Editorial: Plastic bag ban hurts many

The Boston Herald ^ | 04-07-2018 | Herald Staff

[calvincaspian]

In recent weeks, more towns have joined the more than 60 Massachusetts communities that have municipal taxes or bans on single-use plastic shopping bags. On Beacon Hill, a plastic bag ban bill is slowly working its way through the legislative process.

Advocates of the bans point to multitudes of the discarded bags strewn about on city streets, in trees, storm drains and in the oceans, where they threaten fish and birds. They talk about the bags being made from dirty crude oil.

Progressive elected officials in cities and towns will always vote for laws and ordinances that provide the euphoric fix a symbolic, green gesture will provide. We see the same true believers in grocery stores beaming with self-satisfaction when handing their cloth bags over to the cashier.

[ealgeone]

You mean the Lefties bathe??

[abclily]

One of the main signs of intelligence is the ability to foresee the consequences of one’s actions.

[EC Washington]

A friend of mine runs a small paper plant that makes grocery bags - a few years ago they almost went out of business - now with the plastic bag ban spreading, he can’t keep up with the new business.

[HamiltonJay]

You are joking right? I use paper bags every week and they carry my groceries just fine, like they have for 40+ years.

Plastics while providing great benefits are indeed causing serious long term problems because they are not being disposed of properly. The compounds are find their way into the food chain and are causing all sorts of metabolic disorders.

I have no doubt in my mind when all is said and done, we are going to find a lot of problems of modern health will be traced back to chemicals leached from plastics being ingested.

The editorial in question is a stupid hit piece of nonsense, it tries to frame the argument as though the only options for people are reusable canvas bags or plastic.... and that’s not true at all. Paper bags predate plastic and are completely renewable, natural and biodegradable.

Personally I would never use a reusable bag for groceries, that’s just asking for trouble, but to frame the discussion as the only options are plastic or reusable is literally a garbage argument.

[mythenjoseph]

I am of the opinion that paper bags are far superior to the plastic shite....this is one of the few things the moonbats in Massachusetts (where I was raised) have right...the paper mills in Maine have been falling/closing and destroying towns and lives...paper products of any type need to be pushed . They degrade unlike the OIL BASED plastic bags....the pellets that are melted at the beginning of the process are from OIL...save the OIL for gasoline and all the other beneficial needs . Just my opinion.

[abclily]

I have family members in the logging business. What with the bad publicity against the paper bag industry, schools using fewer and fewer paper books, and newspapers going out of business, the logging industry has felt decreasing demand for wood.

Trees are a cash crop. What’s next...save the corn?

[fruser1]

This is going to go like playground safety. They start with “the most dangerous” piece of playground equipment or activity and ban it (like that thing that is just a platform that spins).

Once gone, what was the “second most dangerous” is now the first and out comes another ban, and so on.

So, if the most offensive piece of trash is the plastic bag, once gone something else will be the next, whatever that is.

Instead of dealing with the trash people generate, the gov wants to control what trash people can generate. Check your local statutes. I used to live in Mont Co MD. They had a statute to reduce trash by some onerous number, like 20% year over year.

They knew they couldn’t enforce that, but that’s the goal.

The concept is simple, gov wants to continue to tax you but reduce what it actually spends, outside of the lavish combination of salary and benefits for its employees.

Same type of idea appears in means testing ideas for social security. If enacted you will ultimately find that SS still costs hundreds of billions to run, but only pay one beneficiary.

[Alberta's Child]

Stories like your post make me wonder if the environmentalists pushing these plastic bag bans are getting financial support from the logging and paper manufacturing industries.

[softengine]

Well said. I despise these plastic bags but recognize that there are jobs associated with the manufacture of them, and right now, we need jobs.

That said, I remember the old days when we had paper bags that had many uses after unloading the groceries, from being cut out to make a book cover, to lining the flower beds to prevent weeds from growing in. I still ask for them despite getting annoyed looks from the bagger.

[SomeCallMeTim]

I don’t really care what kind of container my Big Mac comes in. But for drinks? Nothing beats good old styrofoam. I despise polypropylene cups and wax paper cups are almost as bad. Styrofoam is awesome! It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold and doesn’t “sweat” all over my keyboard.

I avoid any good place that won’t use styrofoam.

[GailA]

Those reusable bags are made of plastic too. I make my own as they are stronger; and as there is no place to recycle the store ones. Why do you need to bag Milk, bottles of Laundry soap they have handles, and break those cheap plastic bags unless they are doubled. Only good use for them is to put smelly stuff from food prep or a dirty diaper in.

[EdnaMode]

Plastic bags are great for scooping cat litter.

[Kiss7]

Suffolk County LI charges a nickel for plastic or paper. Neighboring Nassau does not...but I read they are thinking about it. I shop in both counties.

I become incensed whenever I shop in Suffolk. I tend to limit my purchases bc now it becomes annoying to pay the nickel. I see people leaving stores holding bread and cold cuts in their arms. Shopping for Easter dinner added a dollar plus to my bill. Sounds trivial, but it is like an added tax, and btw no one yet even knows where all these nickels are going.

Why there isn’t an uproar perplexes me.

[daniel1212]

paper is great, but bags made today are too weak to be dependable when carrying from store to way out in the parking lot, and then from car to kitchen. They tear too easily. Hence plastic.

Correct, plus as a recycler said, the plastic bags are a good recycling product, but its when they get mixed with everything else - meaning people throw them in the recycle bin - then they are a problem.

[Fiji Hill]

In California, voters passed a statewide bag ban in 2016. You can still get bags, but they now cost a dime. I predic that bag fees will eventually go up, as do bridge tolls.

[Chode]

it takes SEVEN trucks to carry the same number of paper bags as one truckload of plastic bags

[JoeFromSidney]

I re-us plastic grocery bags when I clean the cats litter box. The bags, and the cat poo, end up in the landfill.

[Wonder Warthog]

"They degrade unlike the OIL BASED plastic bags...."

Two memes wrong with this statement....1) with exposure to sunlight, plastic bags degrade just fine, and 2) plastic bags are NOT "oil based", they are made using natural gas.

Plastics do NOT decompose in landfills, but then neither does paper.

[jonrick46]

The plastic bag presents an ideal place to harbor . . . fingerprints.

[jonrick46]

According to the article, plastic bags are made from natural gas. By the way, natural gas is used to manufacture the edible collagen casings for wieners and sausage.