At least this article doesn’t go down the climate change road
Attention San Francisco shoppers: Plastic grocery store bags are going, going, gone.
Starting Tuesday, 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. (snip)
Stores that don’t comply face fines starting at $100 for a first violation. Penalties increase to $200 for a second violation in the same year and to $500 thereafter.
Stores can still use plastic bags so long as they are a special type that are compostable. Bags must now be made of at least 40 percent high-grade recycled paper, and many stores are using bags made from 100 percent recycled paper, Macy said.
Welcome to the Nanny State. Seriously
“Part of that habit is imposing the cost of convenience on customers and city governments,” said Mirkarimi, who added later that he is considering a “menu of possibilities” for further measures. He would not say what those are, though, because of the experience with the bag fee.
In other words, you are not smart enough to know what to do, so the government will tell you.
I must say, in fairness, that San Fran does have a point in banning plastic bags. They end up all over the roads and in the gutters, and
And then there is the giant patch of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean that scientists are monitoring, estimated to weigh 3 million tons and cover an area twice the size of Texas. The patch is about 1,000 miles west of San Francisco, but plastic dumped in the ocean here can end up there.
That is very disturbing, and, as an environmentalist, I can see the reason to ban non-recyclable plastic bags. But is paper the answer? Now we are talking about killing lots and lots of trees, which is the reason the country went to plastic in the first place. Most are not recycled. On the other hand, they are biodegradable, and won’t end up in a ball in the ocean.
It’s a tough call. I see San Francisco’s point, but as a person who does not like government interferrence, I am torn. I know I do not dispose of the plastic bags like I should, but I will change my behavior. The question is, should government force it upon us? Are there some instances where government is supposed to insinuate themselves?
Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson’s Website, Rosemary’s Thoughts, The Random Yak, guerrilla radio, Right Truth, The Populist, Leaning Straight Up, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Amboy Times, Big Dog’s Weblog, Conservative Cat, Allie Is Wired, third world county, DragonLady’s World, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Wake Up America, CommonSenseAmerica, High Desert Wanderer, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
