text:
Aside from the bad environmental news you may have heard about the items
and here, you
may also have heard good things (from the government and from TV "news" programs) about
things that aren't necessarily harmless, beneficial, feasible or affordable, such as
the items listed here.
One of those supposedly good ideas was ethanol,
which turned out to be nothing more than a pork barrel spending item that made several different foods more
expensive, made gasoline less powerful, and didn't help the environment at all.
Windmills were supposedly going to produce electricity at no cost,
but they turned out to be a bad idea for a number of reasons: They kill birds and bats, including a lot of federally-protected
birds (that apparently aren't protected around windmills!), they make constant noise, they interfere with radar sites,
and -- the biggest surprise of all -- they only provide power when the wind is blowing! Who knew that would happen?
Somewhere around here, there are two pages about compact
fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs, a real environmental boondoggle, and an outstanding
example of what this page is all about.
The second of those two pages shows a handy
cost analysis: Ordinary incandescent bulbs are much more economical. But
unfortunately the ordinary incandescent light bulb is being phased out, and the CFLs
will be mandatory soon, along with 1.6 gallon toilets.
Left-wing liberal anti-capitalist environmentalists have a steady stream of brilliant ideas that make their way into state
and federal law, and in most cases, they solve problems we don't have and each one is an affront to individual liberty.
The recent fad of banning plastic bags is just another bad idea in the series.
For decades, we took groceries home in big paper bags, and then for a few years in the 1990's we were given a choice of paper or plastic,
and after that, the paper bags disappeared. Paper bags were easily recyclable, just like plastic, and we now realize that paper bags
don't blow away and get snagged in treetops and fences (or washed into the lakes) all over the state, as flimsy plastic bags tend
to do. Yes, paper bags are made from trees, but plastic bags are made from petroleum. And the nice thing about trees
is that after you chop them down, they grow back.
Leftists are constantly making the erroneous claim that "we live in a democracy", yet they never put decisions like this on a ballot
and let the voters decide. Notice, if you will, that small individual freedoms — the ability to choose simple things
like "paper or plastic" — disappear first in the areas of our country where liberals predominate.
Plastic straws from Dallas and plastic bags from Chicago are not polluting the oceans. Only about one percent of
plastics in the ocean are from the United States. 60 percent of the plastic trash flowing into the sea originates from
China, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, and
drops plans to make bricks from recycled plastic bottles. Lego has abandoned plans to
make its famous bricks from recycled plastic bottles, saying that the manufacturing process would
be more polluting than the current production of oil-based bricks. Lego made the
decision — first reported by the Financial Times Sunday — after it spent
years testing recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as a more climate-friendly alternative to
the acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) it uses in the majority of its toys. The toymaker
has pledged to use only sustainable materials in its products by 2032 and, two years ago, unveiled
a prototype brick made from recycled PET. The plastic was sourced from bottles that are typically
used for water or soda. Since then, however, Lego has found that making bricks from the
recycled material would require investing in new equipment and involve more steps, which would
ultimately lead to more planet-heating pollution than the status quo, a company spokesperson told
The Editor says...
One Lego factory isn't going to have any measurable impact on the atmosphere, or the temperature, or
the weather. And even if it does, Legos might be worth it.
to clear plastic produce bags and fresh vegetables. Remember clear plastic bags,
their rolls hanging above the produce so you could grab a handful of green beans or a dozen
limes? Maybe you're lucky and live somewhere they're still in use. I am not so lucky,
and I miss those ubiquitous clear rectangles for a lot of reasons. Alas, they are being
Jr says he would ban fracking in 10-point plan to tackle plastics pollution.
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., while announcing his 10-point plan to
end the plastics pollution crisis, said he would ban fracking. The process of fracking
involves high pressure injections of liquid into underground rocks and layers to open fissures and
extract oil or gas. The United Nations says each year, 19-23 million tons of plastic
waste leaks into waterways, polluting rivers, seas, and lakes.
Governor Unveils Bold Plan to Save the World by Banning Water Bottles. Once again,
another progressive politician has proposed a policy that might sound good on the surface but will
probably do more harm than good. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has put forth an idea
to protect the environment by doing away with single-use plastic bottles. The governor argues
that this move will do wonders for reducing damage to the environment and promoting sustainable
practices. However, this solution might not be all that it seems.
of 'Forever Chemicals' in Paper Straws Highlights the Inanity of Plastic Straw Bans.
A new study published yesterday by Belgian researchers in the journal Food Additives &
Contaminants found that paper straws contained higher concentrations of poly- and
perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — more commonly known as "forever chemicals" because of
how long they take to break down in nature — than plastic and steel straws. PFAS
are frequently used in consumer products and industrial processes, given their water- and
fire-resistant properties. Their use is also controversial given that they can be toxic at
high concentrations, and even small concentrations can accumulate in bodies and natural
environments over time. Dozens of states have already passed laws to restrict some PFAS.
Similar, unsuccessful efforts have been introduced in Congress. The European Union has also
considered banning them. These efforts have done little to keep forever chemicals out of
paper straws, however.
Straws Require More Energy and Carbon Emissions to Make Than Plastic. I've been doing
some day trips that land me in or near Portsmouth, New Hampshire's mecca for poorly thought-out
anti-plastic policy. From 'shopping bags' to paperboard containers, their war on plastic is
relentless, even when those replacements are worse for the environment. We've debunked the
ocean plastic myth, and even drinking straws declared a scourge based on land and sea, with the
appropriate response from progressive posers. Since then, paper straws have continued to make
their way into restaurants and the mouths of their patrons without much pushback. I've seen
my fair share around Portsmouth, and I always have the same thought. How can this engineered
paper tube use less energy or emit less carbon? The answer is it can't. What's worse,
research out of Europe, following up on research in the US, suggests a majority of them could leach
forever chemicals into people using them.
expect the greens' 1,600 percent mistake on ocean plastic to get them to change course.
For climate warriors and enviro-radicals, the science (their science, anyway) is always
"settled." That is, until it isn't. The latest backtrack? Turns out there's
less plastic in the oceans than claimed. Far less. Per a new study in the journal
Nature Geoscience, just 500,000 metric tons of plastic end up in the world's oceans each
year, not the 8 million tons previously bewailed. That's an overestimation of
1,600%! Meanwhile, worries about ocean plastic have fueled restrictions on the use of a
range of products — shopping bags, utensils, straws — no matter the
inconveniences or side effects.
York will now fine restaurants for including a common takeout add-on in their to-go meals.
In an effort to reduce plastic use, New York will start fining restaurants and third-party delivery
services that provide disposable utensils, soy sauce packets, and similar items without the
customer requesting them. In late June, New York City announced plans to implement its new
"Skip the Stuff" bill, which aims to reduce plastic use by fining restaurants and delivery services
handing out unsolicited plastic items like ketchup and cutlery. Food vendors and delivery
services have a moment to adapt. Actual fines won't start being handed out until July of
2024, and until then, violators will only receive warnings, Bloomberg reports.
Thought, Just Throw Plastic Away. Even Greenpeace has finally acknowledged the truth:
recycling plastic makes no sense. This has been obvious for decades to anyone who
crunched the numbers, but the fantasy of recycling plastic proved irresistible to generations of
environmentalists and politicians. They preached it to children, mandated it for adults, and
bludgeoned municipalities and virtue-signaling corporations into wasting vast sums —
probably hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide — on an enterprise that has been
harmful to the environment as well as to humanity. Now Greenpeace has seen the light, or at
least a glimmer of rationality. The group has issued a report accompanied by a press release
headlined, "Plastic Recycling Is A Dead-End Street — Year After Year, Plastic Recycling
Declines Even as Plastic Waste Increases." The group's overall policy remains delusional —
the report proposes a far more harmful alternative to recycling — but it's nonetheless
encouraging to see environmentalists put aside their obsessions long enough to contemplate reality.
This is not off-topic: July
4 Fireworks Canceled Due to Climate Change Activists. Woke Los Angeles sacrificed the
celebration of the Fourth of July this year on the altar of climate change gods by canceling
several fireworks on the birthday of the American nation because of new environmental
regulations. As of May 25, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board started
forcing all fireworks vendors to obtain a permit for their public displays and use biodegradable
plastics after adopting a countywide order. The Washington Examiner reported that the
decision was made to curb ocean pollution that was caused by plastic debris following all fireworks
shows. Even though most shows in the area will obtain their permits, at least five shows will
be canceled over the holiday weekend because one firework company — Pyro Spectaculars by
Souza — didn't bow down to the climate change mob by refusing to comply with the new
rules over its employees' safety concerns.
in the ocean is un-American; China is the big offender. Steve Moore's "Committee to
Unleash Prosperity" often shares charts and graphs that graphically illustrate otherwise complex
arguments, a simple picture often being worth a thousand words. One especially impressive bar
chart calls attention to a thorough study, published in the journal "Environmental Science,"
analyzing plastic debris in the world's oceans to find out how it got there. It is an
eye-opener for anti-plastic crusaders everywhere. The study was led by Christian Schmidt, a
hydrogeologist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany and has been cited in
more than 650 other articles and studies, nearly all of which confirm the findings. Here is
the short version — the massive amount of plastic debris floating in the world's oceans
is not dumped from ships, but is carried there from 10 major rivers. Virtually all of
it. The study found that these 10 rivers transport up to 95% of the global plastic "load"
into the oceans. None of them are in the U.S. In fact, statistically speaking, the percentage
of the world's plastic debris found in oceans that comes from the U.S. is precisely zero.
Yangtze deposits 55% of all river marine plastic pollution. Rivers deposit
2.75 million metric tonnes of plastic into the seas each year, with just ten rivers
contributing up to 95% of the world's total waste. Five of these rivers —
including the Yellow River, Hai He River, Pearl River and the Amur River — flow through
China. However, the Yangtze, the third longest river in the world, is by far the worst
offender. Of the 2.75 million metric tonnes of plastic waste deposited into the ocean by
rivers each year, 1.5 million, or 55%, flows out of the Yangtze. This figure is
according to a study led by Christian Schmidt, a hydrogeologist at the Helmholtz-Centre for
Environmental Research, which was recently published in the Environmental Science & Technology
journal. The study looked at data on 79 sampling sites along 57 rivers.
10 rivers carry 90% of plastic polluting the oceans. Just 10 rivers are carrying 90%
of the plastic entering the oceans, a study has found. Two of them are in Africa — the Nile
and the Niger — while the others are in Asia: the Indus, Ganges, Amur, Mekong, Pearl, Hai he,
Yellow and Yangtze. As well as being some of the world's longest rivers, they have big
populations alongside them. The Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig,
Germany, also said they tend to be in countries where waste control could be better.
Ten rivers in Asia and Africa
cause up to 95% of ocean plastic pollution. A 2017 study published in Environmental
Science & Technology found that ten rivers are responsible for up to 95% of the plastic dumped into oceans.
[#4] Hai He
A 2010 study found that China, India, and the Phillippines account for 5.57 million metric
tons of plastic dumped into oceans. That same year, the United States was responsible for
0.11 million metric tons of plastic dumped into oceans.
Farewell to straws?
Two of the biggest sellers of drinks normally consumed with straws are testing out plastic lids that have no hole for a
straw. [...] Both companies implicitly acknowledge that paper straws are worse than useless. They get wet and
collapse when suction is applied, which aggravates customers more than a complete absence of straws (and straw holes)
would. This looming ban on all straws is motivated by a study conducted by a nine-year-old. Purportedly,
marine life is threatened by plastic straws that are discarded into the oceans. But a huge percentage of the
plastic waste in oceans comes from a few major rivers in Asia. I think that US plastic straws end up in landfill
nearly always. Cute little sea creatures need no protecting from my plastic straws.
Eating Bacteria Found By Japanese Scientists. Scientists in Japan have discovered a new species of
bacteria that can digest and breakdown the common plastic known as PET or polyethylene terephthalate. PET is
considered to be a major environmental hazard because it is highly resistant to breakdown[.] [...] Previously, the only
species found to break down PET were rare fungi. Now, scientists in Japan have discovered bacteria that can
biodegrade this hardy plastic. "The bacterium is the first strain having a potential to degrade PET completely
into carbon dioxide and water," said study co-author Kohei Oda, an applied microbiologist at the Kyoto Institute of
Technology in Japan. The researchers collected 250 samples of PET debris from soil and wastewater from a
plastic-bottle-recycling site. They scanned these samples for bacteria that could eat PET.
Is a Dead-End Street. Many cities have mandated recycling. Recycling doesn't save money, it costs
money. If it saved money, a mandate wouldn't be necessary. The recycled material is sold on the market, but
certainly income from such sales doesn't cover expenses. The reason for recycling is about "saving the planet."
Probably most of those cities mandating recycling include plastics. Remember hearing in the news a few years ago
that China, which recycled most of the world's plastic, wasn't going to do it anymore? What is happening to all
that garbage material collected? It turns out that plastics can't be recycled, at least in a manner that makes any
sense, economic or otherwise.
gives up on recycling plastic. Recycling almost everything is an uneconomic scam, but that hasn't stopped
many localities from enforcing recycling mandates, and employing lots of people to sort through garbage and spend large
sums on trying to find another use for the materials. At great expense to taxpayers. But finally, Greenpeace
has realized that recycling plastic makes no sense.
recycling [is] a "failed concept," study says, with only 5% recycled in U.S. last year as production
rises. Plastic recycling rates are declining even as production shoots up, according to a Greenpeace USA
report out Monday that blasted industry claims of creating an efficient, circular economy as "fiction." Titled
"Circular Claims Fall Flat Again," the study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by U.S. households
in 2021, only 2.4 million tons were recycled, or around five percent. After peaking in 2014 at 10 percent, the
trend has been decreasing, especially since China stopped accepting the West's plastic waste in 2018. Virgin
production — of non-recycled plastic, that is — meanwhile is rapidly rising as the petrochemical
industry expands, lowering costs.
Jersey banned plastic bags. So, people are stealing grocery store shopping baskets. Grocery store
customers are walking off with those plastic hand baskets you find in the supermarket, an apparent consequence of New
Jersey's plastic bag ban that went into effect this spring. "They are just disappearing," said Louis Scaduto Jr.,
chief executive officer of Middletown-based Food Circus Super Markets, which owns four Super Foodtown stores in Monmouth
County. "I may actually have to just do away with them soon, can't afford to keep replacing them," Scaduto wrote
in a text message. It's not just happening at Super Foodtown. Stop & Shop in Long Branch didn't have any
hand baskets during a recent visit. ShopRite in Freehold Township didn't have any either.
Questions the Climate Police
Won't Answer. Why do the greenies keep pushing plastics recycling when making new plastic is cheaper, and
recycling plastic produces 55 times more carbon emissions than sticking it in a landfill?
Recycling Doesn't Work and Will Never Work. Americans support recycling. We do too. But although
some materials can be effectively recycled and safely made from recycled content, plastics cannot. Plastic recycling
does not work and will never work. The United States in 2021 had a dismal recycling rate of about 5 percent for
post-consumer plastic waste, down from a high of 9.5 percent in 2014, when the U.S. exported millions of tons of plastic
waste to China and counted it as recycled — even though much of it wasn't. Recycling in general can be an
effective way to reclaim natural material resources. The U.S.'s high recycling rate of paper, 68 percent, proves this
point. The problem with recycling plastic lies not with the concept or process but with the material itself.
A Little Truth
About Microplastics. While most Californians sleep at night, there must be a group somewhere that stays up
thinking of something else to ban. How else to explain the unrelenting march of prohibitions, from single-use plastic
bags — directly approved by voters — to plastic straws, to gasoline-powered lawn equipment and
eventually the sale of new automobiles that burn the same fossil fuel? The sleepless evenings have kept the state's war
on plastics burning hot. A campaign to at least limit the volume of microplastics — beads smaller than
5 millimeters across produced by the breakdown of plastic products — that end up in the sea is catching fire.
According to the Los Angeles Times: "California aims to sharply limit the spiraling scourge of microplastics in the
ocean, while urging more study of this threat to fish, marine mammals and potentially to humans, under a plan a state panel
approved" on Feb. 23.
Jersey Dept of Environmental Police, Set up Snitch Line to Report Contraband Plastic and Styrofoam Users.
Comrades, starting today [5/4/2022] it is illegal in New Jersey to have plastic or paper bags in stores for shoppers.
Additionally, restaurants, cafeterias and food trucks are forbidden to serve take-out food in Styrofoam-like products.
Also, all retailers must stop selling polystyrene foam products like plates and cups. Drinking straws require a permit
for restricted distribution as monitored by the Department of Health. To ensure legal compliance within the Garden
State, officials in New Jersey have established a snitch hotline for citizens to call the Dept of Environmental Police (DEP)
and report dissident violators, while the state ministry of citizen compliance have created a "WARN DEP" app to facilitate
easier snitching on your neighbors if you spot them using contraband containers.
thefts leave tracks littered with pilfered packages. The scene was a stretch of railroad tracks in Lincoln
Heights on Saturday: A blizzard of torn plastic wrappers, cardboard boxes and paper packaging attesting to a wave of
rail car thievery that officials say has been on the rise in recent months. Several scavengers picked through the
debris, hoping to find electronics, clothes or whatever valuables thieves left behind. "Everything comes on the
train — cellphones, Louis Vuitton purses, designer clothes, toys, lawnmowers, power equipment, power tools," said
a 37-year-old man who declined to give his name. He said he comes to the tracks regularly and once found a Louis
Vuitton purse and a robotic arm worth five figures: "We find things here and there, make some money off of it."
The Editor says...
California is the state that outlawed plastic straws and single-use bags because they might end up in the ocean, but
their soft-on-crime politics allow large mobs of people to commit train robberies and throw plastic packaging everywhere. Many
video clips accompanying news stories about these train robberies show plastic and paper littering railroad tracks.
'The Plastics Paradox,'
or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bag. Plastics account for only 13 percent of all waste,
according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, far less than paper or cardboard. You may have heard horror
stories about the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," supposedly a giant, floating blob of marine debris that is assumed to be
composed of bottles and bags and other plastic detritus from terra firma. Most of the materials are, in fact, discarded
fishing nets and other forms of waste from fishing boats, [Chris] DeArmitt explains. Although DeArmitt concedes this is
still a major problem, he notes the solution is not to keep everybody from using plastic but instead to enact policies and
laws that give fishermen incentives to bring their trash with them back to dry land. Most people take it as a
self-evident truth that plastics take around 1,000 years to degrade, but DeArmitt notes this is extremely unlikely, because
plastics are rather unstable. In an experiment where a standard polyethylene bag was left outdoors, it disintegrated
into pieces after just nine months. In reality, DeArmitt notes, standard plastics "degrade outdoors in a few years, or
even sooner, unless they are stabilized." The widespread concern about plastics is a result of rampant misinformation,
Yet Another Man-made
Crisis. [Scroll down] Almost all of the created-crisis-creating plastic pollution in the oceans is so
small that you cannot see it. This admission aligns well with my personal experience. Like Nils-Axel Mörner,
I am a dedicated fan of the "Oh yeah? Let me see for myself"-school of evidence. Until I retired five years ago,
I had spent one half of my adult life living on the sea on boats and ships, both as a professional mariner and as Captain of
my own vessels. I have a lot of sea miles under my belt. To actually see something floating on the surface of the
sea is so very rare that it invariably calls for closer inspection at least by binoculars or at other times by a brief
divergence from one's intended course to "go have a look". Failing to investigate an object large enough to be seen at any
distance was considered negligent by the Captains I have served under and I have followed suit when I was the Captain.
The "garbage patch" is a fraudulent invention — a fantasy.
commission claims retailers [are] violating [California's] plastic bag law. Big retailers are breaking California law and
misleading consumers by selling plastic shopping bags bearing language and symbols that falsely suggest the bags can be
recycled, a state-appointed commission alleged this month. The group has asked California to force retailers to strip
these bags of the ubiquitous "chasing arrows" logo and the words "recycle" and "recyclable," Reuters has learned. If
successful, that move could make the sacks ineligible for sale at checkout counters throughout America's most populous
state. The commission also is taking aim at padded envelopes and packaging materials used for home delivery, and
plastic films on some grocery items.
Angeles bans condiment packets in restaurants to overcome "extreme climate challenges". The city of Los Angeles
has moved to ban restaurants from distributing condiment packets as part of its efforts to fight an imaginary threat called
climate change. Fox Business reported that a new ordinance passed by L.A. officials bans restaurants with 26 employees
or more from giving out packets of ketchup and mustard to customers. Customers must specifically request for the
condiments before restaurants can issue them. The ordinance approved Nov. 15 will apply to all restaurants in the city
by April 2022. Aside from condiment packets, the ban also extends to plastic utensils, napkins, splash sticks and
toothpicks. Erring restaurants will only receive warnings for the first and second violations. For the third and
succeeding violations, they will be fined an administrative penalty of $25 per day — with an annual limit of $300.
According to a Nov. 16 press release, L.A. city council members Paul Krekorian and Paul Koretz were responsible for the
ordinance. "Larger restaurants in L.A. are now officially partners in the effort to address the environmental
catastrophe caused by the disposal of millions of pounds of plastic waste along our beautiful California coastline.
Their compliance is critical as we aggressively counter what has been a major contribution to the climate crisis," Krekorian said.
The Editor says...
[#1] There is no climate crisis. [#2] Let's see the pictures of "millions of pounds of plastic waste along
[the] California coastline. Millions of pounds? Really? [#3] Why are napkins and toothpicks banned?
Because the napkins go straight from the restaurant's trash can to the Indian Ocean. Diners
now have to ask for plastic utensils and napkins in Los Angeles. Customers at Los Angeles restaurants will only
get plastic utensils and napkins if they ask for them, under a new ordinance taking effect Monday that aims to reduce
waste. The rule requires all restaurants with more than 26 employees to remove all single-use plastic utensil
dispensers, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Noted in Passing: Green
Lies Continue. [Scroll down] Here's a more recent story featured on both CNN and FOX News, "A huge
swirling pile of trash in the Pacific Ocean is growing faster than expected and is now three times the size of France...".
Oh really? Three times the size of France? How was this verified? Did someone go out there with a tape
measure? No. Did the International Space Station record footage as it orbited overhead? No. NASA
satellite Imagery? No. US Navy Reconnaissance? No. Google Maps Satellite view? No.
National Geographic Special Report? No. There is NO evidence of this [...] thing. Just drawings,
assertions, phony composites, and scary stories, endlessly repeated. What started as a [deceptive] article written by
Captain Moore has now mushroomed into tales of FIVE Great Garbage Patches.
Billion Disposable Masks Entered Our Oceans In 2020. Following the World Health Organization's formal
declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world quickly mandated the use of face masks in public
spaces. This led to a massive demand shock, prompting factories to begin producing disposable masks at full
capacity. The majority of these masks were produced in China, and in April 2020, the country reported a staggering
daily production figure of 450 million masks. In Ocean Asia's 2020 report, Masks on the Beach, researchers developed a
formula to provide reasonable estimates for the number of disposable masks entering the environment. Given an annual
production figure of 52 billion disposable masks and a loss rate of 3% (the percentage of masks that escape water management
systems), Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu notes that the team concluded that nearly 1.6 billion face masks wound up in our
oceans in 2020. This amounts to approximately 5,500 tons of plastic pollution.
The Editor says...
To put this as politely as I can, (ahem) I find this report very difficult to believe. When you dispose of a face mask,
where do you put it? In the trash, in the back seat of your car, or anywhere in the Wal-Mart parking lot. You don't
throw it in the river. The cities whose residents do throw their garbage in the river are in Asia, Africa, and India.
of plastic polluting our oceans comes from just 10 rivers. Over the last decade we have become increasingly
alarmed at the amount of plastic in our oceans. More than 8 million tons of it ends up in the ocean every year.
If we continue to pollute at this rate, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. But where does all
this plastic waste come from? Most of it is washed into the ocean by rivers. And 90% of it comes from just 10 of
them, according to a study. By analyzing the waste found in the rivers and surrounding landscape, researchers were able
to estimate that just 10 river systems carry 90% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean. Eight of them are in Asia:
the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong; and two in Africa — the Nile and the Niger.
The Editor says...
[#1] None of these rivers are anywhere near North America.
[#2] China and India are the world's worst polluters, not the U.S.
[#3] Banning plastic straws in the U.S. will not change the amount of plastic trash in the ocean.
Plastic Bag Ban Returns After Two-Month Vacation. California's coronavirus pandemic lockdown isn't over.
There was even a partial reversal of the state's reopening on the first day of July when Gov. Gavin Newsom hit the
"dimmer switch." But not much can come between California and its plastic bag ban. After a two-month vacation, it's
back. In late April, Newsom issued an order that suspended the prohibition on the single-use plastic bags that for
decades had become part of an unspoken agreement between customers and retailers. (We've used the word "ban" to describe
California's plastic-bag policy, but, as has been smartly pointed out elsewhere, it's actually an "upgrade" in which
consumers who want bags are forced to buy thicker, heavier bags unless they bring their own reusables.) The temporary
directive was based on concerns that the reusable bags used by many could harbor the virus and spread it.
Republican Claims Proposed Plastics Ban Will Collapse Oil and Gas Industry. A three-year ban on plastics
production in legislation congressional Democrats are pushing will collapse the oil and gas industry, causing major national
economic damage, according to Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio). "There's more than one way to skin a cat, and there's more
than one way to achieve a ban on hydraulic fracturing" Johnson told The Epoch Times on May 24 regarding Secretary of Energy
Jennifer Granholm's recent statement that the Biden administration supports a ban on hydraulic fracking for fossil fuels on
all public lands. She made the statement in response to a question from the Ohio Republican at an Energy Subcommittee
Hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Granholm's statement has prompted confusion because Biden has
previously said he only supports a temporary moratorium on public lands fracking rather than an outright ban with no time limits.
Ordinance Aims To Reduce Use Of Plastic Utensils, Napkins & Straws. In a unanimous vote on Monday night
[5/17/2021], Denver City Council passed a bill aimed at reducing the use of plastic utensils, napkins, straws and other
single-use accessories. The new ordinance changes Denver's Revised Municipal Code to require restaurants and
third-party delivery platforms to only provide the single-use items upon request. The bill does not prevent businesses
from offering the utensils or condiments to customers. Exceptions to the ordinance include self-service stations,
special events, prepackaged items, meals provided as part of a social service, and meals provided to hotel guests.
Under the ordinance, third-party delivery platforms can still use cup lids, spill plugs and trays in order to prevent spills
while delivering food and beverages.
Council votes to severely restrict plastic straw use in restaurants, bars. New York City will continue to
restrict use of plastic straws after the city council passed a new measure restricting their use in restaurants, bars and
markets. The legislation, first introduced by Councilmember Rafael Espinal in 2018, bans the provision of single-use
plastic stirrers and "splash sticks" of any kind, in addition to the limitation of straws. Beginning Nov. 1, places
like restaurants, cafes, bars, grocery stores, delis and food trucks can no longer provide single-use plastic straws unless
they actively request one. In that case, establishments will be required to provide a plastic straw free of charge, no
questions asked. To refuse to provide the plastic straw, or to ask why, could constitute a violation of New York City's
human rights law.
The Editor says...
You MUST ask for a straw. Then, they MUST give it to you. This is what happens in a godless city where nobody has ever heard of the Golden Rule.
ocean plastic exaggeration. There seems to be no end to the absurdities spread by the "Green" movement in
concert with the media. Your patience with their scams may have let you ignore it. Nevertheless, the Great
Pacific Garbage Patch has been well publicized as another of the great environmental tragedies of our time. They,
including CNN, have said it is twice the size of Texas, and that the central Pacific Ocean is completely covered by garbage,
mostly plastics. Few folks could ever see it in person, so it was easy to photoshop entire fake pictures on ther
Internet. And they claim images of ocean debris such as that which existed following the tsunami off the coast of
Fukushima, Japan, in 2011 are actually of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Moore and the Agenda of Fear. Politically motivated climate alarmists are using fear to gain control of human
behavior and environmental resources and undermine free, prosperous societies. [...] The "great Pacific garbage patch,"
mostly plastic and twice the size of Texas, is another photoshopped faux disaster. [Dr. Patrick] Moore writes that,
much like the vilification of carbon energy, the damning of plastic is fallacious. He says plastic is a sterile,
versatile, and useful product that helps protect food from contamination and spoilage. It's no more toxic than
driftwood. Ocean life has adapted to plastic: many marine species live in cocoons of plastic trash; many species lay
eggs on plastic, feeding fish and birds. In fact, research has shown that birds swallow bits of plastic to help aid
digestion in the gizzard, much like they swallow tiny stones and bits of wood, which are then regurgitated. Besides,
plastic constitutes only a small amount of the indigestible material birds ingest.
Jersey signs strongest plastic and paper bag ban in US. On Nov. 4, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed
the strongest single-use bag ban in the nation, effectively prohibiting the use of single-use plastic and paper bags in all
stores and food service establishments across the state. The bill, S864, was introduced into the New Jersey state
Senate with five primary sponsors, including Sens. Bob Smith, Linda Greenstein, and Nancy Pinkin, all Democrats.
It traveled through several committees before being passed on Sept. 24. Some of the containers affected by the ban
include plastic carryout bags, single-use paper carryout bags, polystyrene foam food service products (commonly known as
Styrofoam), as well as the limited usage of plastic drinking straws.
NJ governor signs strict
single-use paper, plastic bag ban into law. New Jersey's comprehensive ban on single-use plastic and paper bags
was signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy on Wednesday, marking what some claim is the "strongest" measure against
single-use plastics in the nation. The new law prohibits all stores and food-service businesses statewide from using
such items, as well as disposable food containers and cups made out of polystyrene foam, starting in May 2022.
Food-service businesses will only be able to provide single-use plastic straws upon request starting November 2021.
While some states impose a fee on paper bags, New Jersey lawmakers say the state would be the first to ban paper bags.
York Begins Enforcing Ban On Plastic Bags. New York State begins enforcing a ban on plastic bags Monday
[10/19/2020]. The ban was supposed to start on March 1, but a lawsuit by the plastic bag industry held up
enforcement. The suit was later rejected by the State Supreme Court. Advocates for the ban say plastic bags have
been wreaking havoc on the environment.
is Banning Single-Use Plastic Bags, Straws, and Cutlery Next Year. Plastic is polluting our rivers, lakes, and
oceans, harming wildlife, and generating microplastics in the water we use and drink. That's why the Canadian
government is promising to ban single-use plastics in 2021. Every year, Canadians throw away 3 million tonnes of plastic
waste, only 9% of which is recycled, meaning the vast majority of plastics end up in landfills and about 29,000 tonnes finds
its way into our natural environment. On October 7, Canada's Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Jonathan
Wilkinson, announced the next steps in the government's plan to achieve zero plastic waste by 2030. [...] A key part of the
announcement is a ban on harmful single-use plastic items where there is evidence that they are found in the environment, are
often not recycled, and have readily available alternatives.
The Editor says...
Doesn't Canada have landfills? What percentage of the plastic bags going into the rivers?
Are Back. At a time when the world is focused on cleanliness, trendy — yet filthy —
germ-carrying practices of the past are being discarded for common sense and good hygiene. Yes, I'm talking about
bringing back single-use plastic bags for grocery and convenience stores. The saga of the plastic bag ban began in
2007, when the city of San Francisco banned them in the name of saving the planet. Many other large cities followed
suit with similar bans or fees for using single-use bags in stores. As of January this year, eight states —
California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon, and Vermont — have banned single-use plastic
bags. This ridiculous trend has set a precedent for banning plastic drinking straws, coffee cup lids, and other
modern-day conveniences despite their clean qualities.
Plastic Bag Bans
Do More Harm Than Good. [Scroll down] Reusable bags already brought bacteria into stores. We're
supposed to wash them, but almost no one does. Studies found reusable bags crawling with dangerous bacteria.
After plastic bags were banned in San Francisco, food poisoning deaths increased sharply. But environmental groups,
like Greenpeace, call those disease fears "misinformation." "There are no studies or evidence that reusable bags are
transmitting viruses," says Alex Truelove of the Public Interest Research Group, in my new video. He's right.
There are no human studies, but COVID-19 is so new. Millions of piglets died from swine coronavirus. The
agriculture department concluded that reusable feed bags were probably the cause. Still, even now, some politicians
can't wait to ban plastic again. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh says "as soon as this crisis is over we'll go back to all
paper bags and reusable bags." "Politicians are always just looking for something to do," complains supermarket executive
Andrea Catsimatidis. She points out that paper bags cost five times what plastic costs. "When you're talking
billions of bags, it really adds up!" And paper bags don't hold as much. They rip. Plastic is more
convenient. Why must politicians take away what's convenient?
Stop the Virus Now, Save
the Planet Later. Greens will go on fighting to keep the [recycling] programs, just as they battle to promote
reusable tote bags at supermarkets, despite the known health risks. Well before the current crisis, researchers
repeatedly demonstrated that tote bags harbor deadly bacteria and viruses, because so few people bother to wash the
bags. One study traced an outbreak of viral gastroenteritis to bacteria from a tote bag; another found an increase in
bacteria-related illnesses and deaths in San Francisco after the city enacted the nation's first law banning single-use
plastic bags in grocery stores. Ignoring these risks — and the larger carbon footprints of the tote
bags — environmental groups successfully promoted the bags while lobbying cities and states to ban or restrict
single-use plastic bags in stores. But now even San Francisco has banned reusable bags for the time being, as have the
states of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, as well as some supermarket chains. Other cities and states have suspended
their bans on single-use plastic bags and discouraged shopping with reusable bags.
reusable grocery bags. City Councilman Mark Gjonaj is rightly pushing to set aside the city's new 5-cent fee on
paper bags at grocery stores and the like in the face of the coronavirus threat. The Bronx Democrat, who heads the
Small Business Committee, say he's behind the fee in principle "to encourage New Yorkers to use the more environmentally
friendly option of reusable bags in normal times, but the science is clear: Reusable bags are more susceptible to
carrying the coronavirus."
Welcome Back, Plastic
Bags. Single-use plastic bags are a miracle of modern technology. Cheap, light, convenient, and
ubiquitous, they provide an elegant solution to a problem. If you recycle them, as most people do, and put your rubbish
in them, that creates a net reduction in carbon emissions compared with buying the heavier, thicker garbage bags sold in
stores. Best of all, they're sanitary. Cue up a head-spinning headline: San Francisco has just banned
the use of reusable tote bags and switched back to single-use plastic bags to help fight the spread of the coronavirus.
In New Hampshire, on March 21, Governor Chris Sununu signed an executive order to the same effect.
Left's Plastic Bag Ban Crashing and Burning During Coronavirus Pandemic. The ban of plastic bags at stores, one
of the left's favorite causes, is crashing and burning as doctors now warn that cloth bags can transmit the Wuhan virus.The
left-wing City of San Francisco has quietly ended its 13-year ban on plastic bags in stores and will now prohibit the use of
reusable, cloth bags because they may harbor viruses and disease. This is something that the left knew for a very long
time. But they have ignored the facts because they were all so caught up in their global warming religion and "saving
the planet" from evil, evil plastic bags.
Hippies Rediscover Plastic Shopping Bags. It turns out that the reusable bags are filthy little germ catchers
and carriers, the last things anyone wants around while trying to slow the spread of a pandemic virus. The Poop
Sidewalk brain trust that runs San Francisco has even gone so far as to reverse the ban on plastic bags that has been in
place for over a decade. The lesson here is obvious: hippies and enviro freaks are always wrong.
Bags and the Recycling and Reuse Scam. Americans are correct to recognize the perils of reusable grocery "tote
bags" during this time of heightened disease risk. May they also realize the entire concept of reusable grocery bags is
flawed, along with most recycling programs, and adapt accordingly.
Francisco Bans Reusable Grocery Bags, Returns to Plastic Bags. The notoriously far-left city of San Francisco
has reversed its own ban on plastic bags in response to the spread of the coronavirus, now prohibiting the use of reusable
bags as a sanitary measure, according to Politico. The push to ban plastic bags, which leftists have claimed,
without evidence, are more likely to cause pollution, had been achieved in many liberal cities, from San Francisco to New
York. However, with the fear of spreading the contagious coronavirus, the same bags being used multiple times are
more likely to help spread the disease than single-use plastic bags.
see their plastic-bag-free world crumble before coronavirus. [Scroll down] One of the most irritating
things about the [plastic bag] ban was that, while stores could still provide bags, consumers had to pay a dime per bag if
they wanted them. In other words, consumers were suddenly being taxed for a harmless product they once received for
free. At the same time, the bags we were now forced to pay for also became more fragile and, therefore, were harder to
put to secondary uses. They usually ripped by the time they entered the house. The real problem, though, was that
the reusable bags that replaced plastic and paper were disease vectors — something that all the politicians banning
them knew or should have known. San Francisco (of course) was the American city that led the way on plastic bag bans in
2007. Not long afterward, a study revealed that the bans increased by 50% the number of deaths from food-borne illnesses.
Plastic Bag Bans Aren't Looking So Good Right Now. Bans on single-use plastic bags were all the rage over the
past few years, particularly on the west coast and in the northeast. We were told that those bags were ruining the
planet and we would stave off the end of the world if we outlawed them. As a replacement, we were instructed to
purchase reusable cloth bags and bring them with us to the stores. But now that the coronavirus is stalking the
streets, things have changed. The cloth bags have porous surfaces that the virus can cling to and remain dangerous for
up to three to five days. With that in mind, multiple states have now postponed their upcoming rules or canceled
enforcement of bans that were already on the books.
The plastic waste in the oceans comes from the poorest countries, not the wealthiest. Indonesia's
Citarum: The World's Most Polluted River. Suratmo, a fisherman living on the banks of the Citarum River,
could only laugh softly when asked about his catch today. He replied that he could no longer be called a
fisherman. For the last five years, his income has no longer come from catching fish, but fishing used items such as
glass bottles from the mountains of garbage in what is often called the world's most polluted river. Yes, Suratmo can
no longer be called a fisherman — he is now a garbage collector. Every day, no less than 20,000 tons of
waste and 340,000 tons of wastewater, mostly from 2,000 textile factories, are disposed directly into the once clear and
pristine waterways of the Citarum River. No wonder the fish are largely gone in the third-biggest river in Java.
plastic grocery bags for the environment, some states are liberating them over coronavirus concerns.
Massachusetts joined New Hampshire in banning reusable bags and freeing one-use plastic and paper grocery bags over concerns
that reusable bags were threatening public health during the coronavirus epidemic. New Hampshire Gov. Chris
Sununu, a Republican, banned reusable grocery bags and explicitly cited concerns that they could help spread the virus
currently ravaging countries around the globe. "Our grocery store workers are on the front lines of COVID-19, working
around the clock to keep New Hampshire families fed," said Sununu in a statement. "With identified community
transmission, it is important that shoppers keep their reusable bags at home given the potential risk to baggers, grocers and
customers." On Wednesday [3/25/2020], Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker also liberated plastic bags from their
policy for personal bag use in some local grocery stores. Checking out at a grocery is when some feel worries
diminish but could it be where your virus worries begin? A new study from the New England Journal of Medicine says the
coronavirus can live up to 24 hours on cardboard and much longer on plastic. "As it turns out the coronavirus can it
looks like can live on the grocery bags that are made of plastic which they are, for 3 days. Again, probably a reason
to not take anything from an outside environment into the grocery store and then back home," says Dr. Werner[.] The
idea is simple[:] any germs or virus at your home live on surfaces there, the bags pick them up and then tag along to
the next location, the grocery store. Giant Foods say the bags are allowed, but the cashiers or baggers will not touch
your reusable bags, you'll have to bag your own groceries.
The Plastic Bag
Ban Backfires. New York's environmentalists have terrible timing. The statewide ban on single-use plastic
bags took effect on March 1, the same day New York confirmed its first case of coronavirus. To protect the public,
officials in the Empire State and elsewhere should immediately suspend their plastic bag bans. Much remains unknown
about Covid-19, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it "may remain viable for hours to days on surfaces
made from a variety of materials."
in the Time of Wuhan. For many decades big government proponents have worked and spent fortunes of tax revenues
to wean Americans from their cars and onto public transportation, and it is now an "obvious fact that crowded subways and
buses are the worst thing in the face of a new, extremely contagious respiratory virus." The same can be said of the
misguided (indeed, in my view, idiotic) war on plastic bags by blue state and local politicians.
Greening Our Way
to Infection. The COVID-19 outbreak is giving new meaning to those "sustainable" shopping bags that politicians
and environmentalists have been so eager to impose on the public. These reusable tote bags can sustain the COVID-19 and
flu viruses — and spread the viruses throughout the store. Researchers have been warning for years about the
risks of these bags spreading deadly viral and bacterial diseases, but public officials have ignored their concerns,
determined to eliminate single-use bags and other plastic products despite their obvious advantages in reducing the spread of
pathogens. In New York State, a new law took effect this month banning single-use plastic bags in most retail
businesses, and this week Democratic state legislators advanced a bill that would force coffee shops to accept consumers'
reusable cups — a practice that Starbucks and other chains have wisely suspended to avoid spreading the COVID-19 virus.
tote bags instead of plastic could help spread the coronavirus. The COVID-19 outbreak is giving new meaning to
those "sustainable" shopping bags that politicians and environmentalists have been so eager to impose on the public.
These reusable tote bags can sustain the COVID-19 and flu viruses — and spread the viruses throughout the
store. Researchers have been warning for years about the risks of these bags spreading deadly viral and bacterial
diseases, but public officials have ignored their concerns, determined to eliminate single-use bags and other plastic
products despite their obvious advantages in reducing the spread of pathogens. In New York state, a new law took effect
this month banning single-use plastic bags in most retail businesses, and this week Democratic state legislators advanced a
bill that would force coffee shops to accept consumers' reusable cups — a practice that Starbucks and other chains
have wisely suspended to avoid spreading the COVID-19 virus.
After the Rains. This
is a common occurrence in Ghana after rainfall. [Video clip]
The Editor says...
The video clip shows a river of garbage. Apparently the local creek bed serves as the community dumpster. So
that's where some of the plastic in the ocean comes from. This is more evidence that the poorest counties in the world,
not the wealthiest, are the worst polluters. Here is another example:
New York plastic bag
ban takes effect, customers 'not happy'. The New York law banning so-called single-use plastic bags took effect
Sunday [3/1/2020], with some customers balking at the new rules. Mayor Bill de Blasio's office celebrated the law with
a graphic reading "buh bye." "Sending a big farewell to single-use plastic bags," the mayor's office wrote.
"We've moved on to eco-friendly reusable bags and we're not looking back."
Yorkers rankled on first day of statewide plastic-bag ban. New Yorkers were forced to begin grappling with a
new shopping reality Sunday as the state's ban on plastic shopping bags kicked in — and not many people were happy
about it. "I think it's ridiculous," letter-carrier Scott Kimmel, 56, said while shopping at the Whitestone Target in
College Point, Queens. "I understand about 'conserve, take care of the environment,' but c'mon!" About half the
shoppers seen by The Post on the first day of the bag ban, including Kimmel, were compensating by bringing their own bags
from home, while another quarter opted to just go bagless rather than pay the 5-cent paper-bag fee allowed under the law,
and the remaining 25 percent coughed up the nickel charge per bag.
York Bans Plastic Bags, Threatens $500 Fines. New York will ban single-use plastic bags in stores starting
March 1. The state's ban, which was passed last year by the state legislature, will impact both grocery and department
stores. New York is the third state to introduce a plastic bag ban, joining California and Oregon, as a way to curb the
amount of plastic going to landfills.
The Perverse Panic
over Plastic. [Scroll down] After painstakingly analyzing debris in the north central Pacific Ocean,
where converging currents create the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," a team of scientists from four continents reported in
2018 that more than half the plastic came from fishing boats — mostly discarded nets and other gear. These
discards are also the greatest threat to marine animals, who die not from plastic bags but from getting entangled in the
nets. Another study, published last year by Canadian and South African researchers, traced the origins of plastic
bottles that had washed up on the shore of the aptly named Inaccessible Island, an uninhabited landmass in the middle of the
southern Atlantic Ocean. More than 80 percent of the bottles came from China and must have been tossed off boats from
Asia traversing the Atlantic. Some plastic discarded on land does end up in the ocean, but very little of it comes from
consumers in the United States or Europe. Most of the labels on the plastic packaging analyzed in the Great Pacific
Garbage Patch came from Asia, the greatest source of what researchers call "mismanaged waste."
Joe Biden, The
Democrats' Bag Man. Joe Biden says he is 100% in favor of banning plastic bags in the U.S. At this point, it
might be better to ask Biden and the rest of the Democrats running for president what they would allow Americans to
have. It would likely be a short list. Biden's position on the issue was revealed last week at an Iowa campaign
stop when a woman asked him about his "focus." "In Kenya, we are trying to clean the environment, no plastic bags, you go
with your own bags," she said. Biden's response: "I agree with you 100%. We should not be allowing plastic,
and what we should do is phasing it out."
to ask your climate alarmist friends. [#6] Do you support banning plastics? Think beyond plastic straws
here. Plastics, which are made from fossil fuels, have made many now commonplace items cheaper, more accessible, and
more beneficial to human life than ever. This is particularly critical in the medical field. Imagine what a
typical day in America would look like without water filters, plumbing pipes, circuit boards, medical machines like MRIs,
artery stents, prosthetic limbs, sterile IV bags and tubes, syringes, disposable gloves, cochlear implants, contact lenses,
adhesive tape, synthetic fabrics such as polyester and nylon, building insulation, and most of the parts for cars, airplanes,
trains, ships, and even satellites. And this is just a short list! Banning fossil fuels means banning all of
these essential items — or at the very least making them prohibitively expensive.
Neuston, we have a problem! The
Ocean Cleanup struggles to prove it will not harm sea life. I am deeply concerned that a project intending to
collect plastic from the ocean's surface, known as The Ocean Cleanup, will sweep up countless floating marine
animals — collectively called the neuston — potentially putting whole ecosystems at risk.
dumped 27 percent more trash into the ocean in 2018. China dumped a total of 200.7 million cubic meters (7,087.6 million
cubic feet) of waste into its coastal waters in 2018, a 27 percent rise on the previous year and the highest level in at least a
decade, the country's environment ministry said on Tuesday [10/29/2019]. The majority of the waste was dumped in the delta regions of
the Yangtze and Pearl rivers, both major industrial zones on China's eastern coast, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) said.
Do Environmentalists Seem Determined To Torment, Rather Than Convince? [Scroll down] Now, the lines are
much slower because bagging has become an ordeal thanks to the "Earth-protecting" plastic-bag ban the state had passed a few
years ago. Consider what happens now. Store employees can't simply place your food in the needed bags. They
have to ask how many bags shoppers want to buy. "As many as needed," I always say, given that I don't really care if
the $150 transaction costs another buck. It's basically just another tax we pay to live in a former paradise. But
that's not how it works now. The employees dispense bags parsimoniously. Who can blame cashiers given the guff
they might get if they sell someone an unnecessary bag? Bagging used to be an artform, where baggers carefully
separated, say, the eggs from the bottle of Chivas Regal. Now they cram as much stuff as possible in a single
bag. Heaven forbid you get stuck behind someone who pulls out a trove of bacteria-laden, reusable sacks.
bans hotels from using tiny plastic bottles. Hotels in California will have to stop giving guests small plastic
shampoo bottles under a new law. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday [10/9/2019] he had signed a law banning
hotels from giving guests plastic bottles filled with shampoo, conditioner or soap. The law takes effect in 2023 for hotels
with more than 50 rooms and 2024 for hotels with less than 50 rooms. Violators could be fined $500 for a first
offense and $2,000 for subsequent violations. The law follows similar actions by some of the world's largest hotel chains.
Chinese Cargo Ships Dump 73% of Trash in Atlantic Ocean. International researchers estimate that as much as 73 percent of
the garbage in the Atlantic Ocean originates from Chinese merchant vessels, Canada's National Post reported on Tuesday [10/1/2019].
Researchers from Canada and South Africa studied waste washed up on the beaches of Inaccessible Island, an island in the heart of the southern
Atlantic Ocean, on a series of trips that began in 1984. Nearly three-quarters of the trash they sifted through originated in Asia, produced
by China. The research challenges long assumptions that plastic debris at sea primarily originates on land.
Plastic Straws Are Actually Better For The Planet Than Paper Straws. Do not be convinced you are saving the
planet by drinking out of a terrible straw. Plastic straws are simply not killing the planet, and science just can't
stop proving it. While it may seem like merely a minor inconvenience to drink out of a mushy paper straw or sippy-cup
lid, bans on straws have become the trendiest piece of legislation in the United States. Virtue-signaling lefties
rejoice in what they consider to be "planet-saving" bans on useful items that children and disabled people need daily.
The bans are not based at all on science and facts about ocean pollution but entirely reliant on activist emotion intent on
making people think the world is on the verge of ending.
Francis Bans Plastic From The Vatican To 'Save The Environment'. Pope Francis has placed a ban on plastic in
Vatican City State to 'stand in solidarity' with environmentalists, according to reports. The Pontiff made the
announcement while aboard the papal plane during a long-haul flight back from a trip to Africa. The Catholic leader
said he was disturbed by a conversation with chaplains and fishermen who described how they had found six tons of plastic
over the course of a few months.
The Editor says...
The environmental policy for an entire country should not be based upon the dubious anecdotes in an alleged conversation
with a purported fisherman.
Democrats Cared About the Environment, They'd Talk About China. Am I just seeing things? Or are all the
"climate crisis solutions" proposed by the Democrats designed to cause maximum pain to ordinary people, and almost none to
wealthy elites? Progressives almost seem to take joy in inconveniencing the masses for no reason. Take the plastic
straw ban, for example. Even National Geographic — hardly an anti-environmentalist publication —
admits that plastic straws comprise just 0.025 percent of the plastic in the oceans. Contrast the minimal impact
of plastic straws with the extraordinary impact of China, and, by extension, global free trade. China, alone, produces
around a third of the ocean's plastic waste. China's CO2 emissions are greater than the U.S. and Europe combined, and
keep going up.
Democrats Are Crazy With the Heat. How these reckless clowns could persuade even 10 percent of voters to
support them in a general election is a disturbingly sad commentary on the state of our electorate. Each candidate was
more ridiculous than the next. It was a painful spectacle to endure. Kamala Harris seemed to realize how ridiculous
she sounded when she said she would favor banning plastic straws. Saying something has to be done, she descended into
inane laughter about the difficulty in using paper straws. Seriously? This is what animates them today?
wants to ban plastic straws but says paper straws [are] too 'flimsy'. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said
Wednesday [9/4/2019] during a CNN climate change forum that the U.S. should ban plastic straws while answering a question
about curbing the country's reliance on single-use plastics. But Harris also said she wants to "encourage innovation"
around paper straws that break too often. "I think we should, yes. I mean. Look, I'm going to be
honest. It's really difficult out of — drink out of a paper straw — like, if you don't gulp it
down immediately, it starts to bend, and then the little thing catches it," Harris says, making a snapping motion with her
hands and laughing.
The Editor says...
When a politician has to announce, "I'm going to be honest," that's an indication that honesty is unusual.
No One Needs A Straw.
The fight over banning single-use plastic straws has become the latest sticking point in the culture war between liberals and
conservatives, with left-wing activists passing laws to ban plastic straws and conservatives mocking them for it, flashing
pictures of themselves sipping drinks through the plastic utensil in cities that have banned the product to "own the libs."
The Trump campaign has even started selling packs of plastic straws. Supporters can buy the "Trump Straw" for $1.50
apiece. The product has become wildly popular among fans, with the campaign reporting nearly half a million dollars in sales.
Plastic Straws — Just Another Climate Scam Strawman. Here's the truth about the problem with plastic
in our oceans: The United States and Europe COMBINED produce about 2% of the total waste, with the U.S. producing about
half of that, or 1%. Meanwhile, fully 82% of the waste emanates from Asia and its rapidly-expanding economies, with the
remaining 16% coming from Africa, South America and the rest of the world. In other words, the plastics issue is just
like the carbon emissions issue: The United States could eliminate ALL use of plastics and not even make a small dent
in terms of solving the problem.
Francisco airport announces ban on sales of plastic water bottles. The days of picking up a plastic bottle of
water to stay hydrated during a long flight will soon be over for people flying out of San Francisco's International Airport
(SFO). The airport, which restricted the distribution of single-use plastic straws when the city law went into effect
in July, is now banning convenience shops, restaurants and vending machines from selling plastic water bottles.
Starting 20 August, only water in glass, recycled aluminum, or certified compostable materials can be sold.
campaign's plastic straws selling like hotcakes. The Trump reelection campaign has raised more than $200,000 by
selling about 140,000 plastic straws in just four days, campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted Monday [7/22/2019].
"More than half of all Straw purchasers were BRAND NEW small dollar donors," Mr. Parscale tweeted. "Amazing!"
He began promoting the plastic straws on Thursday. "Now you can finally be free from liberal paper straws," he said.
"I'm so over paper straws, and I'm sure you are too. Much like most liberal ideas, paper straws don't work and they fall
apart instantly. That's why we just launched our latest product — Official Trump Straws. Now you can
finally be free from liberal paper straws that fall apart within minutes and ruin your drink."
Campaign Sells $15 Dollar Pack Of Plastic Straws. Look, the guy cracks me up and I won't apologize for
it. Case in point, the Trump campaign is selling a 10-pack of recyclable plastic straws, laser-engraved with the word
"TRUMP" because, as the campaign tells it, "liberal paper straws don't work."
"Trump straws" sell out almost immediately. While the subject of plastic waste that doesn't decompose winding
up in our oceans and landfills is a serious one, not all of the proposals to address the situation are as serious as
others. As AP noted, the President was asked about a ban on plastic straws and he responded by saying that it makes
little sense to ban them when we're not banning all of the other, larger plastic products that are also not recycled.
Not long after that, somebody saw a fundraising opportunity and plastic "Trump straws" were on sale at the President's
fundraising site. Charging a dollar and a half each for what is essentially just a plain, red plastic straw with
Trump's name emblazoned on the side might not sound like much of a bargain, but that obviously wasn't the point. The
President was capitalizing on pushback against a liberal idea that seemed excessively intrusive while producing little in the
way of measurable results. So how did it work out? The straws sold out in a matter of days.
Hampshire Senate Rejects Plastic Bag, Soda Straw Bans. New Hampshire will not ban thin-film plastic bags or
limit restaurants' use of plastic soda straws this year. The state Senate decided not to pass two measures which would
have prohibited grocery stores, restaurants, and retailers from providing single-use plastic carry-out bags to customers and
would have prevented restaurants and other food vendors from providing plastic straws unless specifically requested.
and Burger King are facing calls to scrap plastic toys in kids' meal deals. The plastic toys given away with
children's fast food meals are under fire. McDonald's and Burger King are the target of a petition started by two
British school children who criticize the companies for giving away the toys that they say are put in the trash after only
being used briefly. McDonald's Happy Meal and Burger King's Kids' Meal include a main meal, side, drink and a toy,
which is often linked to movie releases.
drinking straw fatally impales woman through her eye after fall. A retired jockey died when she fell onto an
eco-friendly metal drinking straw which impaled her eye, an inquest heard. Elena Struthers-Gardner, 60, who was known
as "Lena," suffered brain injuries in the accident at her home in Broadstone, England. She was carrying a mason-jar
style drinking glass with a screw-top lid in her kitchen when she collapsed. The 10-inch stainless steel straw entered
her left eye socket and pierced her brain. Her death has led to a coroner warning that metal drinking straws should
never be used with a lid that fixes them in place, and "great care should be taken" while using them.
D.C. Bans Plastic
Straws, Fines Up to $800. The District of Columbia's ban on plastic straws took effect on Monday [7/1/2019], putting
in place fines that range from $100 to $800 if plastic straws are discovered in unannounced D.C. Department of Energy and
Environment inspections at restaurants and coffee shops. "Businesses have been warned since the ban was technically enforced
on Jan. 1, 2019, but no real punishments were put in place," the Washington Examiner reported.
This Shopping Bag More 'Eco Friendly' Than Plastic? Only If It's Used 20,000 Times. Plastic is the
eco-activists' favored demon of the moment. Policymakers can't get enough of banning plastic consumer items. But
the bans are worse than useless. They are counterproductive. California leads the world in virtue signaling,
having outlawed single-use plastics bags, as well as plastic straws. Plastic bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and soap
handed out by hotels might be the next items prohibited under California law, if lawmakers don't ban plastics utensils
first. Other states have rushed to enact bans, including Vermont, New York, and Hawaii (which has a de facto statewide
ban due to multiple county bans). More cities than can be easily counted have either already or are in the process of
outlawing various plastics.
banning plastic bags won't save our planet. Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a plan to reduce plastic
pollution, which will include a ban on single-use plastics as early as 2021. This is laudable: plastics clog drains and
cause floods, litter nature and kill animals and birds. Of course, plastic also makes our lives better in a myriad of ways.
In just four decades, plastic packaging has become ubiquitous because it keeps everything from cereals to juice fresher and reduces
transportation losses, while one-use plastics in the medical sector have made syringes, pill bottles and diagnostic equipment more
safe. Going without disposable plastic entirely would leave us worse off, so we need to tackle the problems without losing
all of the benefits.
comes another global disaster! The microplastic scare has all the earmarks of the global warming scare.
Its effects are hidden to all but experts. Its chief culprits are elsewhere — centered, in this case, in the
Philippines and southeast Asia generally (and in Canada, who, until very recently, shipped its garbage to the Philippines).
Its prescriptions for Americans are symbolic rather than effective. And ultimately, it's going to cost lots of
money. Trust me on this.
Toll from Plastic Straws in California Is Now Zero. After then-California Governor Jerry Brown signed the
nation's most restrictive statewide anti-plastic-straw law in 2018, experts predicted that it would enable the state to
completely eliminate plastic straw-related deaths in California. And now in 2019, a new report shows that there have
been zero plastic-straw-related deaths so far this year.
America's False Religion. Before climate change became a belief system in which humans are expected to perform
penance for their sins against Gaia, recycling was the religion of many in the modern world. [...] Though recycling rarely
makes economic sense and often burns up more fresh resources than would have been used in making new items, Americans
recycled. And recycled. And recycle still. Are we better off for it? It can easily be argued we are
worse off. Our recycling obsessions have instigated a war on plastic that's inconvenienced consumers and cost them
billions. Recycling also helped create an environmental mess. Roughly 90 percent of all plastic found in the
oceans, says the Hemholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany, is carried there by "the top 10 rivers with the
highest loads" of plastic debris. Eight of those rivers are in Asia, two are in Africa. None are in the U.S.
straws, stirrers and Q-tips to be banned in England starting April 2020. Plastic straws, stirrers and Q-tips
will be banned in England starting in April of 2020, the government confirmed Wednesday [5/22/2019]. Environment
officials estimated that 4.7 billion plastic straws, 316 million plastic stirrers and 1.8 billion plastic-stemmed
cotton buds are used in the country each year. "Urgent and decisive action is needed to tackle plastic pollution and protect
our environment. These items are often used for just a few minutes but take hundreds of years to break down, ending up
in our seas and oceans and harming precious marine life," Environment Secretary Michael Gove said in a statement.
The Editor says...
They take "hundreds of years to break down?" Really? Show me a cotton swab or a plastic straw that's a hundred years old.
Incidentally, Q-TIPS. is a registered trademark of Unilever, not just a common noun.
The bag police. If left unchecked, politicians
would allow America's Nanny State to grow to immeasurable proportions. Government bureaucrats and elected officials
believe they know better than we mere mortals when it comes to making personal choices about health care, child rearing,
diet, smoking and countless other subjects. The environment is another favorite vehicle for proponents of the Nanny
State. Straws, styrofoam and coffee pods have all been recently targeted by green groups. Some jurisdictions have
banned plastic shopping bags. And if New Jersey legislators have their way, paper grocery bags would be outlawed, as well.
Jersey Politician Wants To Ban All Bags — Paper or Plastic. In August 2018, New Jersey Gov. Phil
Murphy, a Democrat, vetoed a bill that would have imposed a five-cent fee on both paper and plastic carryout bags, arguing that
the legislation did not do enough to protect the Garden State's famed natural beauty. "Single-use carryout bags —
particularly plastic bags — represent a significant source of the litter that clutters our communities and mars New
Jersey's beautiful shoreline and parks," wrote Murphy in his veto statement. "Instituting a five-cent fee on single-use bags
that only applies to certain retailers does not go far enough." State legislators have clearly heard this message, floating
proposals to ban not just plastic grocery bags, but all single-use bags — paper or plastic.
flag environmentalism is dangerous for America and the world. [Scroll down] Forget the GWCC adult crowd
when for years now a 9-year old boy, yes a 9-year old, is the one who began the ban-plastic-straw movement to the detriment
of the global plastics industry. We are repeatedly told the US is causing a tsunami of plastic straws littering our
oceans, rivers and drinkable waterways. That is false. The World Economic Forum did analysis on the issue and
found: "That more than 8 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year. Most of the plastic washed
into the oceans, 90% of it come from just 10 rivers in Asia." The US environmental movement has embraced letting a
child destroy the plastics industry. That is the epitome of today's global and US-based environmental movement.
Facts take a backseat if it pushes the GWCC story forward.
California, Blinded By Plastic.
California, the Los Angeles Times recently reported, is building a "non-plastic future." The state has outlawed or
restricted single-use plastic bags, plastic drinking straws, and plastic cutlery. Future targets: plastic detergent
bottles, unattached caps on plastic bottles, and polystyrene containers (typically used to hold restaurant takeout orders),
which more than 100 California cities have already banned. Some legislators also want to ban travel-size shampoo
bottles that hotels provide for guests. Golden State consumers are schlepping groceries in their arms as if they've
been sent backward to the pre-bag era, sucking on paper straws that quickly become sodden and useless, and smuggling plastic
bags across the state line.
may ban hotels from giving guests tiny bottles of shampoo, conditioner, lotion. The bill would ban "lodging
establishments", including hotels, motels, resorts, bed and breakfasts, and vacation rentals, from offering small plastic
bottles holding 12 ounces or under of product in rooms or public spaces. Instead, the establishments could offer "bulk
dispensers" that could be used by a number of people. The goal is to cut down on the amount of plastic containers thrown
away by guests and operators. The law wouldn't apply to nursing homes, hospitals, long-term rentals, or hosted rentals.
New York City Mayor
de Blasio bans plasticware in city agencies — including schools, jails, and hospitals. The mayor
signed an executive order Thursday mandating the new guidelines. The ban has exceptions for people with disabilities
and for medical use or use during emergency preparedness. Agencies will have 120 days to begin reducing their reliance
on these items. The ban will go into full effect at the start of 2020. In a speech announcing the ban, de Blasio
described plasticware items as "things we somehow got used to but we really don't need anymore." He said the companies that
make such products were "the villain here." De Blasio said that this would cut the city's carbon emissions by 500 tons
The Editor says...
Carbon dioxide is not carbon, and plastic forks do not emit carbon dioxide.
When you eat with a plastic fork, your mouth emits more CO2 than the fork.
Plastic Bag Bans Spur 120 Percent Increase in Sales of Thicker Plastic Garbage Bags. In March, New York became
the second state to ban plastic bags — behind California, which banned them in 2016. Countless cities, towns, and
counties have also either prohibited plastic bags or imposed fees or other restrictions on their use. As always, New
York's ban was justified as a way to protect the environment. Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared that it will "reduce
litter in our communities, protect our water and create a cleaner and greener New York for all." Or maybe it won't.
Far from weening us off hazardous single-use plastics, these bans may actually be encouraging people to instead use thicker
garbage bags or other less-than-green alternatives.
[Scroll down] Let's go to Los Angeles magazine for guidance here: "Reusable Tote Bags Are the Greatest
Trick the Devil Ever Pulled." Hmm. Why? Because the bottom of the bags accrues a sticky grot of leaked meat
juices and fructose and breeds nasty bugs that give you the gut-rot for two days? Because you always forget them and
feel as if you have sinned when you don't have a sustainable-transport option? All that, yes, but mostly this:
"The production and distribution of single-use plastic bags produces less carbon and other pollution than paper bags,
recycled plastic totes, and cotton totes. To achieve the same emissions-per-use ratio as a disposable plastic bag,
you'd have to use your cotton tote 131 times just to break even."
and New Jersey May Enact the Nation's Toughest Bans On Plastic. Lawmakers in New Jersey and Hawaii are looking
to make the lives of their voters a whole lot harder by proposing an extreme statewide ban on plastics and Styrofoam.
Both of the states ban proposals are making their way through their respective state senates. While New Jersey's bill
would ban plastic bags, plastic straws, and Styrofoam food and beverage containers, Hawaii's plan goes a bit further by
adding plastic drinking bottles, utensils, stirring sticks, and garbage bags. The tropical state will also ban "nearly
all plastic from fast food and full-service restaurants," according to Fox News.
Plastic Bags Will Hurt Businesses, Consumers. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo hopes to gain some green points by
passing a statewide plastic shopping bag ban. He seems oblivious to the serious adverse impacts on small businesses and
their employees, as well as on consumers and the environment. There are 30 companies in New York State that manufacture
plastic bags with 1,500 employees that will suffer if the ban takes effect, a representative for the Business Council of New
York State pointed out in the New York Business Journal. There are also companies with employees that distribute these
bags, many or all of which will be out of business thanks to Cuomo and his political allies.
Shows that it's Not Really Green to Ban Plastic Bags. First, consider the public health profile of reusable
cloth bags. A study conducted by researchers at the University of Arizona and California's Loma Linda University in
2010 measured bacteria in a sample of reusable bags, finding many containing dangerous ones, such as coliform (found in half the
bags) and E. coli (found in 12 percent of bags). Pathogens can develop from leaky meat packages as well as unwashed
produce. And consumers reported that they rarely wash the bags, according to the study. The consequences of such
contamination can be serious. After San Francisco banned plastic bags in 2007, the number of emergency room visits for
bacterial related diseases increased, according to a study conducted five years later by legal scholars at George Mason
University and the University of Pennsylvania. "ER visits spiked when the ban went into effect," the study explained.
"Relative to other counties, ER admissions increases by at least one fourth, and deaths exhibit a similar increase."
Restaurants To Charge Fee For Disposable Cups. One California city is pushing residents to switch to reusable
cups by imposing a new tax. On Wednesday, the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to force restaurants and coffee
shops to charge a 25-cent fee for their disposable cups. The Democrat controlled city council is hopeful the tax will
reduce the city's paper and plastic waste, and encourage people to bring their own reusable cups while dining out.
Restaurants will reportedly be allowed to keep the funds raised from the fees to be used however they want.
Don't Ban Plastic
Bags! Like dozen towns and cities in Massachusetts and other states, Boston recently enacted a ban on plastic
shopping bags. It went into effect December 14, 2018. It was a relatively easy vote, because "evil" plastic
bags have received extensive bad press that generally ignores important facts. The same holds true in other
jurisdictions, especially those controlled by Democrats who a generation ago cared about American workers, but today too
often subjugate the needs of blue collar families to demands by college educated and environmentalist elites, and even noisy
grade school kids.
straw demand up 5,000 percent since plastic ban. 2018 was, without a doubt, the year plastic straws died.
The war picked up steam starting in 2015 after a YouTube video surfaced of a plastic straw being removed from the nostril of
a sea turtle. Ever since then, big companies such as McDonald's, Starbucks, Goldman Sachs Group and even the city of
Seattle have all taken measures to slowly outlaw them[,] or ban them completely. What's more, all of them have turned
to one company — Aardvark, the first original paper straw maker in America — to discuss using paper
Straw Ban Straw Man.
When Seattle outlawed single-use plastic straws in September 2017, the decision drew snickers from spectators as the latest,
silliest example of nanny state excess — and one that could happen only in the famously progressive city.
But by the time the ban went into effect in July 2018, straw bans had taken the world by storm. Vancouver, British
Columbia, banned straws in May. Active efforts are underway to do the same in San Francisco; Portland, Oregon;
Washington, D.C.; and New York City. California is mulling a bill that would prohibit restaurateurs from offering their
patrons unsolicited plastic straws, and Hawaii considered a bill this year that would have outlawed both businesses and
individuals from selling or even giving out straws free of charge.
Ditches Plastic Water Bottles in Favor of Edible Water Pouches. Remember when news outlets were reporting on
these funny-looking blobs back in 2017? Well, they will now be replacing plastic water bottles at a half-marathon in
England. Marathons are notorious for generating massive amounts of plastic waste through their excessive utilization of
single-use water bottles — so as a means of helping out the environment, the Ooho! water pouches will be handed
out to runners during the Harrow half-marathon in London on Sunday [9/16/2018].
Feel-Good Ban On Plastic Bags Is Worse Than Pointless. Kroger, America's largest grocery store chain, announced
Wednesday that it would ban plastic bags at the checkout lanes in all its stores by 2025. This comes after a multitude of
studies have found that replacements for those bags are often far worse for the environment, not to mention more expensive for
of Three Cities. San Francisco is being overrun with the homeless and illegal aliens due to its sanctuary city
status and virtue-signaling leadership. The streets are littered with human feces, hypodermic needles, and syringes,
turning the once beautiful "City by the Bay" into a cesspool. What's the response of San Francisco leaders?
Banning plastic straws.
Have to Regulate Every Aspect of People's Lives'. A Santa Barbara city councilman inadvertently let slip the
primary purpose of progressivism in 21st century America. The city recently criminalized the use of plastic straws.
Speaking to that issue, Councilman Jesse Dominguez said, "Unfortunately, common sense is just not common. We have to
regulate every aspect of people's lives." Got that? "We" are smarter than you and know what's best for you better
than you do. Perhaps realizing that his comment revealed a fundamental truth of progressive thought, Dominguez tried
to walk back his gaffe: [...]
Countries Polluting The Oceans The Most. A team of researchers in the United States and Australia led by Jenna
Jambeck, an environmental engineer at the University of Georgia, analyzed plastic waste levels in the world's oceans.
They found that China and Indonesia are the top sources of plastic bottles, bags and other rubbish clogging up global sea
lanes. Together, both nations account for more than a third of plastic detritus in global waters, according to a report
in The Wall Street Journal. In 2010, 8.8 million metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste in the ocean was traced back
to China while 3.2 million metric tons came from Indonesia.
San Francisco: The City of Bans.
On July 19, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to forbid restaurants, bars, and convenience stores from
handing out or selling straws. The city joins a growing list of progressive enclaves to do so, including Seattle, Malibu, Santa
Cruz, and Santa Barbara. Most cities impose a fine for such verboten behavior. But Santa Barbara's ordinance, which goes
into effect next year, imposes a fine of up to $1,000 and imprisonment of up to six months. [...] What's the official point
of it? It's designed to cut down on the plastic waste that ends up in the ocean. But as Reason's Christian Britschgi
recently reported, plastic straws "account for about 2,000 tons of the 9 million tons of plastic that are entering the ocean
each year." That's a tiny amount. And he noted that Starbucks, which recently announced that it will stop using straws, is
introducing new lids that actually use more plastic than the old ones. There's no gain and activists are complaining about the
elimination of a product that helps many disabled people drink from cups.
absurd hysteria around plastic straws. Taking away freedom for nothing in return is now a specialty of the
environmental movement. After our environment got cleaner — thanks to technological innovation and some
useful government-imposed requirements (like scrubbers in smokestacks and pollution limits on cars) — the zealots
moved on to demand bans on pipeline construction, mining and oil drilling. They require lots of pointless recycling
(though often garbage you separate is never recycled) and all sorts of feel-good policies that make no real difference.
People are Decrying the Plastic Straw Ban. While many environmentalists are hailing decisions to do away with
plastic straws in states, cities and big companies, advocates are pointing out that such bans will make life all the more
difficult for the disabled. [...] Unfortunately, for many people affected with physical impairments, the new ban in San
Francisco does not explicitly factor in disability access, but it does add that "strict compliance" with the new ordinance is
not required if it should "interfere with accommodating for any person's medical needs."
push for statewide plastic straw and styrofoam food container ban. Activists from Environment California and
the Surfrider Foundation gathered at Goleta Beach Park Friday morning to push legislators to pass statewide measures to
protect California's coastline. The laws would address plastic straws and food packaging in the state of
California. Julia McLaughlin works with environment California's Isla Vista office and helped organize the event.
She says the organization has been working all summer to advocate for a state-wide ban on polystyrene, more commonly known as
styrofoam, as well as limiting single-use plastic straw consumption.
Road to Hell is Paved With... Straws? In parts of California now, a person can go into a public park, shoot up
heroin, throw the used syringe on the sidewalk, walk into the street and then poop in the highway — all without
consequence. [...] The city council in Santa Barbara, Calif. voted this past week to throw restaurant employees in jail for
up to six months if they give plastic straws to customers. San Francisco is following suit, as are other progressive
meccas like Seattle. A national chain of progressive homeless shelters and communal bathrooms operating under the name
Starbucks is banning straws, too. You can get plastic cups with plastic lids, but straws are forbidden.
Mankind Will Be Extinct Within 50 Years If We Do Not Abolish Plastic Straws. The Board of Supervisors in San
Francisco passed an ordinance yesterday banning straws from restaurants and bars in the city. San Francisco, like
Seattle, will now be a straw-free safe haven. The refugee fleeing straw persecution can come to the city and live in
paradise and contract hepatitis when he steps on a used heroin needle. But even then he will rejoice, for he is
liberated from straws. Many cities and corporations are following suit. Another city in California will now hand
out possible jail sentences to straw dealers. 15 seconds ago nobody worried about straws. Now there is a straw
crisis and an anti-straw movement to answer it. Ordinances are being passed. Laws are being written.
The Editor says...
If plastic straws were made of Polonium-210 or Strontium-90, I could see how he might be right. But really, it's just plastic!
Francisco approves measure to ban plastic straws. San Francisco supervisors have unanimously approved a ban on
plastic straws and takeout containers treated with fluorinated chemicals. The vote Tuesday [7/24/2018] followed a ban
on plastic straws and stirrers that took effect in Seattle this month. The San Francisco legislation requires a second
vote next week. The legislation also makes napkins and utensils with takeout or delivery available only on request
unless there is a self-serve station.
Bans Plastic Straws, Winds Up Using More Plastic. Not to be outdone by busybody legislators, Starbucks, the
nation's largest food and drink retailer, announced on Monday [7/9/2018] that it would be going strawless. "This is a
significant milestone to achieve our global aspiration of sustainable coffee, served to our customers in more sustainable
ways," said Starbucks Kevin Johnson CEO in a press release announcing the move. The coffee giant says that by 2020 it
hopes to have eliminated all single-use plastic straws at its 28,000 stores worldwide. It will now top all its cold
drinks with fancy new strawless lids that the company currently serves with its cold brew nitro coffees. [...] Yet missing
from this fanfare was the inconvenient fact that by ditching plastic straws, Starbucks will actually be increasing its
plastic use. As it turns out, the new nitro lids that Starbucks is leaning on to replace straws are made up of
more plastic than the company's current lid/straw combination.
Stossel: Plastic Straw Myths.
Plastic pollution in the ocean is a real problem, but only about 1 percent of it comes from the U.S. Of that 1 percent, only
a tiny fraction comes from plastic straws. How can that be? Celebrities tell us Americans use 500 million plastic straws
every day. "Polluting water and killing sea life," according to actor Adrian Grenier. The 500 million number is repeatedly
used by the media. But it comes from a nine-year-old's school project. The real number is much less — closer to
Straw Feel-Goodery. Teachers here recently put children up to sending a letter to this newspaper proclaiming
that "plastic straws are toxic and are destroying our planet" because they wind up in the oceans. The letter asked
Aspen to ban them. [...] Aspen Skiing Co. also has jumped on the plastic bandwagon. Always on the lookout for a cheap
gesture to signal its virtuous (or is it virtual?) greenness, their marketing gurus boast of banning plastic straws in their
restaurants. They evidently think this little plastic straw ban buys them green indulgences to consume gigawatts of
electricity generated by burning fossil fuels (elsewhere of course) to haul people up snowy hills so that they can slide back
down on plastic skis, over and over, till they get cold and sit by a fossil fuel fireplace before burning barrels of fossil
fuel to fly home.
Straw Ban Won't Help The Planet, But Will Hurt The Disabled. Why have straws become the bête noire
of the green lobby and progressive CEOs? Because some straws end up in the ocean. We'll concede that polluting
the oceans with plastic is bad. But environmentalists aggressively pushing this straw ban are using phony statistics
while ignoring the real problem. Almost every story on banning plastic straws cites the same statistic —
that Americans use 500 million straws a day — which is based on a 9-year-old's "research" project he did in 2011.
(A more reliable estimate is 175 million.) Whatever the number, straw bans in the U.S. will have virtually no impact on
the world's plastic pollution problem. Not only do straws represent a tiny portion of plastic waste that ends up in the
ocean, but the U.S. itself accounts for less than 1% of the marine plastic in the world's oceans, according to a 2015 study
published in the journal Science. Europe's coastal countries, by contrast, account for almost 3%. Just five
countries — China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka — are responsible for more than
half of the plastic entering the ocean each year.
eliminating plastic straws from all stores, introduces adult 'sippy cup'. The coffee company announced Monday
that it will phase out plastic straws from all of its stores by 2020. The changes will help Starbucks eliminate more than
1 billion plastic straws per year, the company said. Plastic straws contribute to ocean pollution and pose a danger to
marine life. Some governments have begun banning them.
The Editor says...
What fraction of the straws from an urban coffee shop end up in the ocean? One in a million?
One in a hundred million? The drive to eliminate plastic straws and bags is all about impeding
capitalism. Nothing more, nothing less. The same can be said of environmentalism as a whole.
plastic straws is more scam than science. Seattle just became the first US city to impose the trendy ban, and
New York may soon follow suit, with Mayor Bill de Blasio backing an anti-straw City Council bill. But even a national
ban wouldn't dent worldwide plastic output. Nor does any serious research justify targeting straws: The oft-cited
figure that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day comes from a survey conducted by a 9-year-old. Even ban
proponents admit the cause is a con: "Our straw campaign is not really about straws," Dune Ives, executive director of
the outfit that pushed hardest for Seattle's ban, told Vox. "It's about pointing out how prevalent single-use plastics
are in our lives."
passes citywide law based largely on the research of a 9-year-old. Seattle has made it official: It is
now the first major U.S. city to ban plastic drinking straws. As it turns out, the law, which includes a fine of $250
for all violators, is based largely on the unofficial research of a nine-year-old boy. Probably not the best basis for
sound legislation, but what do I know? The ban, which went into effect Sunday, is an "environmentally friendly move
that leaders hope will spark a nationwide conversation about small, everyday changes that people can make to protect the
planet." Or so says the Washington Post.
bans plastic straws, utensils, becoming first major US city to do so. Seattle has officially become the first
major U.S. city to ban restaurants from giving plastic straws and utensils to customers in an effort to help the
environment. Since July 1, restaurants in the Emerald City are barred from providing customers plastic straws, cocktail
picks or utensils unless someone specifically requests one. In that case, the customer should be given a compostable
option, according to Seattle Public Utilities. With 5,000 food service providers in the area, Seattle is the first
major city in the U.S. to enact such a ban, KIRO-TV reported.
Straws Aren't the Problem. Straws make up a trifling percentage of the world's plastic products, and campaigns to
eliminate them will not only be ineffective, but could distract from far more useful efforts. The anti-straw movement
took off in 2015, after a video of a sea turtle with a straw stuck in its nose went viral. Campaigns soon followed,
with activists often citing studies of the growing ocean plastics problem. Intense media interest in the so-called Great
Pacific Garbage Patch — a floating, France-sized gyre of oceanic plastic — only heightened the concern. But
this well-intentioned campaign assumes that single-use plastics, such as straws and coffee stirrers, have much to do with
ocean pollution. And that assumption is based on some highly dubious data.
defective science harms public policy and damages our public schools. If a scientific study is to be
legitimate, it must be reproducible because replication allows examination of the data and the possibility of different
conclusions. If the study is not reproducible it is not really science, and as the authors show, that type of
non-science is now common. In June of 2016, Oona Lönnstedt and Peter Eklöv of Uppsala University published a
paper in Science warning of the dangers of microplastic particles in the ocean. The study got considerable media
attention but as it turned out, "Lönnstedt never performed the research that she and Eklöv reported." So in
philosophical terms, it had an existential problem, and veracity is also an issue.
city wants to charge for every disposable takeout container. While many cities across the world are banning
plastic grocery bags in an effort to cut back on waste, one city in California is taking it one step further by targeting
disposable containers and cups. Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arregu'n held an event Tuesday [4/24/2018] at the local recycling yard
to introduce the legislation, which would encourage people to bring their own reusable containers and cups to restaurants and
coffee shops or be charged an extra 25 cents. The Disposable-Free Dining plan would also require to-go containers
to be 100 percent compostable or recyclable, chosen from a pre-approved list.
Cuomo introduces bill banning single-use plastic bags in New York state. A program bill that would ban all
single-use, plastic carryout bags at any point of sale in New York State was introduced by Governor Andrew Cuomo Monday
[4/23/2018]. The action follows the release of the New York State Plastic Bags Task Force report in January, which
outlined the environmental impact of plastic bags, single-use bag reduction measures, and proposed actions that the state
could take to reduce pollution and protect New York's natural resources, including a ban on single-use plastic bags.
PM May takes on plastic straws. Also ear swabs. The government of Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is
launching a domestic and international program against plastic straws. The idea is to have them and other single-use
items gone by 2042 when the prime minister turns 86.
and cotton buds could be banned as Theresa May targets plastic pollution. Plastic straws, drinks stirrers and
cotton buds could be banned from sale in England under plans being set out by Theresa May. The prime minister said
plastic waste was "one of the greatest environmental challenges facing the world" and said the UK was taking a lead in
tackling the problem. A consultation on banning the disposable plastic products will launch later this year in an
effort to cut the amount of waste which ends up in rivers and oceans.
Busybodies battle outbreaks of freedom.
The majority leader of California's state Assembly has introduced legislation that would impose a fine of up to $1,000 on any waiter or
waitress who offers a plastic drinking straw to a customer without being asked. The Washington Post notes that this is part of a
growing anti-straw movement, which is driven by alarm over the 500 million straws that are used every single day — which is
almost certainly a fake number, seeing as how it is based on an unconfirmed phone survey by a 9-year-old boy. (Yes, really.)
Having solved all other problems... California
Considers $1,000 Fine for Waiters Offering Unsolicited Plastic Straws. Ian Calderon wants restaurateurs to
think long and hard before giving you a straw. Calderon, the Democratic majority leader in California's lower house,
has introduced a bill to stop sit-down restaurants from offering customers straws with their beverages unless they
specifically request one. Under Calderon's law, a waiter who serves a drink with an unrequested straw in it would
face up to 6 months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.
Waiters to Jail for Offering Plastic Straws. It makes absolutely no sense to me that a state that's worked so
hard to lower its prison population would even consider passing a law that might clog its jail population full
of people whose only crime was asking "Would you like a straw?"
Soft Secession Accelerates. Earlier this week Twitter briefly lit up with news of yet another California
progressive excess. The state's Democratic house majority leader has submitted a bill that imposes criminal
penalties on waiters who offer their customers plastic straws. [...] It's not worth spending too much time on this absurd
bill (and I do mean absurd — Reason investigated and found that the justification for it rests on research
conducted by a nine-year old), but it's a useful segue to a far more significant point. California is in the midst of
an experiment in progressive governance and active resistance that is combining to create a simultaneously dangerous
and tantalizing experiment in state autonomy.
Major Media Outlets Used a Statistic about Plastic Straws Based on Research by a 9-Year-Old. Yesterday
[1/25/2018], I reported that the oft-cited, debate-driving statistic that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day was
the product of a 9-year-old's guesstimations. Despite those shaky factual foundations, the 500 million figure has
quickly spread, virus-like, across the media landscape and even into our shops and schools. [...] Meanwhile, impressionable
children at the Mount Vernon Community School in nearby Alexandria, Virginia, are coming home with "Straw Wars" handouts
citing the same dubious figure. It's easy to understand how the school could have been led astray, given how ubiquitous
this claim is in the media. Please see below for a list of just a few of the news outlets that have cited this
"fact" — or otherwise quoted people saying it without any critical pushback — in their reporting: [...]
Carolina Bag Ban Under Fire. The North Carolina Senate passed a bill rescinding a plastic-bag ban applying to
the state's Outer Banks region. The ban was enacted by the state's legislature in 2010. The North Carolina Retail
Merchants association says the replacement bags cost them 800 percent more than the plastic bags the law banned. State
Sen. Bill Cook (R-Beaufort County), the sponsor of the bill repealing the ban, says the ban has been ineffective.
This is only slightly off-topic: A
campaign to eliminate plastic straws is sucking in thousands of converts. It started so innocently. A kid
ordered a soda in a restaurant. "It came with a plastic straw in it," Milo Cress recalled. He glared at the straw
for a while. "It seemed like such a waste." Not only did Cress yank the plastic from his drink, but he also launched
a campaign, "Be Straw Free," targeting all straws as needless pollution. He knocked on the doors of restaurants in
Burlington, Vt., where he lived at the time, and asked managers not to offer straws unless patrons asked. He was
9 years old.
The Editor says...
It should be obvious that public policy should not be influenced by the impulses of a 9-year-old kid from Vermont.
A soft drink comes with a straw -- or at least straws are made available nearby -- because that's what most customers
prefer and expect. Those who consider this wasteful are abnormal. Those who would ban plastic straws
altogether are busybodies.
stamp purchases exempt from Chicago's new 7-cent bag tax. Chicago's seven-cents-a-bag tax goes into effect
today. Plastic bags were legalized just so they could be taxed. It's what Rahm Emanuel calls Chicago
Values. So if I make the mistake of driving five miles south of my home to Chicago — which already has a higher sales
tax rate than Morton Grove — to shop for groceries I'll have to pay a bag tax if accept bags — whether plastic or
paper — to lug my purchases into my car.
Bag the Ban. Plastic shopping
bags — the kind you get from your grocer or at the corner store — might soon vanish from stores in your
community. Misguided bans and taxes on plastic bags could weigh down the economy, increase costs for consumers and
small business, and leave a larger carbon footprint on the environment than alternatives. Plus, plastic bags are 100
percent recyclable and reused by 90 percent of consumers. It's time for a common-sense plastic bag policy that's good
for the economy, the environment, and working families. Keep reading to find out why bag bans and taxes are a bad idea
just banned banning plastic bags. A new law in Michigan will prohibit local governments from banning, regulating or imposing fees on the use
of plastic bags and other containers. You read that correctly: It's not a ban on plastic bags -- it's a ban on banning plastic bags.
Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley signed the new public act into law on Wednesday [12/28/2016], along with 11 other bills. Gov. Rick
Snyder is currently on vacation out of state, local news sources reported, and Calley has the authority to sign bills into law in his absence.
Chicago repeals plastic bag ban. Chicago's plastic bag ban will be
no more come Jan. 1. The City Council voted last month to repeal the ban, allowing retailers in Chicago to go back to providing regular plastic bags.
The council also voted to push back the start date for collecting taxes on all bags.
of the Week: Chicago tries again with plastic bag tax. Some of the biggest cities in the United States
have taken it upon themselves to wage a war on plastic bags under the guise of environmentalism. But, as many have
continued to discover, plastic bags are not the scourge they imagine, and their nanny policies continue to fail.
Chicago is the latest to go back to this well. Earlier this month, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's budget was approved by the city
council with a 7-cent tax on plastic bags — 5 cents of which will go to the city. While bag taxes like these
are sold as an environmental necessity, studies in multiple locales have shown that bag taxes rarely do much environmental good,
and cities simply use the money raised to plug budget holes. Plastic bag fees are merely a stealth tax hike that
disproportionately hits families that go grocery shopping more frequently.
France Bans All Plastic
Dishware Starting in 2020. The Associated Press reports that France has enacted a ban on all plastic dishes,
cups, and utensils. The ban goes into effect in 2020, after which all disposable utensils and dishes must be made of
biological, rather than petroleum-based, material. Organizations representing packaging manufacturers are fighting the
ban, saying that it violates European Union commerce rules. The ban follows a similar French ban on plastic bags.
Council approves controversial plastic bag 'tax'. Time to BYO-Bag. That convenient double-handled plastic
bag Big Apple shoppers get at check-out is officially going to come with a price tag. The City Council on Thursday
[5/5/2016] green-lit a controversial bill that puts a 5-cent fee on plastic and paper shopping bags at grocery, convenience
and other stores. The council voted 28-20 for the bill, which will take effect on Oct. 1. It is supposed to
encourage people to bring along reusable bags when they go shopping.
Blasio throws support behind 'tax' on grocery bags. Mayor de Blasio all but said he'll back a 5-cent fee on
shopping bags to reduce waste a day after City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito endorsed the controversial bill.
In a radio interview, de Blasio said he wants to see some minor tinkering to the bill before he'd sign it into law but
disputed opponents' claim that the so-called "tax" on plastic and paper bags unfairly socks the poor.
is lead contributor to plastic trash in oceans, study says. Millions of tons of plastic trash flow
into the world's oceans each year, and a new study finds that most of it comes from China and developing economies
in Asia. The study, published in Friday's [2/13/2015] edition of the journal Science, estimates that
China's heavily coastal population contributes 1.3 million to 3.5 million metric tons of plastic to the
world's oceans each year, largely due to mismanaged waste.
Bag This Tax. If one wanted a
better example of how elected officials jump at any chance to control behavior using tax laws, rely on unscientific bases for
legislation, and then waste the new revenue they get on phony propaganda lying about the effectiveness of their program, they
could find no better example than D.C.'s tax on plastic bags. Like many really dumb ideas, this one started in San
Francisco. In 2007, San Francisco banned disposable plastic grocery bags. Washington D.C.'s city council jumped
on the bandwagon, imposing a five-cent tax on plastic bags given out by grocery, convenience, and liquor stores.
bans bags; Arizona bags bans. The nanny state-environmentalist complex misled the
public about the nature of the plastic ban and paper tax. Lawmakers wooed lobbyists and Big Business
with the promise that grocers could pocket the dime-a-bag excise fee for paper totes. That single
allowance is estimated to earn the grocers a dizzying $1 billion in new revenue, according to
Are plastic bags back
in Huntington Beach? For two years, Huntington Beach stores have been prohibited from
wrapping up groceries and other goods in plastic. The repeal is now scheduled to have a second
reading before it's officially adopted 30 days later.
Left Avows Its Ungodly Love of Filth. The leftist intellect portrays waste where a
marvel of engineering and utility exists. There's the obvious: the plastic bag enables us to
segregate our groceries. Meat remains separated from fruit and vegetables. We've all encountered
the leaky package of raw chicken. Because the chicken is segregated, the risk of salmonella and
coliform is minimized. Best of all, the chicken-contaminated plastic bag can simply be tossed away.
Compare this to the revolting reusable grocery bag — canvas or polypropylene — which
over time festers a cauldron of mold and bacteria and, thus, disease. Why? Because no one
washes the reusable bag after it has lugged home the leaky chicken.
next big political fight: Plastic grocery bags. Go to a grocery store in California
and buy all the milk, eggs and vegetables you want. But there's one thing you won't find at the
checkout line, beginning July 1, 2015: Plastic bags to carry your stuff home. Gov. Jerry Brown
(D) on Tuesday signed into law a ban on single-use plastic bags, making California the first state
to prohibit stores from using the ubiquitous carry-alls. Shoppers will be charged 10 cents
for every paper bag and heavy-duty plastic bag they use.
Plastic Bag Ban And A State's Death Wish. California, as is its wont, enacted another
bunch of silly laws this week, topped by a ban on the plastic bags that we all find so handy. [...]
Nobody likes a "torrent of plastic polluting our beaches, parks and even the vast ocean itself," as
Brown says. Yet plastic bags still end up where they shouldn't be. The answer, however, isn't to
ban the bags, which people use not only for groceries but for everything from toting lunches to
picking up pet droppings. The solution is to penalize those who foul the commons, not just with
plastic bags but with all kinds of other litter. Californians actually may be worse off with the
ban. It could, for example, actually make people sick, since the reusable bags that shoppers are
being urged to switch to can harbor food-borne illnesses.
The Benefits of Polythene
Plastic Bags. We hate to burst your bubble, but those trendy cotton shopping bags are
a false economy, in our opinion. You'd have to use one of them around 130 times before its
efficiency equalled that of one plastic bag used just once. Why? Because it takes far more energy
and resources to manufacture them. And if you tend to throw yours in the washing machine every
couple of weeks, its carbon-efficiency plummets further. So if you use a cotton jute for your trip
to the market once a week and decline a plastic bag every time, you'd need to use the same cotton
bag every week for roughly two and a half years before the option paid off.
passes plastic bag ban, would be first such law in U.S. The California state legislature enacted a ban
on plastic grocery bags on Friday [8/29/2014] near the end of its two-year session, a measure that if signed into law
would become the first of its kind in America. A number of cities and counties in California and other U.S. states,
including Hawaii's Maui County, have made it illegal for grocery stores to pack purchases in plastic.
lawmakers send governor a ban on single-use plastic bags. The state Senate on Friday [8/29/2014] gave final
legislative approval to a measure that would phase out single-use plastic bags in supermarkets, pharmacies and convenience
stores as part of an effort to rid beaches and streets of litter. The measure, which now goes to Gov. Jerry Brown
for consideration, would allow stores to charge customers 10 cents to provide paper or reusable plastic bags as an
alternative to single-use bags.
The Editor says...
Does the term "single-use plastic bags" include sandwich bags, dry cleaning bags, 30-gallon garbage bags, or those flimsy little produce
bags that you put bananas in? Tree-hugging activists had better think it through before promoting a ban on "single-use plastic bags."
Garbage Philosophy Behind The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Myth. Why should we all be skeptical of doomsday
claims about global warming? Well, there are a lot of reasons. But from now on, I can sum it all up in one simple
phrase: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This was an environmentalist scare that became a bit of a trend from the late
1990s through the mid-2000s. The idea was that there is a giant floating raft of consumer trash in the middle of the
Pacific where ocean currents created a kind of dead spot and all the flotsam and jetsam of the ocean gathered together.
It was supposed to be a vast floating indictment — twice the size of Texas! the size of a continent! —
of our wicked, wasteful lifestyles. The problem is that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch never existed.
Great Pacific Garbage Patch Hoax. A new study published in Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences could mean bad news for environmental doomsayers. Forget all those warnings
about the million tons of plastic debris floating in the ocean. Ignore the photos that you think
show the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Andres Cozar of the University of Cadiz in Spain is the man
who once extrapolated the 1 million-ton estimate. Since then, however, he has led research that
collected samples at 141 ocean sites. Cozar's new estimate: Between 7,000 and 35,000 tons of plastic
are floating in the ocean. Cozar's team didn't find country-sized islands of plastic bags
strangling baby birds and sea turtles. It found "micro plastics." What people think of as a dump
doesn't look like floating junk. Instead, ocean current "convergence zones" are swirling with flecks
of plastic — like a snow globe a half-minute after you shake it — and with
considerably less plastic trash than expected.
'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' myth. Many, perhaps most, Americans believe that a vast accumulation of (mostly
plastic) garbage is floating somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean, a non-biodegradable stain on humanity, choking and deforming
fish. But apparently, that is just a myth.
An Ocean of Plastic. There is
a lot of plastic trash and debris going to the world's oceans. It used to be dumped intentionally — New York City barged
its municipal trash out to sea and tipped it in for years and years, as recently as 1992. There is no longer any country or
municipality known to be disposing of municipal trash and garbage at sea today. Most trash and garbage is fairly readily decomposed
in the natural environment and in modern landfills. [...] Jenna Jambeck summarizes it saying that the amount of plastic estimated to be
washing into the oceans is "one to three orders of magnitude greater than the reported mass of plastic in high-concentration ocean
gyres". That means that 10 to 1,000 times more plastic is going into the oceans than can be found. So, the Big
Question about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — all the Garbage Patches — is: "Where is all that plastic?"
On Plastic Bags Fail To Deliver Results. One argument for plastic bag bans is that cities will save money by reducing the costs
of litter collection, solid waste disposal and recycling. And in tight fiscal times when municipal budgets are strained, the argument is
compelling. However, a recent study by the National Center for Policy Analysis demonstrates that there is simply no evidence that plastic
bag restrictions reduce these costs.
L.A. starts 2014 with its new plastic-bag
ban. For Los Angeles residents, the perfect holiday gift this year might have been a reusable grocery bag. On
Wednesday [1/1/2014], large grocery stores will be prohibited by law from providing free plastic bags. Shoppers will be required
to bring their own bags when stocking up on food and goods, or pay 10 cents per paper bag provided by the grocery store.
Smaller independent markets and liquor stores that sell groceries will become subject to the ban July 1.
Plastic Grocery Bags Does Not Cut Disposal Costs. Banning plastic grocery bags does not reduce disposal and recycling costs, a study of
several U.S. cities shows. Consumers choose plastic bags far more often than paper or reusable bags to carry their purchases. Compared to
paper and reusable bags, plastic bags are lightweight, strong, flexible, and moisture-resistant. In addition, they are easy to store and reusable
for multiple purposes. Many studies have demonstrated previously overlooked health and environmental benefits of plastic grocery bags, such as their
ability to prevent spread of foodborne diseases. Despite these characteristics and their popularity, a growing number of municipalities and some
states are enacting laws aimed at reducing the use of plastic (and sometimes paper) grocery bags. The laws range from taxes to outright bans.
Banning Plastic Bags
Harms the Environment, Raises Costs. Government bans on plastic grocery bags harm the environment and do not reduce consumer costs,
the National Center for Policy Analysis reports in a new study. "Bag bans are bad for the environment. The alternatives —
paper bags and reusable bags — use more energy, use more resources, produce more greenhouse gases, and produce more waste and pollution
than plastic grocery bags," reported study author H. Sterling Burnett. Plastic bag opponents have argued bag bans will reduce costs by
reducing litter costs, solid waste disposal, and recycling expenses, the study observed. However, the study examined the experiences of
several cities that banned plastic bags and found no such cost savings.
Your Non-Plastic Bags Are
Killing the Earth, Hippies. [Scroll down] Of course, you're wondering, aside from inconvenience and the potential for
distressing and dangerous gastric illnesses, what could possibly go wrong when you ask people to abandon plastic grocery bags for reusable
or paper ones? Well, the Progressive Bag Alliance just released a study on the environmental impact of "alternative" grocery
containment measures, and it turns out, by switching to reusable and paper bags, you're actually sort of killing the earth faster.
soars in Seattle grocery stores after ban on plastic bags. When the Seattle City Council unanimously passed a
ban on plastic bags and required businesses to charge a nickel for paper bags, city leaders believed it would be better all
around. [...] But the bag ban is contributing to thousands of dollars in losses for at least one Seattle grocery store, and
questions have been raised about the risk of food-borne illness from reusable bags that shoppers don't often wash.
Consequences of Plastic-Bag Bans. Conservatives often point out that laws, no matter how benign they may appear, have
unintended consequences. They can reverberate in ways that not many people foresaw and nobody wanted: Raising the minimum
wage can increase unemployment; prohibition can create black markets. The efforts in many cities to discourage the use of plastic
bags demonstrate that such unintended consequences can be, among other things, kind of gross.
Haiti bans plastic bags, foam
containers. Plastic and foam food containers are everywhere in this enterprising Caribbean nation — clogging
canals, cluttering streets and choking ocean wildlife. Now those pesky black plastic bags made of polyethylene and polystyrene
foam cups, plates, trays and other containers that have become as ubiquitous as the vendors who peddle them in street markets are on
their way out.
Ban Plastic Bags, Ban Jobs? It's become fashionable in urban
locales to ban the humble plastic bag. Los Angeles became the largest US city to enact such a ban, back in May of this year. Cities say they're
banning the bags to fight pollution or for other environmental reasons. But as we've blogged here before, plastic bags are more sanitary than the
reusable bags that the forces of ban prefer, and we warned that banning plastic bags could lead to job losses. LA didn't listen, and now a study
has come out linking job losses in the area directly to the ban on plastic bags.
'Don't Kill Our Jobs with a Plastic Bag Ban'.
We shouldn't laugh too hard at France for voting against basic math and the iron laws of economics this past weekend. In wide swaths of America,
voters keep electing leaders who keep regulating our own businesses out of existence while they govern more by anecdote and emotion than by reason or
cause and effect. In Los Angeles, for instance, the city council is set to ban plastic bags because of the city's unsightly litter problem.
The ban will kill jobs and may even lead to more landfill waste and unsanitary food handling. But they're pressing ahead with the ban anyway,
despite a workers' plea to stop.
Reusable grocery bag carried
nasty norovirus, scientists say. Oregon public health officials have traced a nasty outbreak of norovirus infections in a group of soccer
players to an unlikely source: a reusable grocery bag contaminated with what some experts are calling "the perfect pathogens." The incident is
raising questions, once again, about the cleanliness of the portable shopping bags that many consumers use to avoid the paper vs. plastic impact on the
Ban the Bag, Get the Runs. Stores can wash the bags to kill the
bugs, but how many of them will do that without yet another government mandate to force them to? And what would that mandate do to the cost of goods
sold in the stores? Plastic bags, meanwhile, are sanitary and recyclable and make up a tiny fraction of the material that goes into landfills.
So we could just keep using them.
Aloha! Leave Your Plastic Grocery
Bags at Home. Honolulu County has joined Hawaii's three other counties in enacting a ban on plastic shopping bags,
making Hawaii the first state with a total ban on plastic shopping bags. The Honolulu County Council approved the ban in
April. Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle, who also acts as the county executive, initially held back his support in order to
gauge the public's attitude and study the enforcement and compliance costs.
A Suffocating Plastic-Bag
Ban. Californians use 12 billion plastic bags per year, according to advocates of the ban. If this policy
was expanded to the entire state, this would cost citizens $600 million per year, or over $30 per person. Is this really
an ethical policy, charging people via government fiat merely to shop?
Bans on plastic bags harm the environment.
In 2011, the United Kingdom's Environment Agency released a study that evaluated nine categories of environmental impacts caused by
different types of supermarket bags. The study found that paper bags have a worse effect on the environment than plastic bags
in all nine impact categories, which include global warming potential, abiotic depletion, acidification, eutrophication, human toxicity,
fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity, marine aquatic ecotoxicity, terrestrial ecotoxicity, and photochemical oxidation.
Hawaii to become first U.S. state to ban
plastic bags at checkout in every county. Hawaii is slated to become the first state in the nation to ban plastic bags at checkouts in every county.
"This is groundbreaking," said Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle, according to msnbc.com. Carlisle signed off on the ban last week, joining Honolulu County with
the state's three other counties, which had already passed the ban.
Reusable Bags Blamed for Norovirus Outbreak.
What could possibly make Occupy Los Angeles camps even smellier? If more liberals started using reusable grocery bags when the
city bans plastic grocery bags. Reusable grocery bags can infect people with the norovirus, which yearly hospitalizes 800,000 people
and kills another 800, a infectious virus that causes severe vomiting and diarrhea. And as more cities like Los Angeles try to ban
plastic grocery bags, reusable grocery bags will be more omnipresent in these cities, causing greater public health dangers.
grocery bag carried nasty norovirus, scientists say. Oregon public health officials have traced a nasty outbreak of norovirus
infections in a group of soccer players to an unlikely source: a reusable grocery bag contaminated with what some experts are calling
"the perfect pathogens." The incident is raising questions, once again, about the cleanliness of the portable shopping bags that many
consumers use to avoid the paper vs. plastic impact on the environment.
L.A. Readies Plastic Bag Ban. This month, the Los Angeles
city council is expected to ban single-use plastic bags. "[T]he ban is an attempt by the city to reduce litter," says the Los Angeles Daily News. But
it is likely to reduce something else: jobs.
No Paper or
Plastic: LA Bids Bags Goodbye. Influenced by out-of-touch environmentalists, the Los Angeles City
Council committee moved forward last week with plans to phase out and ultimately ban paper and plastic bags in
Los Angeles. Environmentalists would like similar legislation to pass across the nation, completely oblivious
to the fact that such legislation would not only inconvenience many consumers and shoppers but kill jobs.
disposable bag ban for 2013. The Austin City Council has approved a ban on disposable plastic
and paper bags at checkout counters for retailers. The ban approved early Friday [3/2/2012] takes
effect next March.
Green Blue Laws.
Montgomery County, Maryland is the latest locality to impose a 5-cent tax on shoppers or restaurant-goers
who need a plastic bag to take their purchases home. Next door, Washington, D.C. imposed such a tax
already; environmentalists are pushing localities everywhere to do the same. The tax is insignificant
as a revenue-raiser — perhaps $1 million a year will be collected, and probably less. The
tax is in fact designed not to be collected. Relative to the actual price of producing such a
bag — not even 1 penny — the tax is outrageous, at a 400-percent rate. Few
people will pay 5 cents for something they value at zero — they will go to significant
extremes to avoid it, even if it adds "only" 25-50 cents' added costs per trip to the supermarket.
banned in Seattle. The Seattle City Council passed a broad ban on plastic bags Monday, outlawing
them not just in grocery stores, but in department stores, clothing stores, convenience stores, home-improvement
stores, food trucks and farmers markets. The bill goes further than bans in other cities, which have
largely banished plastic only groceries and sometimes drug stores. Customers in Seattle will still be able to
get paper bags from retailers, but for a 5-cent fee.
Paper Or Plastic? An effort to allow only reusable bags at Los Angeles grocery stores
may sound like a political long-shot, but one city councilman thinks the public will eventually
warm up to the initiative.
Ban Shopping Bags Says EU. The EU
was under fire last night for seeking a ban on plastic shopping bags to fight pollution. Shops in Britain
could be outlawed from stocking them, or alternatively there might be a new tax to dramatically reduce their
use. But angry retailers say any move would hit sales, while doing nothing to save the environment.
Bag the Plastic Ban.
[Scroll down] Unfortunately, study after study has shown that most of the supposed "benefits" of these bans
and taxes have a negligible effect on the environment at best, and can actually have unintended consequences
that cause greater environmental harm. Take Ireland, for example. When the New York Times
reported the 94 percent decrease, it neglected to specify that it was referring only to plastic
grocery-bag use. Sales of non-grocery plastic bags (garbage bags, etc.) rose an astonishing
400 percent, amounting to a net increase of 10 percent in total plastic-bag consumption.
found in some reusable grocery bags. A U.S. consumer group says high levels of lead have been
found in reusable grocery bags supplied by major retailers. The Center for Consumer Freedom says of the
44 organizations whose bags were tested, 16 are selling or distributing reusable bags containing lead
in amounts greater than 100 parts per million, above the limit many states set for heavy metals in
packaging, the CCF Web site reported Monday [1/24/2011].
Lead for Me But Not for Thee.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is an environmental research and advocacy group that specializes in
sounding the alarm over toxic substances. ... EWG won't stand for lead in cosmetics, but when it comes to
one of its sacred cows, it's nothing a little soap and water can't solve? Can anyone else spot the
Tests show lead
levels vary in reusable grocery bags. Grocery chain Winn-Dixie sells a reusable grocery bag with two
sturdy handles, pictures of cute baby faces and enough toxic lead to alarm health experts. The bag contains
enough lead that Hillsborough County could consider the bag hazardous if thrown out with household trash, according
to independent laboratory tests commissioned by The Tampa Tribune.
I had a nickel for every bag,' sez Mayor Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg wants to nickel and dime
you at the grocery store -- taxing you an extra 5 cents for every plastic bag you take
home. The controversial charge could raise at least $16 million for the cash-strapped
city while keeping tons of plastic out of landfills, city officials said Thursday [11/6/2008] -- but
some outraged shoppers aren't buying it.
USA. This week San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic grocery bags from city
supermarkets and drug stores. San Francisco generates an estimated 180 million plastic bags each
year, and the city counsel [sic] wants them gone. Grocery shoppers will have to find an alternative within six
A series of blunders turned the plastic
bag into a global villain. Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic
bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims. The widely stated accusation that the bags kill
100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times.
Environmental Activist Failures Highlight Earth
Day. [Scroll down] Earlier this year ... scientists reported that plastic bags are having virtually no impact on marine life or other
animals. Although a single study several years ago found that 100,000 marine animal deaths occur each year
from all forms of environmental plastic (most notably six-pack holders), scientists reported this year that the
number of deaths attributable to plastic grocery bags is almost zero.
San Francisco is
the First City to Ban Plastic Shopping Bags. Supermarkets and chain pharmacies will have to use
recyclable or compostable sacks. The city's Board of Supervisors approved groundbreaking legislation
Tuesday [3/27/2007] to outlaw plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets in about six months and large chain
pharmacies in about a year.
bags may be banned in Boston. The Boston City Council wants to ban the use of plastic shopping
bags at supermarkets, pharmacies, and convenience stores in the city, saying the ubiquitous bags are a hazard
to the environment and a maddening blight of the landscape.
The Plastic Bag Ban is Full of
Holes. Plastic bags cost about a penny each, paper costs about a nickel and compostable bags can
run as high as 10 cents each. … Paper bags generate 70 percent more air pollutants and
50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. This is because four times as much energy is required to produce paper bags and 85 times as
much energy is needed to recycle them.
San Francisco may
charge for grocery bags. San Francisco may become the first city in the nation to charge shoppers
for grocery bags. The city's Commission on the Environment is expected to ask the mayor and board of
supervisors Tuesday [2/2/2005] to consider a 17–cent per bag charge on paper and plastic grocery
bags. While the goal is reducing plastic bag pollution, paper was added so as not to discriminate.
They went even further... Starting Tuesday,
plastic bags illegal at big S.F. grocery stores. Starting Tuesday [11/20/2007], large grocery
stores in the city can no longer use the traditional plastic bags that are a staple of the supermarket checkout
line, as a city ordinance passed earlier this year to ban the bags takes effect.
Ignore the greenwash... plastic is
fantastic. What will happen if Edinburgh taxes plastic carrier bags? The answer came from
the Scottish Parliament's Environment Committee after two years of hearings and expert evidence. If you
don't have time to read thousands of words on their website, the conclusion comes in just six words —
"the environment will be worse off". Surprised? Surely plastic bags are a danger to the
environment. Wrong. Over two years, this claim was demolished by experts and science at
an estimated cost of £2 million of Scottish taxpayers' money.
I love plastic bags.
Is the lack of intellectual rigour in the whole debate about plastic bag use annoying you? Of course, it
is politically correct not to like them; to front at the shops with a handbag full of crisp green or red or
yellow or purple bags to carry your purchases. And it's politically incorrect to argue what I'm about
to do here: that perhaps plastic bags might not be the environmental bogie we claim.
Plastic bags choke Garrett.
Here we go again — another green crusade in which facts are invented to scare you into doing something dumb. This
time our evangelical Environment Minister says he'll this year take away your plastic shopping bags — the ones that are
so useful that we use more than 4 billion of them each year to cart home our shopping. What must we use instead
to carry home the fortnightly shopping: suitcases? Rolls of green bin liners? And how annoying not to
have those plastic bags to reuse for everything from wrapping leftovers and wet clothes to picking up manure.
on bags can't carry weight. Plastic bags are under siege, pilloried globally as a menace to the
environment and a symbol of man's conspicuous consumption, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
Without plastic bags we would all buy less, goes the thinking. But, of course, we won't.
plastic? Either bag would cost you 20 cents extra. To reduce trash, Mayor Greg Nickels
wants Seattle shoppers to pay a fee on all disposable bags — paper and plastic — at
grocery, convenience and drug stores. Customers would be charged a 20-cent "green fee" per bag used at
the checkout line. If approved by the City Council, the fee would take effect Jan. 1. "The
answer to the question 'Paper or plastic?' should be 'Neither,'" Nickels said at a news conference
Wednesday morning [4/3/2008].
Bags are a tiny
fraction of sea trash. I figured if anyone would jump for joy at Seattle's crusade against
plastic bags, it would be the flotsam guy. ... So when I asked him what he thought of Seattle's plan to
crack down on disposable grocery bags, I was surprised when he sort of shrugged. "It's OK, but plastic
bags are not the real problem," he said. "It's one little battle out of a million. Go look at what
the ocean carries in on a given day. You'll see what I mean."
Biodegradable bags may not be as green as they seem.
As though the paper-or-plastic question weren't vexing enough, now some retailers are finding that the "biodegradable"
plastic bags they'd hoped would please green shoppers might not be so Earth-friendly after all. Lunds and Byerly's
recently replaced its plastic bags with a biodegradable bag made of low-density polyethylene that purportedly breaks down when
exposed to sunlight, oxygen, soil, moisture and microbes. But biodegradable bags are still petroleum-based....
Loblaws bags a nickel starting tomorrow.
It's like there's a scarlet letter burned across Jennifer Sutcliffe's forehead as she hastily piles eight bags
of groceries into the cart — "P." For plastic. For polluter. "I have cats. I
use them for the litter," she clarifies apologetically. Not good enough. Gazing down the line of
nine open cashiers, Sutcliffe is the only one who didn't BYOB. The 40-year-old retreats from the Loblaws
store, which as of tomorrow will begin a plastic fee of 5 cents per bag. A source said proceeds
will go to the World Wildlife Fund.
The Editor says...
Dear Jennifer: Find yourself another place to buy groceries, and let the earth-worshiping hippies
shop at Loblaws.
Plastic Bag Fears Based on Misquoted Study.
Shoppers the world over can breathe a collective sigh of relief now that leading scientists are stepping forward
and defending the widespread use of plastic bags at supermarkets and other retail outlets. ... The plastic bag
scare, it turns out, is based on a 1987 Canadian study that investigated the harm to marine mammals and seabirds
from discarded fish nets. For reasons not fully understood, Australian researchers, in a follow-up study
conducted 15 years later, mistakenly attributed the death of 100,000 marine animals to plastic bags
instead of the "plastic litter" cited in the Canadian research.
Whole Foods Gets it Wrong. Whole
Foods has banned plastic bags. The only free bags that it provides to customers at the checkout are paper
bags. The company has eliminated consumer choice, pandering to political correctness. Whole Foods is
leading people to believe that it is making a positive contribution to the environment by providing paper bags
rather than a plastic bags. It is not. It is hurting the environment.
get sacked. So there's this guy at the Evanston Farmers Market, earthy type, grows organic arugula
and bok choy and all manner of eco-friendly hippie chow. His stand is a favorite stop for greenish types and
locavores and, well, people who get up early on Saturdays to buy stuff like fresh arugula and bok choy. But as
wildly popular as Henry Brockman and his operation might be, there was one thing that drove the environmentally
friendly farmer nuts. It was the plastic bags.
LA bans plastic
bags. The city of Los Angeles will ban plastic bags from retail stores from July 1, 2010,
following similar regulations already enforced in San Francisco. Los Angeles, the second-largest US
city behind New York, would ban plastic bagging in all supermarkets, grocery and retail stores, the Los
Angeles City Council said.
Save the Plastic Bag. We are a California-based
coalition of businesses and citizens. We are concerned about the one-sided myths and false information
circulating on anti-plastic bag websites and in the media about plastic bags. It's time to answer back
with the facts. (When we refer to plastic bags, we mean plastic carryout bags that you get at
the supermarket or grocery store checkout.)
Plastic bag FAQ. Are plastic bags
recyclable? Yes, absolutely. In California, large supermarkets are required by law to provide plastic
bag recycling receptables for consumers to dispose of bags. Virtually all of the bags placed in these
recycling bins are actually recycled into new products.
Free grocery bags targeted for extinction in
California. The plastic grocery bag is fighting for its crinkly life. From the city of
San Francisco to Los Angeles County, more than a dozen local governments around the state have proposed or
passed plastic-bag restrictions, ranging from recycling mandates to outright bans.
India, plastic bag use is a capital offence. The global battle against plastic has taken a
draconian turn with officials in Delhi announcing that the penalty for carrying a polythene shopping bag would
be five years in prison. Officials in India's capital have decided that the only way to stem the rising
tide of rubbish is to outlaw the plastic shopping bag.
Panel votes to ban
plastic retail bags. A Senate committee Wednesday night voted 4-3 for a bill that would ban plastic bags
in large retail stores within three years. Critics complained that the bill would drive consumers to paper bags,
which cause their own set of environmental problems. But supporters said the idea was to get customers to use some
sort of reusable bag.
Plastic bags must go, Basnight says.
State Senate leader Marc Basnight has one word for shoppers: plastics. And he wants them banned. Basnight,
the Manteo Democrat and restaurateur who is one of the state's most powerful leaders, is pushing a bill that
would ban plastic shopping bags in Outer Banks counties. It's a pilot program that, if successful, could
be imposed statewide.
Senate Bags Plastic Shopping Bag Ban. The Colorado Senate has rejected a bill that would have
made Colorado the first state to ban plastic shopping bags. Proponents of the bill had argued plastic
bags are not biodegradable and can harm wildlife. Opponents noted plastic bags are recyclable and
studies show plastic bags have minimal negative impact on wildlife. In addition, opponents had noted a
ban on plastic bags would increase use of paper bags, which take up more landfill space than plastic bags.
Paper bags are also much bulkier and heavier than plastic bags, which means transporting paper bags requires
the burning of more fossil fuels than the transport of plastic bags.
The Editor says...
Landfills do not get "clogged up" — they get deeper and wider. Landfill capacity is not
threatened by plastic grocery bags.
Not The First Head Of State To Design Cars. That's environmental paranoia in a nutshell for you.
It isn't really about the environment, it's about control. You, too, are going to be forced to look as stupid
as the guy pulling ten canvas bags out of his faux leather man-purse. If you dare show up at any grocery store
in Toronto, Canada, without your own ratty, reused bags, you'll be charged five cents for each one — a
tax on your audacity, collected by the City.
U.N. environment chief urges global ban on plastic
bags. Single-use plastic bags, a staple of American life, have got to go, the United Nations' top
environmental official said Monday. ... [A total] ban is already being tested in China, where retailers giving
out thin bags can be fined up to $1,464. ... In the United States, only San Francisco has completely banned
The Editor says...
Hmmm... Do the governments of San Francisco and China have a lot in common?
Senate Bags Plastic Shopping Bag Ban. The Colorado Senate has rejected a bill that would have
made Colorado the first state to ban plastic shopping bags. Proponents of the bill had argued plastic
bags are not biodegradable and can harm wildlife. Opponents noted plastic bags are recyclable and
studies show plastic bags have minimal negative impact on wildlife. In addition, opponents had noted a
ban on plastic bags would increase use of paper bags, which take up more landfill space than plastic bags.
Obamacare Or Logan's
Run. I'd like to know where the environmental hypocrites are hiding, knowing that the health plan bill,
H.R. 3200, is 1,000 pages long and has been distributed to all the members of the House and Senate.
Shouldn't they be ranting about the poor trees that have been destroyed for this bill the same way they successfully
demonized the supermarket brown bags? Those bags were replaced by plastic bags that shredded before shoppers
reached the parking lots. Now these flimsy bags are being replaced by cloth bags made in China that will carry
your precious, organic tasteless produce and the planet will be saved, thanks to you.
Seattle Voters Reject 20-Cent Grocery Bag Fee.
Seattle voters have rejected a 20-cent fee for every paper or plastic bag they get from supermarkets, drug stores
and convenience stores. The city's incumbent mayor didn't fare much better than the fee, trailing two
challengers in a bid for a third term. With about half the ballots counted in the all-mail vote, the bag
fee was failing 58 percent to 42 percent in Tuesday's [8/18/2009] primary.
reusable shopping bags pose health risk: Study. The Environment and Plastics Industry Council stated
Wednesday [5/20/2009] that a study it funded shows reusable bags "pose a public health risk" due to high counts of
yeast, moulds and bacterias in dirty reusable bags. ... But B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall said
reusable bags do not pose a serious public health risk if consumers treat bags as they would cutting boards or food
preparation surfaces, and wash them regularly and dry them well.
The Editor says...
This study was released in May, 2009, but it still pops up occasionally on days when the news business is slow
Critics like to point out that the study was undertaken and funded by a plastics manufacturing group, and after all,
what else would such a group conclude, but that plastic bags are better than reusable ones. Nevertheless,
disposable bags are disposed of — along with any bacteria they may carry — while reusable
bags accumulate bacteria until they are washed with hot soapy water. Of course the environmentalists are also
opposed to hot soapy water, because it takes energy to heat the water and the soap may contain toxic chemicals.
from the bag tax in D.C. is good news. The District of Columbia is not collecting as much money
as it thought it would from its tax on disposable bags. And that's good news. The reduced revenue
is evidence that the newly enacted law is working exactly as hoped. People are using fewer plastic and
paper bags, and that means less litter clogging area streets and waterways.
It's the Washington Post, so what would you expect, but has anyone ever seen
a street "clogged" with plastic bags?
moves to ban plastic bags. It could soon cost California shoppers at the checkout aisle if
they forget to bring their own bags to the store under what would be the nation's first statewide plastic
shopping bags 'are a threat to public health'. Reusable shopping bags could be a threat to public
health because they harbour potentially deadly food poisoning bugs, according to new research. Tests on
shoppers' bags revealed half contained traces of E.coli, a lethal toxin which killed 26 people in
Scotland in 1996 in one of the worlds worst food poisoning outbreaks. Scientists also found many
were contaminated with salmonella.
Bags: Untapped Tax Gold Mine? Only one US city — Washington, D.C. —
has successful instituted a plastic bag tax, but at least 13 other states are considering one. In
its first month, the 5-cent bag tax brought the city about $150,000. Revenues have increased each
subsequent month, reaching $226,000 in May, and totaling $942,000 from January through May. The funds
have all gone towards efforts to clean up the Anacostia River, which runs through Washington.
See You Next Tyranny
Day! [Scroll down] A new study from the University of Arizona reveals that reusable shopping
bags, the enlightened replacement for plastic ones, are breeding grounds for E. Coli and other dangerous
bacteria. Roughly 50 percent of the bags inspected were found to contain dangerous, potentially lethal,
bacteria. ... There's always going to be a downside to even the best policies, because the experts don't know as
much as they think they do. Sometimes, they don't even know they're not experts at all.
In Defense of Plastic. In San
Francisco, where the city government has already banned the use of plastic bags, one resident wrote, "I
remember when it began to rain last year while I was carrying my groceries home in a paper bag. As I
chased my cans down the street, I cursed our idiot mayor and whoever among his stooges had decided to ban
rainproof plastic bags in San Francisco. Paper is certainly biodegradable, for the process started
even as I was carrying the bag home." Where was her freedom of choice?
Disturbing Trends in Eco-Bags:
Big-government bureaucrats are already facing an uphill battle trying to convince cost-conscious consumers
to give up their plastic bags or pay extra taxes. Now two studies reveal why America's green bag
revolution may have some unintended consequences.
The Save The Plastic Bag Coalition was formed in June 2008. The sole purpose of the coalition is to
inform decision-makers and the public about the environmental impacts of plastic bags, paper bags, and reusable bags. The anti-plastic bag campaign is largely
based on myths, misinformation, and exaggerations. We are responding with environmental truth.