy waste bin bags. And it doesn't reduce the amount going to the landfill at all. I saw a report saying it actually increased it in some cities.
Plastic Trash Is Not a Right (Score:3)
It is not anyone's right be have cheap/free plastic bags given to them for every little thing they purchase that mostly end up as litter or in landfills. It is not anyone's right to continue to make mountains of unrecyclable or non-biodegradable trash.
The oil industry heavily pushed the myth of how easy it is to recycle "plastic" since the 70s. It's the oil industry who has pushed the plastic burden onto the consumer and now the state has to do something to clean it up, because too many of us are lazy and it's difficult to find a proper place that recycles plastic films, i.e. plastic bags.
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> The oil industry heavily pushed the myth of how easy it is to recycle "plastic" since the 70s. It's the oil industry who has pushed the plastic burden onto the consumer
I assure you it was not just the oil industry pushing onto the consumer. Everyone who buys all those single use bottles of water is also responsible. There are plenty of other, cheaper options. And the oil industry was not the only one pushing the myth of recyclable plastic. I'm not even sure they were the main ones pushing that idea.
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Yes, but it wasn't until the late 80s early 90s (10+ years into the recycling push) that we saw single use drink bottle in stores switch from glass to plastic. Packagers are part of the problem now, but they didn't initiate the falsehood about how easy it would be to "reduce-reuse-recycle."
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Is it people's right to be healthy? These bans were dropped in many areas during the pandemic because of concerns that reusable bags could become contaminated and pass the virus. A quick Google shows that "Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella can survive on reusable bags, regardless of the material, for up to 21 days, if contaminated." What's better? A miniscule amount of plastic waste with no chance of making people sick, or forcing people to use reusable bags and ignoring the health risk?
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That's an edge case and a straw man argument. Move along.
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Public health is an edge case? People were forced to wear masks in many places throughout the pandemic despite the amount of waste they generated. How much should the public be put at risk until public health concerns take priority over waste disposal?
recyclable (Score:5, Insightful)
> A loophole in the initial ban allowed retailers to provide thick-walled plastic bags and charge 10 cents a piece for them. Though technically reusable and recyclable
Wow I am getting mixed messages this week on whether plastic is recyclable or not.
Re: recyclable (Score:2)
Generally no, but the point wasn't to recycle them, the point was to reuse them. Of course, that's kind of insane to expect.
Charge more (Score:2)
Instead mandate a $5 charge for thick reusable bags and people won't be so quick to discard them.
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Or just by some reusables for a dollar or less.
Re: Charge more (Score:2)
I'd just shop at a different store.
Why the charge for paper? (Score:2)
I shop a lot at whole foods because their food delivery is of higher quality. They deliver all our goods in nice, thick, paper bags. The cold items even have special paper bags with a foil lining.
The food prices are no higher than the other stores in town that use plastic.
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You live in an extremely unusual place if Whole Foods is the same price as the other grocery stores in town. I shop at Natural Food stores myself but they are definitely not the cheapest option any place I've been seen.
Been using only paper bags for years now (Score:2)
After bringing home the groceries, I put the recycling in them that I know [1]won't ever get recycled [slashdot.org]. At least I know the bag itself can be recycled even if the contents won't.
[1] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/09/23/2336240/california-sues-exxonmobil-for-alleged-decades-of-deception-around-plastic-recycling
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It's a pretty uniform fuel at least, helps with regulating the incineration plant.
The First Single Use Ban Has Been a Success (Score:2)
The ban on single use bags in California IMHO has been a huge success. Those bags were a blight and were everywhere. Along roads, plastered against fences, littering the ground in parks. Now, they're gone. The remaining plastic bags may be more prevalent by weight, but there is no denying the single use ban has been a success.
In Switzerland... (Score:2)
There were no plastic bags in the grocery stores. I live there in the late '90s. If you didn't bring your own bag you could buy a sturdy paper bag with a nice design on the outside and strong handles for about 35 rappen. A bag typically lasted me about 6 weeks. Once I got used to it, I really liked it. It was a great system.
And yet... (Score:2)
And yet everybody involved in the lawsuit still buys food packaged in plastic, with drinks in plastic, buys their kids toys of plastic, and drives a car that couldn't function without plastic.
This isn't even new (Score:3)
Sixteen US states have plastic bag bans. In most places, there hasn't been an issue with creative circumvention. But it seems to have happened in California so they updated the law.
Even in places where there aren't plastic bag bans, having an insulated bag in your trunk makes sense so that your groceries stay cold on the way home. I only live 0.1 miles from the grocery store so I don't worry about it (Here in FL, bags are not banned) but my wife always has such a bag in her trunk so we use it.
Even where it's allowed, Costco and Aldi don't have bags at all. And their business is just fine. I can't believe there are a hundred posts whining about this.
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Paper bags are useful for starting the woodstove. It is ironic since saving the forests was one of the justifications for changing to plastic bags in the first place. The cure was worse than the disease, or so we decided in retrospect.
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Actually I don't think the cure is worse than the disease at all. It would be if all our plastic would end up in nature, but if I'm not mistaken, this is not the case in the vast majority of developed nations.
Re: First they came for the paper (Score:2)
I don't. I've seen paper bags in continuous use my whole life. Where/when was this?
Canada did this and it is great (Score:4, Interesting)
Canada banned single-use plastic bags at grocery checkouts a while back. Now everybody brings reusable cloth bags or other reusable containers to the store. It's really no big deal, and it does eliminate unsightly decaying plastic bags flapping randomly in trees and on fences.
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I'm pretty sure California banned single-use plastic bags long before Canada did. If I read the summary correctly, They are now going beyond banning single-use bags and are banning the sale of all plastic bags in stores, even the re-usable ones. Turns out people weren't really re-using them.
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We banned single-use plastic bags in California in 2014. Now we have thicker, re-usable plastic bags that we have to pay 25 each for. It turns out that if you're paying $250 for groceries, an extra $2.50 for bags isn't a big deal. I haven't seen anyone re-use a bag in about 8 years. Personally, I got tired of having bags scattered all over the trunk of my car, and all over my garage, because it's just one more damned thing to manage with a bunch of children in the house.
It's very much as though the State of
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You're over-simplifying it. I live in Ontario. The transition has hardly been smooth. I've gotten better at returning my re-usable bags to the car right after I shop, and trying to remember to bring them into the store with me, but it's very easy to forget bags, and then you're stuck buying new "re-usable" bags. The stores have come up with increasingly worse so-called re-usable bags, to the point where they fall apart after a few uses. Since there's always a few times where you just run to the store an
Re:Canada did this and it is great (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a major pain in the ass at all. If you normally drive, you just keep your bags in the car. If you go to a grocery store with no bags, you buy a reusable cloth bag. They cost anywhere from $0.25 to $1.00 so it's really no big deal and it helps remind you to bring the bags next time.
Paying the actual costs of one's choices rather than externalizing them is a good thing and should be embraced by anyone who believes in market economics.
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Oh, boo hoo. Much better to poison the oceans and stress out landfills than **clutch pearls** clutter up the car!!!!!!!
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> Oh, boo hoo. Much better to poison the oceans and stress out landfills than **clutch pearls** clutter up the car!!!!!!!
This may shock you, but most people aren't terribly fucking concerned about poisoning an ocean or stressing out a landfill.
We're busy dealing with life....and don't need another minor PITA in our lives to worry about.
Like having plastic in your balls? (Score:2, Interesting)
How about in your kids brains? Because you do and they do and the proliferation of cheap plastic is why.
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>> Oh, boo hoo. Much better to poison the oceans and stress out landfills than **clutch pearls** clutter up the car!!!!!!!
> This may shock you, but most people aren't terribly fucking concerned about poisoning an ocean or stressing out a landfill.
> We're busy dealing with life....and don't need another minor PITA in our lives to worry about.
This may surprise you but most people are not self absorbed dummies who like to shit where they eat, live in a pigsty and ingest pollutants.
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> This may surprise you but most people are not self absorbed dummies
In general, actually...yes they are.
Have you not dealt with the general public recently?
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>> This may surprise you but most people are not self absorbed dummies
> In general, actually...yes they are.
> Have you not dealt with the general public recently?
This may surprise you but you are not in any way representative of the general public. The general public does not like to shit where they eat, live in a pigsty and ingest pollutants. This is why campaigns to abolish public sanitation and garbage collection are vanishingly rare.
Re:Canada did this and it is great (Score:4, Interesting)
> This may shock you, but most people aren't terribly fucking concerned about poisoning an ocean or stressing out a landfill.
This is why a law is needed, to deal with such assholes
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> This may shock you, but most people aren't terribly fucking concerned about poisoning an ocean or stressing out a landfill.
Which is precisely why government has to set the rules... to counteract this sociopathic tendency to selfishness.
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In other words "fuck everyone else, my convenience is more important."
Maybe you should concentrate on making your life less difficult. For example, you where whining that your car only has two seats... Well, maybe you should have bought a more practical car instead of saying you have to produce more plastic waste to compensate for its apparently microscopic cargo capacity.
It's a shame we don't live next door, or I'd just throw all my rubbish over the fence. If you object, well sorry but I'm busy dealing wit
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Or just use biodegradable paper bags, which solves both problems and increases CO2 absorption from trees, which absorb a lot more CO2 early in their life than old growth trees.
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Paper bags are not really any better for the environment than plastic bags. It's better to use reusable bags that last for dozens or hundreds of shopping trips.
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Paper bags are better for the specific environmental issue of Disposable plastics accumulating in oceans and waterways.
Since when paper is thrown away; it actually decomposes pretty quickly and doesn't stick around as harmful materials.
The only issue with paper ofc is that more trees have to be harvested to supply them - which consumes trees And the energy and chemicals necessary for that process as well as the production and transportation of materials and finished paper bags.
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> It's better to use reusable bags that last for dozens or hundreds of shopping trips.
Nope. It's better to not go on shopping trips. The gasoline consumption far outweighs the plastic issue.
I use InstaCart, so the driver can combine my shopping with several others from my neighborhood.
I used to receive my InstaCart orders in flimsy plastic bags. Now I receive them in heavy plastic bags, which are then "recycled" into the landfill.
I hate stupid issues like grocery bags that distract from the real problems we need to address. Using a canvas bag to carry groceries to your four-tonne SUV is not
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Better to clutter up your car than to have plastic bags cluttering trees and bushes all over the place.
I tend to forget my bags in the car when I go in to get groceries. But it turns out I'd rather just put my groceries in cardboard boxes and not use bags at all. Or in the summer I want to put refrigerated groceries in a cooler. I'm also not opposed to paying for paper bags. They worked fine years ago for hauling groceries. They still work now too.
Re-usable bags are probably shedding a lot of plastic micr
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No idea where you get 3000 from. I Googled and it says [1]50 to 150 times [cnn.com]. My bags have lasted for more than 5 years so far, so I'm definitely past the 150 times threshold.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/13/world/reusable-grocery-bags-cotton-plastic-scn/index.html
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Also, I have the polypropylene bags, which the article says only need to be used 10 to 20 times to have an environmental advantage over single-use bags.
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Drive an hour to get your bags to shop at REI? Is it that hard to just wheel your cart out to the car and put your items in the trunk? Why would you even need a bag at REI? Since bags at the til were banned here, I find I rarely use bags of any kind, even paper.
Those bags you turn in just end up in the landfill where they blow in the wind and land on trees, look ugly, and generally shed plastic everywhere. They cannot be recycled. Those recycle programs are scams taking your tax dollars. It would be b
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You don't have a right to pollute and make climate change worse just for a little convenience.
Keep bags in your car, along with all the other crap.
The small charge is no big deal if you only pay it occasionally, and is enough of a nudge to get people to bring their own bags, or use their hands and pockets. It also prevents the shop staff just automatically giving you a plastic bag without bothering to ask if you need one.
It's proven effective elsewhere, and the "burden" on you is tiny.
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> You don't have a right to pollute and make climate change worse just for a little convenience.
Actually...I do. We all do...no laws against it. Just being pedantic, but actually, we do have that right at this time.
> Keep bags in your car, along with all the other crap.
ACtually...I'm trying my best to keep my car UN-cluttered....to keep "crap" out of the car. I only have 2 seats, very little trunk room...so, I try to not bring anything I don't specifically need on any given day I'm going out and about...
I've
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> Actually...I do. We all do...no laws against it. Just being pedantic, but actually, we do have that right at this time.
There are no laws against polluting where you live? No laws against littering? What a shithole.
> I only have 2 seats, very little trunk room
And that means you can't carry a couple of plastic bags that fold flat or scrunch up?
Ironically, while whining about a death of a thousand cuts, there are literally people dying from the effective of pollution and climate change - to make your life a little more convenient.
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"Actually...I do. We all do...no laws against it. Just being pedantic, but actually, we do have that right at this time"
Really? No laws against littering or burning random stuff where you live?
"I only have 2 seats, very little trunk room."
You can fix a shopping bag in your coat pocket dickhead or failing that the glove compartment. And its not clutter if you use it.
"Seems like the greens are trying every way possible to make life more inconvenient."
Oh boo hoo, obviously your inconvenience is far more import
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Don't forget soggy paper straws. Bleh.
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Do you have a smart watch? Do you have a quartz watch? Why? They're convenient but produce pollution. An automatic watch, if maintained properly, will still work hundreds of years from now.
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I do my best to reduce the amount of waste I produce. I have a fitness band that has so far lasted me 3 years, and I judge the value that has in terms of improving my health and consequently my healthcare needs to outweigh the cost of manufacturing it.
Obviously we are not going to go back to an agrarian society or anything stupid like that, but considering how little effort it requires to bring your own bag with you, it's hard to excuse how incredibly lazy this complaint is. Plastic waste is a significant i
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I don't drive & I usually shop in small amounts a local supermarkets, markets, & greengrocers'. I have small, light, thin but strong nylon bags that fold up into almost nothing. I always have a couple of these bags in my backpack or other personal bags I typically carry around with me. It's no hassle at all. I also have reusable mesh bags for fresh fruit & vegetables. The govt here are on their way to banning pre-packed fresh produce too.
These bags also last for decades, even with regular hea
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> Just imagine the volumes of waste plastic they unleash into the environment! Expect the plastics industry to push back hard, manufacture "problems" with alternatives, & generally spread FUD.
Honestly, I support the effort to have people use reusable bags, especially if they're not made of plastic. But that statement is at odds with reality. In reality, the plastic industry came out ahead here, with 50% MORE plastic being used for bags after the ban. From TFS:
>> Californians in 2021 actually tossed nearly 50 percent more plastic bags, by weight, than when the law first passed in 2014
I'm certain NYC is going through the same thing right now. I have bags filled with heavy duty reusable plastic totes - far more, by volume/weight, than I would have had of those thin, single use bags. My gripe there is that most stores only
Re: Canada did this and it is great (Score:2)
Or the store just offers paper bags for free like the whole free world used to do.
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So the real question is what do you use for disposing of cat shit? That is the #1 use of plastic shopping bags in my home. A paper bag would be terrible for that use case. I guess I just buy different thicker, trash bags?
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> ... blah blah blah ... I don't throw mine outside and let nature take care of it.
OK, I'll bite. Where do your nonrecyclable bags end up?
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How does this:
> buried in the ground. Except In some landfill.
Differ from this:
>>> outside and let nature take care of it.
> You don't drop them outside; You purposefully place them outside?