September 12, 2008
The Plastics Industry Cares!
A plastics manufacturers' trade group has now spent over $180,625 in its attempts to prevent the City Council's $0.20 plastic bag fee from going into effect this January, the P-I reports. Thanks for caring about how much that $0.20 bag tax will impact our debit card balance, American Chemistry Council! We feel like you're really on our side, even though you're over there in Virginia, because you're throwing all this money at the cause. It's especially great to have more sneakily-worded petitions waved in our faces as we leave the grocery store.
From the ACC website: "We are nearly one million men and women dedicated to making sure you have what you need for today and tomorrow." And the next day and the next day and the next day, and so on until all plastic disintegrates in the landfills. Again--thanks for thinking of us, plastics industry!
Just for comparison's sake, the group could have purchased 903,125 plastic grocery bags with that money. 903,125 bags they could have then distributed to the unfairly burdened poor folk whose cause they are championing, as a sign of good faith that plastic will never fade away in the hearts and ecosystems of America. It's also worth noting that if the ACC had taken their dollars to Safeway, they could have purchased 180,625 cans of nourishing, environmentally friendly beans or 126,311 bags of Safeway yellow cornmeal. Or hell, some of each. They could have wrapped all of those bags and cans up in saran wrap, packaged the saran wrap bundles in flimsy beige plastic bags, and given that food to poor people.
Dear Seattle, buy your $1 canvas totes online here or just pick up a couple at your nearest grocery store. This whole anti-bag fee campaign is nigh unto ridiculous.
(Thanks to TroyJMorris for the tip!)
"Bag Lady Protesting" by Seattlest Flickr Pool Contributor Swiss Chica. Thanks!
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I have one question I haven't heard addressed in this whole situation - what about the produce bags?
If you're a veg-friendly family, you'll have multiple clear plastic bags every time you go to the store. And don't tell me not to use them - I've had cashiers at Whole Foods tell me they want the veg and fruit in the clear plastic bags.
Seattle doesn't want you to recycle these clear bags either - read their rules and regs.
So why are these bags okay but the other bags aren't??
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Along those same lines, why are Macys bags excempt from this?
Did they line the right pockets to buy themselves out of this law?
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Bilco: There are reusable produce bags out there. Here's an example of what they look like:
http://www.whatscooking.info/catalog.php?item=115
We have some of these, but I don't know where my wife got them locally.
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Jack: Thanks for the tip. Over 3 bucks a piece is a bit steep, IMHO.
The underlying question, though, is why the bag police are after 1 type of plastic bag. You're supposed to bring your own carrying bag to hold all the other plastic bags you get for free at the store.
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Jack: Thanks for the tip. Over 3 bucks a piece is a bit steep, IMHO.
The underlying question, though, is why the bag police are after 1 type of plastic bag. You're supposed to bring your own carrying bag to hold all the other plastic bags you get for free at the store.
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Also, bilco, the produce bag is for sanitary reasons. Seminole spreading and all that.
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They could have invested that money into Big Macs (Or Quarterpounders with cheese, on sale now for $1.50!!!!) and gotten:
120,416 Burgers...
which at ~400 calories apiece =
~48,166,168 calories which in turn would feed a homeless dude for about 66 years.
Considering that he would probably have a coronary far before the 66 years expired, you could conceivably feed a sizable portion of Seattle's transient community, who are the community's primary consumers (literally) of plastic bags. Plastic bags are fairly low in caloric content, and definitely don't have any of the fringe benefits of a burger (like flavor, protein, the status of eating 'real food' etc.)
So let's get out their and make our opinions known. BIG MACS FOR BUMS! BIG MACS FOR BUMS!
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as far as the produce bags go, you can also get a bag when you need one and then wash it (really just rinse and dry) and then re-use them when you go to the store (you can keep them in totes). that's what we do.
I'd also like to note that if the Chemistry Council had spent it's $180,000 wisely, it could have purchased plenty of cloth bags to give to the less fortunate that they're so concerned about.
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Sure, having a nice tote is fantastic, but it is perfectly reasonable to reuse those awful plastic bags you have around the house now, or even paper bags. I know I grab whatever I have handy - whether that is a "nice" bag or not. Like Charles points out, you can reuse produce bags...and you can reuse paper or plastic grocery bags.
I confess I've never been a big user of the plastic produce bags - only for what is absolutely necessary (things like lettuce, herbs, etc) and just wash everything really well. Certainly not every type of produce you pick up needs to be individually bagged, either. Sounds like some people have had issues with cashiers about this but I have never, ever had them say anything to me about my produce bagging habits (or lack thereof).
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I limit my use of produce bags, but I will fully cop to shuddering when produce touches the conveyor belts. EWWW. Good thing I find it easy to forget about all those germs by the time I'm home from the store!
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Produce bags make great doggie poo bags, too.