California poised to ban plastic bags (living, restaurants, marketplace)

[SandyCo]

Like it or not, the more people the planet has to support, the more our individual freedoms are going to suffer. If we had ten more earths waiting for us to expand to, it wouldn't be an issue. However, there was only one last time I checked!

Having said that, this really irritates me. I use plastic bags for my cats' litter. I'm not sure what I'm going to use once I run out of bags.

Originally Posted by BlackShoe

Yoo-Hoo!, still here, just as strong as ever. Many of you just did not get it. This was never about plastic bags, light bulbs, air quality, water quality, owls, logging, or anything else about the environment. It is about the concern many of us have about the ever growing power of government at all levels to regulate, control, and dictate what we as citizens can and cannot do. It is about the expansion of statism, or whatever other label you choose to define it as. To use just a couple of analogies, we are suffering The Death of a Thousand Cuts, or that of the frog in the gradually heating pot of water. What comes next? Will not go into healthcare, that has been done. We are not far from being told what kind of car we can own. After that?

[KC6ZLV]

Originally Posted by SandyCo

Having said that, this really irritates me. I use plastic bags for my cats' litter. I'm not sure what I'm going to use once I run out of bags.

When everyone runs out of plastic bags for their cat litter and lining their trash cans, well, they will have to buy them and plastic bags will go in the landfill anyway.

Banning plastic bags is "feel good" legislation, and nothing more.

[Pretzelogik]

California needs to ban debt

[wburg]

When everyone runs out of "free" plastic bags for their cat litter, they will have to buy them, which means they will use as many as they need, instead of as many as they feel like using, and throwing out the rest.

Plastic bags will still go in the landfill, but not as many, and they will be used more often to store trash, rather than simply being trash. Fewer will end up scattered about the landscape. Consumers will adapt. Cranky old people will continue being cranky and old.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by BlackShoe

Yoo-Hoo!, still here, just as strong as ever. Many of you just did not get it. This was never about plastic bags, light bulbs, air quality, water quality, owls, logging, or anything else about the environment. It is about the concern many of us have about the ever growing power of government at all levels to regulate, control, and dictate what we as citizens can and cannot do. It is about the expansion of statism, or whatever other label you choose to define it as. To use just a couple of analogies, we are suffering The Death of a Thousand Cuts, or that of the frog in the gradually heating pot of water. What comes next? Will not go into healthcare, that has been done. We are not far from being told what kind of car we can own. After that?

That concern is matched by the concern many of us have about the ever growing power of corporate consumerism to poison, putrefy, pollute and destroy what we as citizens eat, drink, breathe in and live on. It is about the expansion of the corporate state, or whatever other label you choose to define it as. To use just a couple of analogies, we are suffering The Death of a Thousand Cuts, or that of the frog in the gradually heating pot of water. Except instead of being a convenient straw-man metaphor, our bodies actually are being poisoned, our water polluted.

All this rhetoric about the magic of the free marketplace is nice, but the market doesn't self-regulate pollutants: it pretends they don't exist, or downplays their problems. Plastic bags are convenient and cheap, which is why people use them, but the consequences of their use is something we're going to have to deal with, either by limiting their use now or dealing with the environmental mess they're making later. In most cases, it's easier to clean up a small mess than a big one, and this mess won't get any smaller if we continue the way we are.

I resent the idea that people have an inherent right to be lazy slobs, to pollute indiscriminately, to destroy not through malice or ill will but through ignorance and apathy. We have rights as people, but is the right to burn through a trillion disposable plastic bags every three years among them?

[KC6ZLV]

Umm, there are several types of biodegradable plastic bags which could be used to replace the current ones. You can actually throw them in your mulch, if you are a gardener. Additionally, this type of plastic can be used to package food (the material used in #2 plastics isn't permitted to be used for food packaging). However, the pseudo-intellectuals are more interested in forcing a European lifestyle on everyone.

If the concern is plastic going into landfills there are many things that can be done to reduce the volume of plastic going into the trash. How about that hard plastic packaging that every item larger than a USB memory stick is encased in. You know the ones that require the use of axe to open? Most of those items could be sold in minimal "whitebox" packaging. Many could be sold in bulk with no packaging, and consumers wouldn't have to pay for packaging. It would also reduce theft, saving the retailers some money. You could pay for the item and they hand it to you at the counter. People would actually appreciate this, especially the ones with arthritis, and I'm positive more than a few retailers would jump on the opportunity to sell items like this. Fry's has wanted to do this, but they've found few products they could sell like this because a lot of the junk packaged in China where they don't care, or the manufacturer is more concerned about pretty packaging than a quality product.

How about fast food items? They could put all the items on one paper plate instead of individual boxes for the hamburger, fries, chicken and whatever else people buy at those places. Of course, this only solves the problem of people being served in the restaurants. Junk food "to-go" requires individual boxes for each item. I see fast food containers all over the place every day. I see maybe one or two plastic bags a week where I live. In some other places I see many more. Mainly in the bad neighbourhoods where the people are too fat, lazy and ignorant to pick them up.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by BlackShoe

Yoo-Hoo! Many of you just did not get it. This was never about plastic bags, light bulbs.... It is about the concern many of us have about the ever growing power of government at all levels to regulate, control, and dictate what we as citizens can and cannot do. It is about the expansion of statism...

Then start a thread in the politics section on that (or read the other ones on the same topic) and leave this one alone, so the rest of us can debate the pros and cons of plastic bags, recycling, and whether it might be a good idea not to destroy this planet for succeeding generations.

[Dannan]

KC6ZLV, the clear packaging for small items is blister packaging. The main reasons those are used are to visually display the product on a shelf or a hanger, and most importantly for theft or tampering protection. The theft protection is there because people steal items too often if they are in other packaging.

They are not packaged to irritate people, or to make it a task to open them. They are to display and protect the contents. People get irritated when they get home and find out pieces are missing, the manual has been removed, etc when people tamper or they access items in other packaging.

There are many ways to reduce or modify bagging, packaging, but enough of the general consumer population tampers with or steals items.

[BlackShoe]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

Then start a thread in the politics section on that (or read the other ones on the same topic) and leave this one alone.

1. There have been dozens of threads with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of posts on this topic.
2. A topic such as this relates to politics, and will generate political comments, like it or not.
3. Not all have found my remarks so distasteful, I have received rep points for earlier posts in this thread.
4. Do not give orders to me or to other posters. You are not a mod and have no authority.

[LookinForMayberry]

This was attempted awhile ago in WA, and I think it failed because of the impact on the poor elderly -- which I disagreed with, but then no one asked me.

Personally, I would like to see all plastics banned, excepting those with medical/health applications, like IVs, etc. Do we really need to have all those tampon holders, Bic lighters, and water bottles trashing up the environment?

Everyone is going crazy about their carbon footprint, and meanwhile they trash their communities with their Styrofoam, plastic latte lids, and stirring straws. What a world we live in.....