Posted on 06/08/2009 8:52:50 PM PDT by Crazieman
WASHINGTON — Single-use plastic bags, a staple of American life, have got to go, the United Nations' top environmental official said Monday.
Although recycling bags is on the rise in the United States, an estimated 90 billion thin bags a year, most used to handle produce and groceries, go unrecycled. They were the second most common form of litter after cigarette butts at the 2008 International Coastal Cleanup Day sponsored by the Ocean Conservancy, a marine environmental group.
"Single use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme. His office advises U.N. member states on environmental policies.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
It all makes sense. The UN, in 1996 produced their ‘biodiversity assessment’ which supported their argument that a few billion people have to die to make the planet ‘sustainable’.
Since the ‘green’ cloth grocery bags people carry their food in harbor any number of harmful germs and bacteria, by banning plastic bags globally, they’ll open up the vulnerable populations to all kinds of disease and disablement.
You couple that with the UN codex alimentarius which as lowered standards of food sanitation and safety globally (it’s why we get poison chinese products in American grocery stores) they’ll apparently get their wish sooner rather than later. They’re evil in their genius.
No one cares what the UN thinks? Just about every politician in every federal, state or local office does. Why even the mayors of little cities get invited to UN conferences so they can go back to their towns and push UN style global socialism onto the unenlightened public.
I micturate on the UN, but I will never paeon them..
Ban plastic shopping bags and I’m gonna have to buy plastic garbage bags to replace them.
Does your local government have ‘green’ policies? Are you in an area where there are ‘traffic calming’ engineers ‘landscaping’ your streets? Are you near a bus or train terminal with ‘smart growth’ housing? Does your local high school have a ‘model UN’? Are there people in your town who ‘strike’, agitate for ‘low cost housing’ or ‘universal healthcare’? If so you might be under the influence of the UN LOL!
Okay, what am I supposed to clean my cat’s sh!tbox out with?
I’m not criticizing but, one might wonder if U.N. chief realizes that plastic shopping bags are the toilets of choice in African townships. The “duty” goes into the plastic bag, which once filled to the appropriate level is flung far and wide. So, prier to banning plastic bags the U.N. might lay down some sewer pipes, provide running water and toilets to those folks.
Hey! Some of here sometimes eat while we read/post!
If a study showed that the UN had a negative effect on the environment, would it self-destruct?
Some garbage bag manufacturers have been adding cornstarch to the plastic. I have seen some of these bags discarded at illegal dump sites in the woods. Over time they deteriorate into smaller and smaller flakes.
[I, for one, actually LIKE paper.]
I always used brown paper bags to ripen avocados but I can’t find them anymore.
So use them twice. Save the bags from the store, and use 'em in the car small trash stuff. Use 'em in the kitchen while cooking, to hold scraps and empty meat containers.
Plastic that breaks down in salt water would be a technical fix. However, many people don't realize the impact on sea animals when they let go of a plastic bag on a windy sea shore or on a boat. Perhaps more public education would be a greater benefit than losing the convenience of plastic bags.
Cloth bags need to be washed after every use for sanitation purposes. By its nature, cloth absorbs things it comes in contact with. Cloth bags will become bacteria carriers rather than bacteria barriers. Add the cost of washing and drying these bags.
Cloth bags at the check out stand are awkward for checkers to unfold and deploy for holding groceries. This slows down the check out procedure which is loss of money for the market. They are made cheaply with minimal stitching. As these cloth bags age, like anything made of cloth, they will fail, causing groceries to spew out all around the checking area.
Cloth bags do not protect their contents from the rain, which is a necessity when running a cart load of groceries through a rainy parking lot.
Finally, what does one do when they run out of cloth bags at the check out stand? You have to stop, get more cloth bags and these get added to the cost of your purchase. This also delays the checkout process, which is more added cost to the market.
I get confused these days...
Maybe it is just the United Nations of ObamaNUTS...
Maybe it is just the NUTTY Nations assembly...
Really? How?
Originally, single use plastic bags came about because they were cheaper than single use paper bags. Single use paper bags came about so that fluids from meat products would not continuously contaminate the vegetables that the shopper bought. Using cloth bags to carry this week’s groceries that would be in contact with last week’s fluids was unhealthy.
Doing away with single use bags is the quickest way to a trip to the hospital for a case of salmonella or e-coli.
The whack-jobs proposing this are the very same ones who won’t immunize their children because of paranoia over side effects.
Myth.
Series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain
Who made them the boss?
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