California rejects ban on plastic shopping bags

[cowcommander]

Source: AP

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California lawmakers have rejected a bill seeking to ban plastic shopping bags after a contentious debate over whether the state was going too far in trying to regulate personal choice.

The Democratic bill, which failed late Tuesday, had been the subject of a furious lobbying campaign by the plastic bag manufacturing industry, which called it a job killer. It would have been the first statewide ban, although a few California cities already prohibit their use.

Supporters of the California bill said the 19 billion plastic bags state residents use every year harm the environment and cost the state $25 million annually to collect and transport to landfills.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100901/ap_on_bi_ge/us_xgr_...

[Anakin Skywalker]

1. Plastic Bags Wouldn't Be So Bad If

they were RECYCLED / REUSED much more. But so many ignorant people out there just toss them away. In every town and every city, you see plastic bags floating around on streets. It's a compound problem because it is both littering and wasting the recycle/reuse opportunity.

[No Elephants]

8. Floating around in oceans is an even bigger problem.

[Anakin Skywalker]

50. I Forgot About That. Landlocked For So Long. :-(

[Lost4words]

9. oil is used to make plastic! should be a nationwide ban! IMO!

[wordpix]

18. I don't live in CA but I'll wager the oil corpos helped defeat the initiative

[PavePusher]

51. Hope you don't wear any synthetic fabrics...

especially shoes.... natural leather and rubber only down there, amIright?

Let's see, what other products have plastics in...?

[defendandprotect]

53. Fertilizers which have also sickened our soil and crops, destroying nutrition in ou foods -- !!

We don't need to make products from oil --

Let's get back to hemp -- and rayon -

[LTX]

62. If our soil and crops have been sickened,

then why has the U.S. total crop yield measured in tons per acre increased more than 360 percent since 1950?


And if you want to ban oil from product manufacturing, you'll have to find a substitute that is versatile and plentiful enough to manufacture cell phones, computers, cars, anesthetics, antihistamines, artificial limbs, aspirin, hearing aids, heart valves, vitamin capsules, carpets, electrical wiring, water pipes and about 6,000 other products. I don't think hemp and rayon will suffice.

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/...

[defendandprotect]

71. "Tons" aren't nutrition, nor health for the nation . . .

just as "tons" of uranium mined makes us less healthy -- so too does throwing

petroleum fertilizer all over our fields make us less healthy!

We should NATIONALIZE the oil industry -- that was called for in the 1960 Democratic

Party Platform. We will have no ALTERNATIVES until we do so -- either energy alternatives

nor product alternatives.

[LTX]

82. So you want to produce less food,

and make it more expensive. Interesting. What do you plan to do with the folks who can't afford your new, limited supplies of expensively produced food? Just tell them that if they can't afford Whole Foods, they can go suck old shoe leather?

By the way, do you have any actual information about US agricultural products being "less healthy" today than, say, 50 years ago? After all, during that period of time, not only have yields per acre (those awful "tons" you refer to) increased exponentially, but fertilizer, water, and machinery inputs per acre have all decreased, and during that period of time there have also been dramatic increases in conservation tillage and decreases in soil erosion. In other words, your evil "big agricultural" is today feeding more people less expensively using less land, less fertilizer, less water, and with greater conservation of tillable soil than at any time in the past. Pretty dreadful, isn't it?

[friendly_iconoclast]

75. Is your computer made out of hemp or rayon? n/t

[Roland99]

11. But how much energy is required to recycle that plastic?

[Dappleganger]

14. We reuse every single one of our plastic bags...

in addition to using cloth grocery bags. That still doesn't alter how much time it takes for them to decompose in a landfill.

[wordpix]

19. I reuse them as garbage bags, at rate of one/wk. I've run out of them sometimes b/c I use cloth

at the grocery store.

[Earth_First]

81. So do we.

We need four a month in order to meet our refuse needs.

When we first moved to the village, we were delivered a trash bin by the village (our taxes pay for refuse collection within the village limits). However, I thought to myself, "My goodness! It would take us six months to fill this thing!"

I drive to work every Monday and see the trash bins lined up along the side of the road, full and many overflowing and even trash bags along side the bins and just wonder how the hell a family can produce so much trash in ONE weeks' time.

Such a shame...

[napi21]

2. The retailers could easily get rid of them on their own.

Easiest of all would be the grocery stores. Just switch to paper bags again.

[Dappleganger]

15. Some are...

Publix will stop giving away free bags sometime during the next year, pushing paper or cloth instead.

[Raine]

40. Paper bags aren't much better

because of all the water and chemicals involved in that.

[defendandprotect]

54. Most people have cloth shopping bags ... I'm reusing paper bags over and over again....

but I also have many cloth bags --

[Synicus Maximus]

74. You'er joking. I see maybe 1 in 20 people using cloth bags

[Codeine]

76. The vast, VAST majority of shoppers do NOT use cloth bags.

I work grocery retail -- I see two or three customers a WEEK using them at best, out of thousands of shoppers.

We even sell them right there at the damned register.

[wordpix]

20. "Just switch to paper bags again"---and make sure they're made out of post-consumer waste

[Francesca9]

68. I don't think that you can bring in paper bags

[wordpix]

84. you can bring in any bags you want but the guy above was writing about stores using paper

which is what they all used to use in "the old days" before plastic began littering our streets and waterways

[hughee99]

26. Weren't we helping the earth when we stopped using paper bags? n/t

[No Elephants]

66. Please see Reply 65.

[No Elephants]

65. The lumber industry has such a huge footprint that environmentalists reccommend plastic over

paper, except in coastal areas, where plastic bags end up killing wildlife, like sea gulls. But, they also disapprove of both paper and plastic. They recommend only Re-usuable cloth bags.

[Quantess]

3. The plastic bag manufacturing industry may lose a few jobs,

but the reusable bag industry may gain some jobs. Isn't that plausible?

[JDPriestly]

4. We try to reuse grocery bags, I use the plastic bags for vegetables

and fruit to shield my plants from the cold in the winter. I have a small backyard garden in pots. In the winter I cover the pots with plastic bags to keep the young plants warm.

the handiest things for shopping are the synthetic nets that we used to get in Europe. You just wad it up and put it in your purse. It stretches so that it actually holds a lot of groceries when you need it. Combine that with a reusable basket (yes, a basket) for some of the fruits and vegetables and you don't need much plastic if any. Californians are using less and less plastic as it is.

[jobycom]

5. Great news!

Plastic bags deserve equal rights!

Hey, I'm tired and punchy and insomniac and about four hours away from being able to get some sleep, so excuse me for seeing dumb-ass humor in everything. Must cut back on the caffeine.

[Ter]

6. Good, freedom wins

This is why we lose elections anyway.

[Nihil]

7. If by "freedom" you mean "well-funded lobbyists" then you are correct (and also outed)

> This is why we lose elections anyway.

No ...

>> The Democratic bill, which failed late Tuesday, had been the subject
>> of a furious lobbying campaign ...

*That* is why "we" lose elections anyway.

[davidinalameda]

16. outed?

as what?

[Nihil]

17. Outed as someone who thinks "freedom" equates to "well-funded lobbyists"

If that puts the writer into any other category that you choose then so be it.

I think that being on the side of the well-funded anti-environment lobbyists
is quite bad enough.

There again, it might just have been a mistake (or sarcasm) on the part of the
original writer - assuming you are not his sock-puppet! - hence the conditional
clause in my previous comment: to avoid causing offence as a result of my
misinterpreting his "freedom wins" bit.

[Ter]

41. No, I don't give a damn about greedy lobbyists

What I care about is private businesses and customers having a right to use plastic bags. I am not a fan of banning things. I am a moderate semi-libertarian Constitutional Democrat, so we respectfully disagree. I hate lobbyists however, so that is not me.

[Nihil]

59. "having a right to use plastic bags"? W.T.F.?

> What I care about is private businesses and customers having a right to use plastic bags.



I am honestly stunned that someone can come straight out with that sentence.

[jkappy]

25. Right on! Freedom to destroy the Earth. n/t

[Ter]

42. The Earth will be around long after humans

n/t

[fascisthunter]

47. you know exactly what he meant

instead of trying to be a smart ass you could grant those who reply with a bit more honesty. If ya can't what's the point of even posting?

[PavePusher]

52. He's highlighting the hyperbole....

but you knew that, amIright?

"instead of trying to be a smart ass you could grant those who reply...", etc, etc.

[No Elephants]

69. That's a very generous interpretation of the poster's motives.

[defendandprotect]

55. That's not necessarily so -- no one can say that it will keep turning ....

there is no way to predict that it will survive our reckless exploitations --

[Ter]

73. Not with current technology

If every nuke went off at once it wouldn't do anything to the planet itself, just the outside portion. Even the biggest asteroid couldn't destroy Earth. The Earth was once hit by a Mars-sized planet and survived. The only thing I can think of is if some mad-scientist accidentally creates a black hole.

[defendandprotect]

80. The earth is a living organism . . . have you noticed any destruction to

your own body -- ? Perhaps from life style?

Imagine having the filth thrown at you that industry throws at the planet?

Technology? This sounds like more of the male "Frankenstein" myth of creation!

Do you understand that even the dams built by our Army Corps of Engineers over

the last half century+ are "impacting the rotation of the earth" - ?

Do you understand that nuclear weapons are suspected of having played a role in

Global Warming?

And this . . .

If every nuke went off at once it wouldn't do anything to the planet itself, just the outside portion.

is gleeful insanity!

Again -- there is no proof that the planet will keep turning as Global Warming and its

complications progress.

[Ter]

83. I think you are not understanding me

I don't dispute we can destroy the outside. I am saying we can't psychically destroy it. If the planet stopped turning, it would still be there. Destruction means demolished to pieces.

[defendandprotect]

86. Eh . . . no -- and if you've at all been interested in crop circles ....

you'd also be aware that a number of them show our planet missing

in our solar system --

I guess there are people always willing to assure us about our destructive natures --

and guarantee safe outcomes -- maybe that's what they told folks working on the

atomic bomb? Remember when our Joint Chiefs were gun-ho for attacking Russia with

nuclear weapons, assuring us that we could survive the counter attacks?

This is the insanity at play in MIC, patriarchy, and among right wing PNAC'ers and

religious nuts --

I'm sure some of us believe them --

Point is, we won't be here -- especially if we get a polar shift --

[Quantess]

77. Yes, thank you.

Maybe you've seen photos of the giant "island" of plastic debris in the Pacific? I know people who have seen it with their own eyes, who are activists against one-time-use bags.

[Lost4words]

12. W H A T ? did you really just say that????

freedom to die for oil?

[Ter]

43. Oil?

I thought we were talking about plastic bags.

[fascisthunter]

46. what do you think plastic is made from?

petrochemicals

Today most plastics are made from petrochemicals (crude oil and natural gas), although they can also be produced from corn and other biomasses. In manufacture from petrochemicals, refineries process crude oil to produce, first, fuels, such as gasoline, diesel, and a number of different lubricants. Then they spin off a wide variety of other petrochemicals. Some of these other petrochemicals are then used by chemical plants to make a wide variety of products such as fertilizers and plastic resins. Plastic resins are, in turn, used to produce many different types of plastic.

[No Elephants]

13. Freedom to help destroy humankind? Yeayyyy!

Maybe we can get laws against littering and spitting repealed Quarantine & vaccination laws, too. After all, smallpox is less of a threat to humankind than climate change.

Don't think freedom to help kill off homo sapiens was what the Founders had in mind.

[wordpix]

22. yeah, keep those plastic bags in the water for wildlife to ingest!

that's great for the environment and our children, right?

[Catherina]

28. This is your idea of "freedom"? What kind of freedom is this?

Sea of plastic bags in the ocean















Dolphins think the bags are jelly fish and eat them. The horrible truth is, these bags end up killing them and we find them later with bags in their stomach, bags they can't digest that prohibit them from eating.

Some kind of freedom.

I live for the day when humanity progresses past your kind of freedom.

[Ter]

44. Sad, but that tells me we need stricter dumping laws

Separate dump laws for plastics. Fine anyone who puts them in with other garbage. Don't blame the bags, they don't kill, the dumpers do.

[Nihil]

60. "Don't blame the bags, they don't kill, the dumpers do."

> Fine anyone who puts them in with other garbage.

If anyone was to attempt to bring in such a law, I am willing to bet that
you would be amongst the first people protesting such a proposal as it
would infringe upon people's constitutionally enshrined "right to keep and
bear plastic".

The proposal is (was) to kill the problem at the source: free plastic bags
for everyone at the shopping counter.

As far as I'm aware, there was no proposal to ban the sale of plastic bags
for specific purposes (e.g., bin-liners, dog-crap collectors or any of the
other uses of plastic bags quoted on this thread), just the provision of
free plastic carrier bags to get your shopping out of the shop door.

Your hyperbolic response would be far less effective at keeping plastic bags
out of the environment and put the onus on the eternal "Someone Else" to do
the tidying up (again) and for what? For the "right" to consume & pollute.

[No Elephants]

64. Then you seem fine with restricting freedom, as long as no one restricts use of plastic bags.

All laws restrict someone's freedom to one degree or another. It's called "living in a social unit," or something like that.

[LanternWaste]

32. What is the precise and relevant moral difference...?

What is the precise and relevant moral difference between a freedom to continue using plastic bags and a freedom to pour used oil down a sewer grate...?

I'd imagine that, using your line of reasoning, had the Democrats run on a plank of everyone everywhere may pour used oil down a sewer grate anyplace and and any time, there would be more Democratic victories?


(Many people keep using that word "freedom", but I don't think it means what they think it means...)

[fascisthunter]

45. with freedom we need to be responsible

people will never do what's right unless they see the big picture. Unfortunately, without legislation like this, people will keep doing as the have done, and it's gonna cost everyone more in the long run. Freedom is grand, but we have too many who just don't give a damn.

[Francesca9]

57. No one likes the bag police.

If I bring in my own bag, this law required that it meet state standards.

We don't need to deputize grocery checkers as the bag police.

[Nihil]

61. The "bag police"? FFS ...

> If I bring in my own bag, this law required that it meet state standards.
> We don't need to deputize grocery checkers as the bag police.

Don't panic little person: there are no provisions to "deputize" anyone.

On the other hand, you have just swallowed (or possibly regurgitated) the
crap that the bill's opposition have paid plenty for you to see ... not that
a few million here or there makes any difference to their profits ...

>> The bill's main opponent, the Virginia-based American Chemistry Council,
>> spent millions in lobbying fees, radio ads and even a prime-time television ad
>> attacking the measure. The organization represents plastic bag manufacturers
>> such as Dow Chemical Co. and ExxonMobil Corp.

[Francesca9]

67. The law banned bringing your own bag

unless it met state standards.

If they were not putting grocery checkers into the bag police role, who would have been the bag police?

[Name removed]

85. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lightning Count]

10. Another reason why we cannot have nice things. nt

[wordpix]

21. this "job killer" argument is absurd. In DC, people bring cloth bags b/c they get 5cents off

for each bag they bring. Manufacturing cloth bags creates jobs, too, and maybe more jobs b/c you have new non-toxic inks being developed, organic cotton being grown, graphics people being hired, and so on.

[TalkingDog]

23. Figure out the true cost then charge the consumer. If they want to use them, they will

Mfg., regulation, shipping, environmental impact (studies and clean up included), etc.

Let's see how long people will want to tack on 20.00 to their grocery bill every time, just so they can use a plastic bag.

[savalez]

24. I know of a store that charges 5 cents per bag. Guess what? People bring their own.

So you are absolutely right.

[NickB79]

30. ALDI charges for bags, so everyone brings their own

Or uses the empty cardboard boxes they stack by the checkout isle.

[Francesca9]

87. You cannot just bring any bag

It would have to be a state approved grocery bag.

[Nihil]

88. You still haven't supported that opinion yet.

There's nothing in the OP to support your claim and none of your
posts of it in this thread have provided anything other than your
opinion on the point.

I'd be interested in reading the criteria for a "state approved grocery bag".

[slackmaster]

27. I like the disposable bags because they are sanitary, and wouldn't mind paying for them

I think 5 cents is reasonable.

[NickB79]

33. Considering the ecological impact, I doubt 5 cents per bag is reasonable

In the same way that gas would cost $6/gallon if we factored in the true environmental and social impact of climate change and fighting wars over it.

[slackmaster]

35. Please show your work

Let's see the numbers.

[NickB79]

37. For the true cost of gasoline? OK

fficial&client=firefox-a" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/search?q=true+cost+of+gasoline&ie...

Numerous reports listing the true cost of gas anywhere from $5-$15/gallon when you factor in environmental and military costs of securing oil supplies.

[slackmaster]

38. Actually, I meant for the plastic bags

If you can.

If you are just making a SWAG, that's OK too. I was just wondering if your response was based on actual data.

[NickB79]

70. Ah, ok. No, my plastic bag comment was just SWAG.

[Karenina]

29. Mankind is too stupid to live...

[LanternWaste]

31. I imagine that as long as convenience is a higher priority...

I imagine that as long as personal convenience is a higher priority than responsible stewardship of the planet, this type of one-step-forward-two-steps-back activity will continue.

[The2ndWheel]

34. When hasn't convenience been the priority?

I'm not even talking about plastic bags. Hell even our self appointed stewardship of the planet is done for our convenience.

[prolesunited]

36. Job killer. How about planet killer?

I've been using reusable bags for quite some time in the Midwest. For the longest time, it just seemed to confuse store personnel. However, they have become more popular here and more are using them. Still, I would say it's only about 25%. Franky, I like them better. Mine hold more and never tear.

[Atlatl]

39. The Books-A-Million that I go to weekly...

always asks if I need a bag and I always decline. The WalMarts on the other hand will give you 4 bags for 5 or 6 items, at least though they do have the boxes to recycle them by the front door.

[Dappleganger]

48. We do the same.

The kids gave me a nice purse/backpack/sling for mother's day and I use that quite often. It can actually fit quite a bit (we discovered this doing back to school shopping).

[Tx4obama]

49. My little dog has used 3,000+ plastic grocery bags over the past 8 years

It would be a lot more eco-friendly if it was legal for little dogs to just be able to poop in the grass and forget about it
Here in my town the police can stop and give you a ticket if you don't have a bag with you at all times when about and about with your dog - even if the dog doesn't have to do anymore doo-doos for the day.

[defendandprotect]

56. AND ... don't those poop-filled plastic bags get tossed in nearby garbage cans????

Not quite what nature intended --

[Devil_Fish]

72. I disagree. Dog Shit on the ground is disgusting. If you wanted to bring a shovel I support that. NT

[defendandprotect]

79. What I'm suggesting is that the human/dog population are both out of bounds . . ..

I always find it ironic when anyone wants to suggest that animals in the wild

are filthy! It is human life which is frequently diseased and disease spreading --

wallowing in filth and spreading its filth everywhere!

[David__77]

58. I like the plastic, thank you.

If they provide recycling for them in stores, I would bring them in. I do, however, use them for garbage and other purposes around the house, so it isn't simply a matter of "waste." I was horrified by the "reusable" bags I have seen. Perhaps that is selfish.

[slackmaster]

63. I have cats

If stores didn't supply me with light plastic bags, I'd buy them myself to facilitate clean-up of cat messes.

[Codeine]

78. Horrified by reusable bags?

Huh? Why were you horrified?



OMG HORRIFYING!!