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March 29, 2007
Let Me See Your Paper!
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| Bans, bans, and more bans. I'm living
through the battle of the bans. San Francisco's Mayor will likely approve
a ban on plastic grocery bags. More power to him. The ban on plastic grocery bags is worth discussing on several fronts. Across the globe nations are dealing with the problems associated with plastic bags as they contribute to wind blown litter and bulging landfills. Some nations have created taxes specific to the bags. For example, Ireland has had a $0.20 tax on each bag a consumer uses since 2002. They have seen a 90% reduction in bag use since the tax. California has discussed a tax from $0.03 to $0.25 per bag. Taxing each bag would dramatically reduce use here as well. More interesting to me is that these bags can easily be recycled as is. In fact they were introduced in part to provide an easily recyclable bag for shoppers. All major grocery stores will accept empty bags, and recycle them. Many communities can recycle them as part of their waste processing services. Consumers have no good reason not to recycle plastic grocery bags. It's pretty clear that after a couple of decades of use people have never wanted to recycle plastic bags. They just won't change their behavior. And if the proletariat won't behave, they must be shackled into obedience (via laws and taxes). I suspect that's where we are going with environmental legislation in California. Some of it will work out as a benefit, some of it won't. MTBE is one example of a failed solution. Lead free (or ROHS, pronounced row-hoss) compliance in the electronics industry may be another. The long term effects of lead free assembly are not known, although some say consumer electronics may fail much more frequently due to high assembly temperatures and solder joint failures. Not building power plants was a pretty big failure too (well, it knocked out Davis, who was a dweeb, so maybe it was carbon-neutral). Certainly the plastic bag ban in San Francisco will work. And while not a tax, it will increase the cost of groceries in the city. Don't worry, a program to provide free canvas bags to the poor will be funded through the new "plastic bag compliance permit process". That'll increase grocery costs too. Personally, I would prefer a plastic bag tax to a ban. I can always avoid the tax and feel like I'm sticking it to "the man". Don't confuse this with supporting a tax or a ban. But liberal democrats in California are well on their way to legislating morality with regards to the environment. Since that is the case I prefer policies that allow me to change my behavior as an alternative to taxing me over it. On a somewhat unsettling note I am starting to get a "big brother-y" feeling about all these bans. |
Posted by Lon at March 29, 2007 12:00 AM
Comments
Not to mention plastic bags can be used as weapons to suffocate people. (I know its true cuz I seen it on TV.)
If plastic bags are outlawed, only outlaws will carry plastic bags.
Really though, they last a long time and wind up causing all kinds of problems. They do choke a lot of wildlife like green sea turles that eat them by accident thinking they are jellyfish. To me they're not worth it and I don't mind giving them up.
Posted by: Gregg Payne at March 29, 2007 03:13 PM
Perhaps we could carry our groceries home in jellyfish?
Lon
Posted by: Lon at March 30, 2007 08:07 AM
This was sent to me via email.
Since March 15, Ikea has started voluntarily charging 5 cents for every disposable bag a customer uses at checkout. Ikea will donate the proceeds (up to $1.75 million) to an environmental group to plant up trees. Ikea is selling more durable, reusable plastic bags at 60 cents a pop.
It's an interesting concept. Although I'm not quite sure how planting trees helps clean up landfill and litter related issues. Maybe they should use the funds to support recycling programs.
Still, this kind of unilateral problem solving is much more to my liking than new legistalation.
Lon
Posted by: Lon at March 30, 2007 01:54 PM