California banning plastic grocery bags

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/us/plastic-bags-come-under-siege-in-california.html

Over 100 municipalities in California have already banned their use and State lawmakers are going to try to get them banned statewide.  I guess it is a good thing.

I remember reading about an African country that banned them a year or three ago.  These things are ubiquitous.  

There are square miles of plastic bits floating in the Pacific Ocean... they call it the Great Garbage Patch... National Geographic photo below... caption reads "Plastic bags, like these floating near the Philippines, look like jellyfish..."



I am just as guilty as the next guy when it comes to using them.  I have three or four reusable canvas type bags in my car trunk and only remember them when I am at the checkout counter (usually when I see someone else using some).

They are handy for lining trash cans inside the home, so at least I recycle them somewhat.

I use reusable shopping bags and have a pretty healthy disdain for plastics, I just don't think the government should be getting involved in it. Leave it to California!

E, you and I may have seen the same program. I think it was on Discovery or something. A guy took a bunch of people out to the great garbage patch (some students, a chemist to test the water, etc) and it was just sickening. plastic soda bottles, bottle caps, plastic bags, etc. had broken into little pieces and were floating in this HUGE garbage mass that stretched for miles. Fish eat this crap and die.

Ricey, I saw that program.  Prior to seeing that program, I envisioned discernible plastic pieces in thick mats.

Turtles eat jellyfish and mistake plastic for jellyfish.  It is often fatal for them.  

Maybe that is more than an incidental contributor to their decline.

While in the Navy out in the middle of the ocean I was amazed at some of things I saw floating around. Mostly plastic water bottles and styrofoam coffee cups. We threw trash over the side in weighted (I think the only reason they were weighted was the Soviet AGI that followed us around in the North Atlantic anyway) plastic bags until an order came to store garbage until reaching port. The hanger bay got quite smelly after a while. The Navy eventually installed machines that "cooked" the waste and compressed it into large discs that were easy to store and didn't smell. Some ships had incinerators of one kind or another but most trash was just chucked over the side if you were more than 12 miles offshore. Civilian ships were the same although they were frequently caught pumping bilges closer in to land.

One day, probably far into the future (if we don't kill ourselves first, lol), I envision that our landfills will be mined for their resources. Materials will have to get really scarce for it to be worthwhile, though.

We aren't doing a very good job of recycling yet... just see the PNJ article on West Florida Recycling from yesterday. That would be a nasty job to have, y'know. Picking through trash ain't my cup 'o tea.

A few things come to mind...

Back home, our local garbage company has been sorting the recyclables out of the trash for over 25-years. E, you may think it's a shitty job, but he makes a boatload of money. Easily one of the top three most wealthy guys in town. A millionairre many times over.

Another couple of things is that up here we don't have garbage service, we have transfer sites... localized areas with a few dozen dumpsters all in a ring. There are also giant (I'd have to look at how many cubic yards they are) dumpsters that have one of the sides dropped. Each of them is labeled steel, copper, aluminum, construction wood, brush, etc. Then there is what is called the drop off area. It is covered (to keep snow off) and people drop off good stuff they no longer need or want. Anything from books to tires to clothes to washers & dryers. Other folks can come pick up anything in there they might need or want. Usually the copper gets stripped out of the major appliances before anyone can take them, but aside from that, people take it all. Oh, there are also drop-off bins for all sorts of chemicals, paint, ashes, anything you can think of.

Anyhow, the point is that all the garbage is sorted before it goes to the landfill, which is how it should be. Plus, pretty much everyone keeps out paper and cardboard in a burn box.

One thing I hate about plastic bags is that grocery clerks will put one or two items in each one (they know they'll break if they put more) and I end up dragging maybe 20 bags into my house every week. When they used the big brown paper bags, I could fit all my groceries into about 5 or 6 of them.

I don't know why the trend to plastic bags ever started but I'll be glad if it ends.

I have been reading about a city in California (San Francisco?) that is considering banning bottled water because of the plastic waste. I have to admit, I will buy them occasionally. I still prefer filtered water than bottled water, though.

In Washington DC, a restaurant will charge you 5 cents for a bag for a to go order..  Paper or plastic makes no difference.  It is still one of the trashiest cities I've seen in years..  It reminds me of downtown P'cola right after a Mardi Gras parade or the beach after the Mobile grad weekend..

Otter, the move away from paper bags was also at the behest of the environmentalists because we were using too many timber products with paper bags. If I forget my cloth bags I ask for paper partially because of what you describe and partially because I can reuse a paper bag several times or for several different purposes (like as packing material) before I burn it in the woodstove. You're lucky to get home without one of those plastic POS's ripping open :-E

E, that sounds like SF. I would not be surprised to hear that restaurants in California were charging for tap water with how bad the drought is. If I do end up with a disposable water bottle, I refill it at least several times before it goes in the garbage. They are a pet peeve of mine, probably because my mom buys boat loads of them and the amount of waste is overwhelming to me.

I worked on a Census project for the City of Atlanta and I was stationed at City Hall. There were plastic bags stuck in the trees in front of City Hall. If they were removed, new ones took their place, I dunno. Perhaps they were the same bags.

Off-topic, but speaking of Atlanta, my drive home took me past the parole/probation office and there were always dozens of rough-looking characters loitering around, sitting on short walls and hanging out near the street. It was the only place where I would routinely chamber a round in my pistol and make sure the safety was off when I drove by. There was a traffic light right on that corner and I felt like I was a sitting duck when I had to stop with the traffic.

I have traveled a lot for work and because of that I've spent a lot of time in airports, both at home and abroad, and have slept in airports on many occasions by choice to avoid the CF of having to haul all my crap through 97 terminals, up into a hotel, back out again, back through TSA, blah blah blah. Atlanta is the ONLY airport & city in which I have ever felt afraid. I rented a car and drove home to Pensacola in the middle of the night once in order to get out of the ATL airport and out of that city. I do not like it. Hell, I don't even like driving through it, but I don't imagine anyone does.