Jump to content

Will COH ban single use plastic bags


Recommended Posts

I recall noticing that Ft.Stockton had gotten on the bag ban bandwagon (this topic really lends itself to assonance!) and saying to Mr.l that it seemed a little surprising. He looked at me like I was clueless.

 

Speaking of which, is Mr. L Jerry Lee Lewis?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 121
  • Created
  • Last Reply

I'm thirteen (talk to me, RedScare!) so I can't remember that, but the plastic bags have been singled because they are a particular nuisance/eyesore.

Even the late, great Ed Abbey threw his beer cans out the window.

 

My only personal experience with being 13 lasted only a year, and at the time I held acquaintance with many of my contemporaries.

 

Currently, some of my friends have children that are at or around 13 years of age.

 

It is with this wizened experience that I would like to state unequivocally that you are the most well spoken 13 year old in the history of the world.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Speaking of which, is Mr. L Jerry Lee Lewis?

 

I'm a little baffled, given the erosion of private life I've seen in my 95 years (I was just kidding about thirteen, but I am "spry"; mr. L is my little teacup chihuahua disagreeable old Manx cat), at the intrusion the plastic bag ban represents to you. Near as I can tell, government's goal here -- which I readily grant, you do not share or are indifferent to, so welcome to my world about 75% of the time -- is to reduce plastic bags in the environment and in the waste stream. In another post you may have outlined, but I didn't see, how a deposit system would work -- would you pay a nickel for the bag, and get it back when you returned it for proper disposal? -- but that seems a good deal more cumbersome than asking the consumer to pay for the bags explicitly (anyone to whose quality of life they are important can buy a box of them, I believe at Home Depot, and savor their freedom to use them when they follow their dog around, picking up its leavings, as required by law) rather than tacitly pay for them as part of the cost of their groceries. I don't argue that people didn't choose the bags before, by accepting their groceries in them, but this is hardly the first time government has stepped in to mandate a change in consumer behavior.

I suppose it could be said that the change will fall hardest on the dog-owning poor. Only in America.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You should not assume my intentions. I very much prefer a clean and unspoiled environment. What I do not prefer is the persistent erosion of civil liberties, and worse the willingness of the populace to give them up. I do not wish plastic bags upon the landscape. I simply ask...continually...why must we go straight for the draconian ban. There are other options that may be as or more effective. We see everywhere the consequences of zero tolerances policies and laws, yet we continue to take the easy solution of banning things.

 

Is there no one that will stoop to my level and debate options, such as rebates or taxes on bags? Are you too lazy, or simply afraid that I will crush you with unrelenting logic?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is there no one that will stoop to my level and debate options, such as rebates or taxes on bags? Are you too lazy, or simply afraid that I will crush you with unrelenting logic?

I'm always happy to stoop, or in some cases climb, to a level for a good debate. I propose requiring the bags be made of biodegradable, plant-based materials. Making them biodegradable in the first place will eliminate those who don't or won't recycle them from the equation as it won't matter. What say you?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Om a very tenuously related side note, I discovered while following some links on biodegradable plastic bags that the Aldi's stores that have come to Houston recently are ultimately owned by a German company, Aldi Einkauf GmbH & Compagnie, oHG, which runs the local Aldi's under it's Aldi Sud division and owns and runs Trader Joes's under it's Aldi Nord division.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am a big fan of protecting civil liberties, but have a hard time getting fired up over a possible ban on plastic bags at grocery stores.  I am more concerned about the government mandating women shove cameras up their vaginas, but hey, that's just me!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You should not assume my intentions. I very much prefer a clean and unspoiled environment.

 

And here I was, thinking your hobby was fouling pristine waters. I am so, so sorry.

 

Is there no one that will stoop to my level and debate options, such as rebates or taxes on bags? Are you too lazy, or simply afraid that I will crush you with unrelenting logic?

 

In re the crushing, you must be going easy on us so far. Though, being a woman, I'm safe from being crushed by logic in any case. Crushed by anecdote -- now that is a constant peril.

There is not a pastic bag rebate's worth of difference to me, between government telling me not to use a pastic bag and its launching a campaign to convince me I don't wish to use plastic bags*; so I put it to Mr.l (however, I didn't mention the word rebate, as I've observed he has a strongly negative reaction to it, connected to a quest one time to win back $50 from a contact lens manufacturer):

"It's pretty basic." (Go on.) "Well, you ban something you want everyone to stop doing, through legal or social means. The latter is more powerful, obviously. {Obvious to him: conservative.} You incentivize something you want people to tend to do. You want to get rid of DDT - you ban it. You want people to buy solar panels - you incentivize it. The problem is you have these competing ideologies: liberals want to ban everything, libertarians want to incentivize everything. The reality is, different cases require different tools."

And plastic bags?

"Well, that's pretty easy; the great thing about things that are really unimportant is, no one will remember they wanted them -- in a generation, no one will remember they used to carry plastic bags, though right now they think they want them."

Ban or no ban, it's nothing to him, but like KinkaidAlum, it would not occur to him to oppose it. Anyway, he definitely shares my aversion to Process, and so the advantages of an elaborate carrot-and-stick program to discourage plastic bag use would probably be lost on him, as they certainly are on me. I am constitutionally unsuited to enter into such a discussion. You could easily crush me that way.

The idea in my town was not to get people to "tend not to" use bags for philosophical reasons. There is no general anti-plastic bias at work. Those who brought us the ban are very much pro-recycling, which is certainly all about the plastics industry. There has been no mention of reducing the use of plastic containers generally.

The goal was to eliminate plastic bags in the local environment completely, so that's why I think a ban was appropriate. Along those lines, where the particular litter challenge posed by plastic bags is not high among the public's concerns, one would expect neither an incentive nor a ban. Perhaps Houston is such a place.

 

*I'm not sure why, since I grew up with them, and they were effective on me -- I will go to my grave hoot-hoot-not-pollutiing and turning out the light when I leave a room - I would sooner stub my toe than leave a light burning -- but I now find public service campaigns about as obnoxious as you do bag bans. Maybe because I see them as infantilizing. (Perhaps they really are best aimed at children.) This reached a pitch when driving once into the Navajo town of Window Rock: mile after mile of dreary public service billboards, some quite gruesome, the whole effect giddily tragicomic. "They kept but one promise, they promised to take our land and they took it; and then they covered the res with government billboards warning us to stay off meth." Yuck.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly, I am not so worked up over plastic bags that I would lift more fingers than it took to type this post. As I have taken up cycling again to improve my health (along with quitting smoking), I enjoy the generally litter free ride along the bike trails in Houston. I know those bags are somewhere, but I do not recall seeing any yesterday. I simply have concern that we've moved toward too much "Just Say No!" government. As for biodegradable bags, I submit that these bags will still litter the countryside and bays. They will just degrade a bit sooner than the 10-20 years the current version takes. Charging for bags will result in fewer bags in the bay. However, there is still likely more intelligent debate on the matter in this thread than in most city councils who take up the issue.

 

What I see litterwise more than bags is styrofoam cups. Cans have disappeared due to aluminum costs, but the styro remains. If we must ban something, maybe those cups should be the target.

 

 

 

EDIT: Oh, and don't get me started on public service ads. I cannot tell you how many extra cigarettes I have smoked after watching a stupid ad telling me to quit smoking. There is nothing worse than a sanctimonious non-smoker giving advice of ANY kind, but especially smokers. Do these people have any idea how many teens took up smoking so as NOT to look like the douchebags on the anti-smoking ads? 

 

I am thankful that I was able to quit smoking in spite of the anti-smoking ads.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that the only reason we notice so many plastic bags polluting the world is because of the slow death of newspapers. 

 

In the old west, a tumblin' tumbleweed was a symbol of a scary, empty place.

By the 1950's, it became newspapers blowing in the wind.

Now it's plastic bags.

 

I have a cat, so I need all the plastic grocery bags I can get for scooping poop.  I think instead of banning them, mandate that they be made with that corn-based polymer that causes them to biodegrade in a year or two.  Problem solved, and I can still scoop poop.



There is nothing worse than a sanctimonious non-smoker giving advice of ANY kind,

 

How about a sanctimonious former smoker?  That's gotta be worse!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Many former smokers are much worse! My brothers and I have all sworn a pact not to be those people.    :)

 

As for the corn based bags. the concern is that they break down to quickly if in the sun. But, as long as you get the bag to the house quickly, you will be OK.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Om a very tenuously related side note, I discovered while following some links on biodegradable plastic bags that the Aldi's stores that have come to Houston recently are ultimately owned by a German company, Aldi Einkauf GmbH & Compagnie, oHG, which runs the local Aldi's under it's Aldi Sud division and owns and runs Trader Joes's under it's Aldi Nord division.

 

Funny you should mention Aldi's-who from my own experience seems to have TOTALLY fixed the plastic bag problem in their stores-------There are non offered! you have to bring something with you to cart away what you bought.   I might clarify that I haven't been to the Aldi's  in Houston but the one on the south side of Oklahoma City at least a kazillion times.

It only took a few times of trying to deal with the dozen or so items I purchased, and ferry them with out a bag (nor box if the box bin was empty-- plus I was  walking-Sometimes a back pack purse comes in handy!) before I began bringing reusable bags. So how did Aldi's come upon this notion-- of not offering bags? Did it impact sales? Did they have to modify it in different parts of the country? Is this one of the solutions that might be discussed?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

EDIT: Oh, and don't get me started on public service ads. I cannot tell you how many extra cigarettes I have smoked after watching a stupid ad telling me to quit smoking. There is nothing worse than a sanctimonious non-smoker giving advice of ANY kind, but especially smokers. Do these people have any idea how many teens took up smoking so as NOT to look like the douchebags on the anti-smoking ads? 

 

I am thankful that I was able to quit smoking in spite of the anti-smoking ads.

 

Along similar lines, those of a certain age will no doubt remember when this one was near-ubiquitous:

 

http://youtu.be/ub_a2t0ZfTs

Link to comment
Share on other sites

speaking of our brains on drugs, one of my old college roommate still has ancient vhs of us frying many pounds of bacon and making pancakes for  a house full of people who were just ever so slightly coming down after tripping for 48 hours.... Mrs. Reagan's stern warnings to the contrary. It was that exact PSA that inspired us to cook breakfast, despite the fact that food still tasted like sand.

 

I'll second Red:  the biggest single scourge I see in the waterways  is styrofoam cus. In particular Whataburger cups. Plastic bags are nowhere near the evil that those cups are, ecologically speaking. Personally, I do reusable bags about half the time, and I collect all the plastic bags otherwise. Cat litter is flushable but I do use the bags as containers for the kitchen compost. The rest get returned to the recycle box at the grocery store. I would support a ban, but doubt it would pass. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ban all Styrofoam drinks containers!

I remember back when McDonalds served all their food in Styrofoam containers, others followed suit, probably cause it made sense from a keep the food warm standpoint. As I recall McDonalds chose on their own to stop using the containers for the exact reason cities are banning plastic bags today. Other fast food places followed suit.

What has happened to our country in the 20 short years between then and now that we protest the government to force the 'right' choice, rather than pressuring the company that offends the worst into doing the right thing on their own? we end up with the same results.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ban all Styrofoam drinks containers!I remember back when McDonalds served all their food in Styrofoam containers, others followed suit, probably cause it made sense from a keep the food warm standpoint. As I recall McDonalds chose on their own to stop using the containers for the exact reason cities are banning plastic bags today. Other fast food places followed suit.What has happened to our country in the 20 short years between then and now that we protest the government to force the 'right' choice, rather than pressuring the company that offends the worst into doing the right thing on their own? we end up with the same results.

That's a good point. It seems like, as a society, we've lost our confidence in the ability of our fellow citizens to make the right choice. I would think that this ties directly to the polarization of politics and the general "if you don't agree with me, then you are clearly an idiot" mindset that seems to be rampant.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

speaking of our brains on drugs, one of my old college roommate still has ancient vhs of us frying many pounds of bacon and making pancakes for  a house full of people who were just ever so slightly coming down after tripping for 48 hours.... Mrs. Reagan's stern warnings to the contrary. It was that exact PSA that inspired us to cook breakfast, despite the fact that food still tasted like sand.

 

I don't know why I said I dislike government public service ads because they are infantilizing. That's not really it. I must have been too tired to think about it. There was no harm in my being advised not to start forest fires in the middle of "Heckle and Jeckle."
I think the frying eggs ad was meant to register a dry, detached tone, perhaps directed at just those kids least likely to be deterred; since everyone talked about it, and *that's all that matters*, it probably was deemed a great success ("Think Ads Don't Work? Just Did!" - crunchtastic fixed eggs!).
I remember watching filmstrips about the dangers of "quaalude" use probably years after the last quaalude had been flushed down a toilet in New York City.
Their clumsiness might have been forgiven, but the problem with the anti-drug PSAs was the message.
There was no longer any genuine cultural taboo against drug use, or any other sort of indulgence, among the elite, and it was ridiculous and phony to try to impose one, when every other signal kids were getting contradicted it.
That wouldn't really have mattered, though, if it weren't part of a pattern Americans seem to follow of being captivated by vice, by pathology. That in itself is a kind of pathology, in my view.
They say we are still Puritans. They don't know what they mean when they say it, except that it is not a compliment, and in any event it is now close to nonsense. But perhaps that is the source of our unseemly fixation with the things we are supposed to be "against," that so resembles celebration, or at least complicity.
Notice how quickly those PSAs about substance abuse quickly and seamlessly morphed into the substance of all our favorite TV shows and movies, and finally into criminal chic generally.

That is the real reason I don't like those social campaigns: not only are they are hollow, but they take up an ungodly amount of cultural space, and they just further coarsen everything, and us.

Sorry, mods, for having taken us off track.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Citizens and customers can make a difference. It was only a few years back that Niko Nikos switched from polysterene. Sure, it made for good PR but it was the right thing to do and influential civic-minded neighbors and customer helped them along.

Whataburger really needs to ditch those cups. Sonic too.

 

So for the engineers among us, would it be possible to construct a watertight vessel of Whataburger cups? Surely someone has done this already. Plucked from the banks of our bayous and entered into that contest they do every year downtown? At least enough to paddle across. That would make a better point than some lame online petition. After all no one videos online petitions, and  public shaming is so au courant.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Citizens and customers can make a difference. It was only a few years back that Niko Nikos switched from polysterene. Sure, it made for good PR but it was the right thing to do and influential civic-minded neighbors and customer helped them along.

Whataburger really needs to ditch those cups. Sonic too.

 

So for the engineers among us, would it be possible to construct a watertight vessel of Whataburger cups? Surely someone has done this already. Plucked from the banks of our bayous and entered into that contest they do every year downtown? At least enough to paddle across. That would make a better point than some lame online petition. After all no one videos online petitions, and  public shaming is so au courant.

 

hmmmmmmmm maybe an intrepid engineering student will see this and be inspired--a lot of undergraduate  engineers had to build those concrete canoes. . . . . . .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I recently read one of those Malcolm Gladwell "conventional thinking is mistaken" pieces, the thesis or even subject of which I can't remember at all, but I do recall mention of some brilliant Rensselaer* Polytechnic undergrads who have created nature's styrofoam. Basically, they place some particular variety of mold in a - well, mold, and then turn the light out; and soon have a material almost indistinguishable from styrofoam, only it breaks down rather more quickly and -- it's supposed -- harmlessly. 

Perhaps the public will come around to the idea that this is how you Sonic, by drinking your cherry limeade from a cup made of nondeadly white mold.

 

*Nor am I certain how to spell "Rensselaer," but I'm trying not to rely on Google so much.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hmmmmmmmm maybe an intrepid engineering student will see this and be inspired--a lot of undergraduate  engineers had to build those concrete canoes. . . . . . .

 

My memory may be failing, but I thought there were plans in world war 2 to build a concrete aircraft carrier. maybe I'm thinking of ice?

 

no wait, my aversion to google isn't as great as luciaphile, so I googled, it was neither concrete, nor ice. it was pycrete http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk

 

quite intriguing.

 

To the point of the Styrofoam ship, I'd imagine it would be possible.

 

Styrofoam floats on it's own because the Styrofoam has lots of pockets of air, you shouldn't need to maintain the cup's integrity. I'd imagine using something as simple as chicken wire to create pontoons with Styrofoam drink cups stuffed in them would be sufficient, and doubly sufficient would be to place the logos of prominent fast food restaurants to the exterior of the chicken wire and Styrofoam pontoon.

 

Edit: you could probably even cheat, taping drink cups to a large cylinder of Styrofoam (with less density to increase the ability of it to float) which you then wrap with chicken wire to create the illusion of an entire pontoon filled with Styrofoam drink cups.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My memory may be failing, but I thought there were plans in world war 2 to build a concrete aircraft carrier. maybe I'm thinking of ice?

 

no wait, my aversion to google isn't as great as luciaphile, so I googled, it was neither concrete, nor ice. it was pycrete http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk

 

quite intriguing.

 

To the point of the Styrofoam ship, I'd imagine it would be possible.

 

Styrofoam floats on it's own because the Styrofoam has lots of pockets of air, you shouldn't need to maintain the cup's integrity. I'd imagine using something as simple as chicken wire to create pontoons with Styrofoam drink cups stuffed in them would be sufficient, and doubly sufficient would be to place the logos of prominent fast food restaurants to the exterior of the chicken wire and Styrofoam pontoon.

 

Edit: you could probably even cheat, taping drink cups to a large cylinder of Styrofoam (with less density to increase the ability of it to float) which you then wrap with chicken wire to create the illusion of an entire pontoon filled with Styrofoam drink cups.

 

You know, you are right. I had forgotten my days living on the lake. The marina docks were supported by big blocks of styrofoam.

 

pontoon-houseboat-floatation-use-expandi

 

This may be easier than I thought.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

In the Chronicle today--

Perhaps COH will read--

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Move-to-ban-plastic-bags-gains-ground-4988509.php

 

Interesting is the part about Whole food giving customers $.05 per plastic bag brought to store to recycle--I remember the post about Washington DC wanting to fine $.05 per plastic bag used to fund the cleanup of the Potomac River.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the Chronicle today--

Perhaps COH will read--

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Move-to-ban-plastic-bags-gains-ground-4988509.php

 

Interesting is the part about Whole food giving customers $.05 per plastic bag brought to store to recycle--I remember the post about Washington DC wanting to fine $.05 per plastic bag used to fund the cleanup of the Potomac River.

 

If they did that, I'd be able to almost offset the higher cost of shopping there, however the artlcle says

 

"In the Southwest region, it gives customers a nickel or a dime credit at checkout for each reusable bag they bring for their groceries."

 

So they give you a credit of a nickel or dime for each of your own bags you bring.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the Chronicle today--

Perhaps COH will read--

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Move-to-ban-plastic-bags-gains-ground-4988509.php

 

Interesting is the part about Whole food giving customers $.05 per plastic bag brought to store to recycle--I remember the post about Washington DC wanting to fine $.05 per plastic bag used to fund the cleanup of the Potomac River.

 

 

When CompUSA went out of business, I went dumpster diving at a few of their stores. I managed to get a few complete working PCs, which I gave to my friends. I also got about an entire car trunk full of brand new unused plastic bags, still in the boxes. I took the majoriy of the boxes to Kroger, so the plastic could be recycled, but I kept about 5 boxes of different sorts of bags, figuring I could use them around the house for small trash bins and such.

 

Each box holds 1000 new bags. According to this logic, $0.05 per bag, I should earn $50 per box, or about $250, minus a few bucks for the bags I used for refuse and such.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 9 months later...

Saw this in USAtoday. ---------wonder if the COH will be influenced?

California could soon be the first state to ban single-use plastic bags.

Lawmakers are sending Gov. Jerry Brown a bill, SB270, which cleared the Senate on a 22-15 vote Friday.

The bill would prohibit single-use plastic bags at grocery stores and large pharmacies in 2015 and at convenience stores in 2016 in an effort to reduce litter on streets and beaches.

"This is a statewide problem meriting a statewide solution," Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, and author of the bill, told the Los Angeles Times.

About 100 jurisdictions in California have adopted similar bans.

The bill allows grocers to charge 10 cents each for paper and reusable bags. It also includes $2 million in loans to help manufacturers shift to the new model.

The bill was opposed by bag makers and some Republicans.

"This is big government taking over local agencies' responsibilities," Sen. Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield, told the Sacramento Bee.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


All of the HAIF
None of the ads!
HAIF+
Just
$5!


×
×
  • Create New...