The State of confusion.
If you live in California you probably have read something similar to what I swiped out of an un-named CA newspaper:
In a 41-27 vote, the Assembly on Wednesday passed a bill that would prohibit grocery stores from offering plastic bags starting January 2012. Instead, consumers would either have to carry their groceries in reusable bags or pay 5 cents or more for a paper bag made of partially recycled content.
Convenience stores and drugstores, as well as mom-and-pop shops, would have to ditch the plastic bags as of July 2013.
The law, if enacted, would be a milestone for environmentalists who have long thought of plastic shopping bags as the scourge of the planet, especially for the ocean and marine animals that often ingest the bags.
My thoughts:I have re-usable bags!
I have loads of re-usable bags!
All boaters do.
All cruisers do.
Packaging is the bane of boaters and cruisers.
I cringe at the amount of paper, plastic and crap I have after a trip to the grocery store or that other full of packaging products store, Target.
However I do have to give Target credit, as they refund 5 cents for every bag brought in.
Fresh & Easy?
Cool store, good idea, but their packaging is horrifying.
These one-use plastic bags are everywhere.
Floating in the ocean.
Getting wrapped around boat props.
Getting eaten by turtles when mistaken for jellyfish.
Beside every road in Mexico.
Hanging off of cactus spines all over Baja.
In fact, we call plastic bags "The State Flower of Baja".
Horrifying.
So I will have no trouble going along with this.
If I can remember to take my bags...
No worries, will invest in a few more small foldable ones to always keep in the car.
Yes, every once in awhile I will have to pay a nickel if I made an un-planned stop somewhere.
But maybe not.
If I start NOW.
The appalling part?
The disturbing part?
The comments some of the readers made in our local newspaper in reaction to articles about this bill:
Can I bring in cardboard boxes? I live in the country (10 miles from the nearest town). I shop once every 3-4 weeks and buy 12-15 sacks of groceries. I also shop for an elderly lady who lives close by. No way can I carry in an armload of reusable bags.
My response:
I really don't think the store is going to give a shit what you bring in.
Seriously, you can't carry in an armload of reusable bags, but you can carry in armloads of boxes?
“Our oceans are in danger,” Dawson said. “The problem is huge. One thousand miles off our coast is a big pile of garbage twice the size of Texas. Something we use for two to five minutes shouldn’t last for 500 years.”
So true, but there are not grocery bags in the mess.
Are you insane?
I saw three floating in the harbor today.
I see them EVERY day I am on the water.
Floating just below the surface.
Draped across the rip-rap.
Stuck against the pilings.
Slithering their way towards my props and intakes...
If free plastic grocery bags are eliminated, I will have to start buying plastic bags. Where is the savings there? Are my grocery bills going to be less because I don't get plastic bags at the store? Sure. Don't start holding your breath. Bring your own bags, ring up your own groceries, put them in the bag yourself -- when do we start stocking the shelves for the grocery chains?
Are you too insane?
Do you think you do NOT pay for those bags now?
Believe me, you pay for them.
You just didn't think before you typed.
I bet all you tree huggers drive your gas drinking cars to the store with your little reusable bags. Your Green as long as it is easy for you,then you judge other people for how they live. Its like Bono flying around in his jet and preaching Green to everyone,what a joke. Don't forget Europe dumps all their Nuclear waste in the ocean.
Your should have been spelled "you're".
You need a space between "you" & "then".
"Its" needed one of these little ' things.
Forgot another space there after your other comma.
Because California wants to take a step in a positive direction, you attack Bono and Europe?
Stay on topic.
And people in Europe only get enough food for one day at a time because they live next door to the grocery store! They also complain that Americans use too much toilet paper...should we all quit wiping and use bidets like they do????????
Nope...I can't wait to see the face of the clerk when I tell him/her to just reload every item I buy back into the grocery cart. Then I'll wheel it to my truck and unload it there...can, bottle, and jar at a time...into the boxes I'll be carrying. I do love Costco giving away the boxes.
Not all Europeans live next to a grocery store.
You do not know what a bidet is for.
Uh, why don't you just take your cardboard boxes in with you?
Or maybe you simply have too much time on your hands to load each item individually.
More enviro-nazi crap. Sure the grocers love it. No more having to buy bags. When are you people going to catch on that the enviro-nazis and their Democrat buddies are killing this Country?
The grocery stores make money on the bags now, I am quite sure.
And the rest - huh?
Reuasable bags are great. I use them, but I also use disposable diapers, so I'm not a full fledged tree huger. I think people should use the reusables, but this shouldn't be forced on people with a ban, instead a curb type refuse tax should be levied on bags, diapers, etc. The cost to clean up after these wasteful items should lye on the shoulders of who uses them. If you're using it as a can liner, great, just pay the tax. Do small trash cans really need liners?
Ok, this person made some sense here.
Having never had children, I did not have to make the big diaper decision.
Maybe they should charge for bags now and credit the people who bring their own.
That would work for me.
Kind of scared of the lye on the shoulders thing though... doesn't lye hurt skin?
This is the problem I have with the Dirt-Worshippers: They are against cutting down trees, endlessly preach against it, and then what do they do? They go home to their WOOD framed houses, sleep in their beds with the WOOD framed box springs, watch tv with their smelly feet on their WOOD coffee table, and so on and so on. Remember all the trees that were cut down in Montana under Pres. Bush? It was in the Star. Some clown had a sign that said, "more trees, less Bush." The only problem was that the sign's long handle was - you guessed it - WOOD !!
Ha ha ha.
Sort of.
One, I live in a fiberglass house.
Not much wood on this boat.
I hardly watch tv.
My feet aren't smelly.
I don't worship dirt.
I'd be okay with bringing in my own bags. Just have to remember to put them in my car. It takes a bit of time to adjust but all in all it's better for the environment. Why the hell not? Count me in.
Finally.
Someone made a comment that stayed on the topic.
Made sense.
Understood.
Got it.
Can adjust.
Not a moron.
Not a whiner.
Thankfully, not all of the people in this county are completely embarrassing.
6 comments:
Damn Girl...Right On!
You must be reading the Nazi star paper!! I love reading the comments that the dumb people make, especially since half of then never make any sense. Our newspaper likes to change the stories to make them more readable. I hate our newspaper, but I do read it online just to see what might be happening! Ikea already charges you for every plastic bag you need, in fact you have to get your bags before you pay and they get rung up with everything else. I paid the $1.00 or whatever it was for their big reusable bag, the only problem with it is, it's to big and I never fill it!! Wait that really isnt a problem. I normally only get tupperware type stuff there and tea lights so I really dont need to fill it.
Well put, Heather! I use my bags most of the time. Sometimes they are in the car and I forget them until I am ready to check out. I like my TJ's bags the best but I got a great one in Nova Scotia that is large and has a pocket on both sides inside for wine bottles. Gotta love Canadians!! In NS, you have to bring your own bags or pay the 5 cents already. And - they have very serious recycling programs. You have to put your trash out in clear bags to prove you are recycling properly. I was almost trained by the end of our one week visit!
I am a bag lady at heart so this is easy for me!!
We've been using reusable bags for years now, but there's always those times when we forget to bring them with us. I do still accept plastic bags at times because we reuse them to put the cat poop in!
People will whine about this for a while but they'll get used to it soon enough.
I'll be glad when all the cashiers get used to it and stop automatically putting all your stuff in plastic bags. We had one cashier at walmart who DOUBLE bagged EVERYTHING but she was a little obsessive compulsive anyway.
Hi, I'm jomamma and I'm a Bag Lady. I love bags and I'm highly addicted to them, but not the plastic kind. Here in Texas we know when we are close to Wal-Mart by how many bags are in the trees. I picked plastic bags from my hydrangeas just this evening... it was a windy day. We have to do that after every windy day and I live about 2-3 miles from the nearest store. I like the idea of charging people for the bags. I also like the idea of taxing people for the use of disposable diapers, and let's not forget about tampons.... they last for ages too. Personally I didn't use disposable diapers with my kids, they were allergic and my hobby was laundry. I also used the Diva Cup... unfortunately I didn't learn about that when I was a teen, but I have enlightened a lot of teens and their mothers about it, so I'm trying to make up for all those lost years. I think anything labeled disposable and made of plastic should be taxed extra. I feel the need for a blog post of my own on this subject.
Oh, yeah, remembering the tote bag. That's the hard part for me. I have actually found myself standing at the counter with my bag in hand watching the clerk pack my purchases into plastic bags, only to remember when it's too late! Duh!
But it's a good idea and Californians are flexible, they'll adjust. And there'll be a huge boom in the totebag industry! Like t-shirts were in past decades, everyone will want a collection. Seamstresses will make their own. Everybody will give them as gifts. Individualized designs, neat shapes and sizes, with/without pockets, sets that fold into each other... This could be fun!
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