Posted on 06/27/2010 12:14:26 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Paper or plastic? Soon the answer may be neither. California would become the first state to ban grocery, liquor and drug stores from providing free paper or plastic bags under legislation pushed by Democrats and supported by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The goal is to fight litter and lighten the load on landfills by getting shoppers to use reusable fabric bags. Those who don't could buy paper bags for a nickel or more.
"I think the proliferation of plastic bags is unnecessary, and it's a pollutant, an urban tumbleweed," Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica, said of the lightweight bags that can litter yards and clog waterways. Californians use about 19 billion plastic bags per year, about 552 bags apiece, according to a legislative committee analysis of Brownley's proposal, Assembly Bill 1998. Tim Shestek of the American Chemistry Council said the plastic bag industry would rather pay to bolster recycling programs than ban plastic bags. He said that with California's economy struggling, it makes no sense to jeopardize about 500 plastic-bag manufacturing jobs and to promote paper bags that produce more greenhouse gas during their life cycle than plastic bags do. "We frankly think this is a dangerous precedent for the state to be setting," Shestek said.
The crackdown on disposable bags would cost an estimated $1.5 million the first year and $1 million annually to launch, administer and Advertisement
enforce, payable from fees on makers of reusable bags. AB 1998 was approved by the Assembly this month on a party-line vote, 42-27, with Republicans opposed; it is pending in the Senate. Schwarzenegger praised the bill when it cleared the lower house, calling it "a great victory for our environment."
Shoppers outside a West Sacramento Raley's grocery store had mixed feelings.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Reusable Grocery Bags Crawling with Bacteria, Including E. Coli
Is there nothing the democrats won’t try to regulate?
************************
Nope. This is the ‘total’ in ‘totalitarian’.
I remember the massive drive to get rid of paper bags by the enviro nuts.
I drive by the farms out here in the spring, after the snow is gone, and they are just littered to death with the plastic bags that have collected from wind blowing, then they get wet and tend to stick to the fields or whatever else they can.
And, I think it was legislated that grocery stores go to plastic, at least here in Illinois.
Go down the trails by our Fox River, and they are also totally wrecked by the plastic bags, except where gub’mint workers are hired to clean them up. Some areas the BSA picks them up, but not “officially”. They would probably get sued by some union for doing so, so they have to sneak around to clean up the bags for the most part.
Also, I hate plastic bags because your groceries get smashed. Our old grocer trained the paper bag boys (yeah they were all school boys, girls did the registers) to pack them the right way, hard stuff on bottom, softies on top, and the bags were as square as could be (double bagged free of charge). Now if you ask for paper, they just jam it all in there however it fits. Still not as bad as plastic, but no one can pack a bag anymore, so the wife and I have been shopping at Aldi, taking our own baskets and packing them ourselves, and saving 200 bucks for the privilege of having an adult with ADD smash our foodstuffs.
sorry I got sidetracked.... point is, they legislated plastic bags, and the consequences of it has been horrible. Modern day parable of the consequences of legislation.
Here in Norway where I currently work, you have to pay for plastic grocery bags. So people bring their own and often times cloth like you can buy at Walmart.
I have been conscious of it now and amazed at how many bags they use at Wal mart when they bag your groceries. It is the buyer that pays the cost of all those bags. Bringing your own reusable bags to the grocery store is not the end of the world. It will reduce pollution, and the use of plastics.
Also if people had to put a couple of quarters to use a shopping cart they would return them to the places they should be instead of leaving them all over the parking lot.
Change is not always that bad.
The Church of Gaia requires a donation for Mother Earth to cleanse the item and restore balance and harmony, thereby also cleansing you of your guilt, and restoring peace and harmony in your life. It is a true symbiosis and convergence of the spiritual and material. Only then can true wisdom be attained. It is therefore desireable to seek this enlightenment, even through imposition, for the species is more important than the individual.
Admit your guilt and submit unto Gaia, or perish under the weight of our taxes...
Change that confuses the symptom for the cause is always bad.
There’s a difference between a store deciding to charge it’s customers for bags and the government forcing them to make those charges.
It’s not the grocery store owners and managers that are passing this insane bill. Stores will suffer too under this new law. Why would you jerk the grocery store around b/c of what California’s legislature is doing? How very short sighted of you and completely nonproductive.
I never just throw them out. I use them for all kinds of things, including trash.
If you asked most people, I’d be sure that at least a third of the bags have a secondary life.
Limousine liberals that doesn’t buy their own groceries force us how to shop.
I got through oddles of those plastic bags at my garage sales and they are good to put garbage in....but the cloth bags are nice, and hold more stuff. I even have one insulated for frozen food....
I might take a road trip to kali and sell Wal*Mart bags out of the back of my car!
Goverment IDIOTS. People will just bring their own paper or plastic bags.. Seems all politicians are morons....
A State that is bankrupt plans to spend millions of dollars to force citizens to use fabric grocery bags???
Why han’t the Second American Revolution started yet?
By this time next year, the California legislature will introduce a bill subsidizing reusable totes for the ‘less fortunate” and “underserved”.
Meanwhile, drowning in an ocean of scarlet red ink, crippling hoardes of illegal invaders, worthless overpaid civil servants, and throngs of welfare junkies, Calfornia Legislators no longer as “Paper or Plastic?” Instead, “Give us your cash and we’ll give you what we think you need.”
Don’t forget illegals!!!
Come to California for our lax laws, jobs American’s won’t do and free grocery bags!!!
Most grocery stores in the US now sell their own fabric bags as do other types of stores including some upscale department stores that are pushing their own bags. The Bloomies and Nordstrom’s bags are hugely popular where I live and you do see people using fabric bags for their shopping trips.
There is a huge difference between offering fabric bags to a consumer as an option to traditional packaging and forcing me to subsidize those on food stamps for their bags while charging me if I prefer to use plastic/paper.
You may have noticed that many of us talk about how we use grocery bags for other uses including recycling. This bill is not about change as you seem to think it is; the bill is nothing more then Nanny Statism from a State that is close to bankruptcy and should be dealing with the real issues affecting the State instead of worrying what bag a person uses when they grocery shop.
What did you expect.
Arnold is a RINO married to a RAT.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.