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well, if people weren't such slobs and throw litter all over we wouldn't have this plastic litter problem, now would we.
im surprised we dont have a fee for breathing in air....is it city air????/
Agreed, but what we do know is when you charge people they suddenly aren't such slobs. I can't recall the last time I've seen a Metrocard tossed on the floor.
25 or 30 years ago there were few plastic bags and supermarkets used paper bags. Then paper bags were viewed as bad and plastic was deemed better for some reason, maybe by the libs who wanted to save the trees. Paper bags are recyclable and never get stuck in trees. Just go back to paper.
As one who remembers those brown paper supermarket/grocery store bags (they were still being used in the 1970's), there was a good reason why plastic took over, the latter is much stronger thus less likely to break/rip apart.
You've seen the adverts, television commercials or shows of the period; the harried housewife or whomever struggling with bags or bag of groceries only to have the thing break apart and contents going everywhere. Back in the day when liquids still came mostly in glass.. well you can imagine what happened to milk, OJ, and anything else....
Customers would or insist that their groceries be double or even triple bagged. Obviously someone has to pay for all those bag so places welcomed something that was stronger thus didn't need all that extra bagging.
Just as with today's plastic supermarket bags the paper ones were often used as bin liners (garbage bags); again it often was a disaster. If you put anything wet or moist inside those paper bags it often ripped as it was being carried outside to the garbage cans (ask me how I know), so now you had a nasty mess to clean up.
For urban dwellers paper bags fell out of favor as it was widely believed roaches and or other paper loving bugs could hike a ride into one's home via paper shopping bags. To this day I don't really keep paper shopping bags in the house for that reason. Even those nice ones from Trader Joe's go right into the recycling bin once unloaded.
Yeah, I don't know where this "libs wanted to save trees" business is coming from. I personally never saw anything like that. If anything, people talked about the plastic bags being bad for the environment, even way back. The reality is that plastic bags are cheaper, stronger, easier to carry more stuff with, and waterproof. There was the overlap period, where you could choose paper or plastic, but then stores phased out the paper because they were more expensive.
That's good. That still doesn't mean that plastic bags are good. They should be banned entirely. Paper isn't great, but it's still better than plastic. The people like you and I that do recycle tend to be higher income earners and more educated. The people that don't recycle tend to be poor and less educated, and while the fee would hurt them, I support it because it would force them to be more conscious of their waste habits. I don't however support the stores getting the fee. If a fee is to be enacted, the monies collected should go to environmental and education measures to better inform the public. I still see so many people here in NYC that don't properly recycle. We have new recycling cans all over and yet I see people constantly trying to put their plastic drinking containers in the garbage for cans meant for recycling.
In areas like the South Bronx, you can see trash everywhere and most of it comes from plastic bags. It's funny that they are experiencing a rat infestation there and everyone is nervous about the illnesses some people have contracted from said rats, but they don't think about their sanitary habits. They throw trash (including plastic bags) on the ground constantly instead of in the garbage as if littering is the norm. It's disgusting and disturbing. If anything maybe people (and the city) will be cleaner with such a fee. It will happen. It's just a matter of when.
Plastic bags or lack of them won't stop people from having bad sanity habits. If people are trashy they are trashy.
Agreed, but what we do know is when you charge people they suddenly aren't such slobs. I can't recall the last time I've seen a Metrocard tossed on the floor.
Really cause I see them thrown on the ground all the time.
Less plastic bags=least waste. You'll never eliminate trashy people, but you can reduce litter.
Less plastic bags just means more trash, at least trash are in these plastic bags. If they are no plastic bags it means all the wrappers, chip bags, drinks, etc will be on the street not in a bag blowing around.
Agreed, but what we do know is when you charge people they suddenly aren't such slobs. I can't recall the last time I've seen a Metrocard tossed on the floor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by livingsinglenyc
Really cause I see them thrown on the ground all the time.
I used to see regular Metrocards on the ground everywhere, now I very rarely see them. It's notable when I see one, when it used to be just a day that ended in Y. What I do see all the time though are the single ride tickets that can't be reloaded. The 1$ fee dramatically reduced the card waste and has saved MTA users money, I would advocate exploring a refundable deposit or reload option or something for the single rides to reduce the waste of those as well.
Except that in NYC nobody will give a crap about the nickel and just get the bag anyways. The only thing I think would really change is the stupidity of double bagging for everything. Why they just never made the bags twice as thick if you have to use two every time is beyond me
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