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I actually dont think from an environment, social, economic standpoint that banning is a good solution. if it isn’t “direct pay for direct problems” it doesn’t usually have the intended consequences.
CTLawyer: “But Europe” So you move there. We like America where individual choice isn’t punished.
The whole world is NOT affected by the “plastic mess in oceans, forests, etc”. Nobody is harmed by it. The so-called “great pacific garbage patch” is invisible. It’s made up of microscopic particles of plastic that bother nobody. Because the truth is that plastic does degrade into these tiny particles.
And the only paper bags that will be available have no handles, and cannot be relied on to get your groceries home in one piece while walking or taking the subway. The result is going to be less impulse buying, less buying from small shops, and more planned large shopping trips and shopping online. Which is going to hurt the small stores.
But the bottom line is that this is an invasion of our G-d given liberties. If we want to use plastic bags we have a RIGHT to use them, and no government has the right to prevent us. George Washington would be wondering why we haven’t yet strung up all these dictators from trees.
Jersey Jew is right. Just because we “can” carry around bags or buy reusable, doesn’t mean that we should. The left continues to erode our rights for nebulous reasons. The bogeyman of climate change is the newest one. We “can” also walk to many destinations in NYC – maybe we need to ban cars and buses and force people to walk. We “can” survive on just bread and water, why not ban other foods?
The government rarely gets it right. They still haven’t admitted to the colossal failure called the food pyramid. It’s likely the cause of the obesity epidemic in the USA.
We have already seen NYS’s plans with Yeshivos. They will stop at nothing and will continue to destroy the world with their stupid ideas. Communism killed over 100 million people, most suffered immensely before being allowed to finally die. The left is bent on bringing it back; and just like boiling the frog, slowly, they will. And we will just get used to it as it gets worse. We must stand up against these silly policies, because they are just the beginning.
@1
Why move?
I was just giving a historical perspective.I grew up in the retail clothing business. Until selling the business in 1988 we never used plastic bags for purchases, we used paper bags or boxes.
I live in a state of my choice. I supported the law change, In fact some towns such as Westport have had a plastic bag ban for years. It’s no big deal to use paper or reusable bags.
You just love to complain and be contrary
CTLAWYER- according to most environmentalists those reusable plastic bags need to be used 10,000 times in order to make more sense environmentally vs non reusable bags (which most people reuse anyhow either as trash bags or just as bags)
A few months ago I went to a Home Depot in Connecticut and they didn’t give bags so I walked out juggling a miter saw and a few pieces of hardware.
takahmamash – you’re right, I forgot to mention they had to increase the taxes for that school. But then again, newspaper editors don’t have half of that brain either. I always enjoy the articles that contradict each other. We need to ban bags. Foodborne illnesses increase from the poor hygene of reusable bags.
Thanks BK613 for that post. I remember only seeing paper bags growing up. One day, I couldn’t find them. I always assumed there must be an environmental reason for that. Now I’m being told (lied to) that plastic bags are bad.
Just recycle them. By banning bags in department stores, fast food places, take out, vape shops, and every common unkosher thing you can think of (this effects everybody), you’re telling us that people can’t be responsible for recycling their own stuff. Everyone else has to be environmentally conscience, but when it comes to me myself, I refuse. So you have to ban me from using a plastic bag and instead chop down a tree.
I fail to see the logic.
One more question. Don’t you people have something called “tourists”? Are we going to travel from other countries or states with a suitcase full of bags to bag everything we buy ourselves???
I got my camera, my diaper bag, and a bag of 30 bags for (you pick the person) tshirts and jeans for the European, Judiaca for the out of towner. and so on.
This is not the place for this law.We have a store here that started distributing those heavy reusable ones. I don’t remember which law sparked it tho. I was thinking the bag tax but they are across the street from Chicago (their side is a suburb) so the tax didn’t apply. We also have a store within the Chicago borders that puts a stash of plastic bags on a hook on the outside of their building with a sign that people are welcome to take them if they need them for any reason.
Ever tried using a paper bag in the rain? Last summer I lost my precious cargo this way. I was caught in a downpour rushing to meet someone, juggling umbrella and handbag — and my paper bag disintegrated, without me noticing immediately that its contents fell out. (IIRC it was coated inside so I thought it’ll be safe the short walk until I got on the city bus.) Luckily only my trusty water bottle was inside. But I was thirsty…
Good luck to all of us liberal state and city dwellers.
@Gamanit where are you pulling your statistics out of?
Uk Goverment did a study on the environmental impact of the production of various bags. The results of which concluded, based off emissions alone you’d need to a reuseable bag use these alternatives this many times to make it more environmentally friendly then a single use bag:
Paper Bags: 4 Times
Polypropylenes: 14 Times
Cotton: 173 TimesThis doesn’t take into account the waste impact of multiple bags vs single, reusable bags.
@Rightwriter
The term all natural is unregulated and meaningless. Typically used by marketing folk to mislead the gullible.Anthrax, botulism, asbestos, snake venom, tobacco and water hemlock are also all natural.
In China they are using plastic bags to cover their shoes in the hot zone. There’s not enough equipment to comply with the civilian quarantine laws.
What are you going to do if the coronavirus spreads? Put all your infected items, used tissues in reusable bags? Put paperbags on your shoes and hands when your gloves run out?In honor of this debate, I went into our machsan yesterday and counted the bags:
Freezer bags, small 4
Freezer bags, large 3
Regular sized grocery bags 18
Net bags 1All the freezer bags are from various places in the states, as are some of the grocery bags (mostly from Trader Joe’s).
“I think many Jewish people refuse to make changes to help the environment because, (possibly subconsciously) we’re tuned to not worry about tomorrow because Moshiach is coming today.”
I think you probably don’t know all that many Jewish people. Jews do not use Moshiach or other Torah concepts as an excuse to act irresponsibly. And the arguments made here on both sides are grounded in logic although ultimately it is an empirical question – how much harm do plastic bags do and do the benefits outweigh the risks.
Either way please be careful about casting aspersions about mindless motives on an entire group of people – someone just might accuse you of bigotry.I’m actually amazed by the amount kvetching about the plastic bag ban. Many posters in this thread are missing the bigger picture. I’m highly skeptical that people in Manhattan will be adversely affected even 10% of what some of you predict.
1. I live in Manhattan. Many grocery stores in Manhattan have paper option.
2. The onus of providing an alternative to soft plastic bags will fall on the retailer. They want to keep customers coming back so they will find an alternative.
3. This will not affect tourism or tourism purchases. Many tourists will do their shopping at the higher end stores. The higher end stores do not provide cheep plastic bags, they provide branded bags so everyone know the tourist just went to a high end store.4. Plastic bags are not good for the environment. I’ve seen posts saying how only China is affected by plastic pollution. If you go to any river in the USA, you will see plastic waste in it. It might not be clogging up the river, but it is there.
5. Plastic pollution is horrible for the world and it has ripple effects that are potentially very dangerous. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean that it isn’t dangerous. You can’t physically see the flu, but it can still kill you.6. Everyone with the hate of Liberals needs to stop. There are legitimate things you can complain about but this is something that they are not doing to target any group of people. Reducing pollution is something that Jews should support. Hashem gave us this beautiful planet and we should do our part to maintain it. Expand your horizons beyond the NY/NJ bubble and think about how pollution affects other people
burnt steak – I don’t know if I have an opinion about the whole bag situation. I mean personally I find paper bags hard to carry and I cannot manage to carry around infinite canvas bags but I so agree that it is really about the big picture. Which is why I am wondering about the give and take. I’m old enough to remember that we went to plastic to prevent killing so many trees. If we stop using plastic, don’t we just upset a different sector of the environment?
“Plastic pollution is horrible for the world”
How, and how do you know? What harm does it actually do? If you assert that its mere presence is automatically harmful, you lose.
“The higher end stores do not provide cheep plastic bags, they provide branded bags so everyone know the tourist just went to a high end store.”
And those bags are about to become illegal too. Shopping-style plastic bags thicker than 1/100th of an inch are not manufactured.
Will the ban actually improve the environment? While there maybe fewer plastic bags getting into our streams and rivers paper bags are bulkier requiring more trucks on the road, increasing pollution. At the same time more trees need to be cut down to provide paper for these bags. These trees are needed to convert the carbon dioxide into oxygen. All you are doing is creating problems for future generation unless you have ideas how we can survive without oxygen.
Syag, There always is a give and take when it comes to this type of things. However the alternatives are not as bad for the environment as plastic. When plastic breaks down to a microscopic level, it doesn’t integrate back into the soil the same way cotton or paper does.
Milhouse, Most plastic waste is not biodegradable. A specific example I can give is, chlorinated plastic can release harmful chemicals into the surrounding soil, which can then seep into groundwater or other surrounding water sources, and also the ecosystem. This can cause a range of potentially harmful effects on the species that drink the water.
The regulations will not ban reusable durable plastic bags. Those are generally the bags that the high end retail stores provide.
Abba_S, I’d like to see the source for that information. I would wager that the process to create a single plastic bag is more harmful to the environment start to finish than a single paper bag.
Burnt Steak – You maybe correct that 1 plastic bag is more harmful than a paper bag. But if we are going to replace the millions of plastic bags used annually with paper bags thousands of trees are going to be cut down each year.
Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen via photosynthesis . You can goggle it if you don’t believe me. This is suppose to be taught in elementary school if secular studies were taught at your school. The amount of oxygen generated is based on the number and size of leaves on the tree. Humans need oxygen to live which they breath in and exhale carbon dioxide. If thousands of mature trees are cut down each year and it takes years even if they are replanted by saplings immediately until they can produce the same amount of oxygen as the ones cut down. This will reduce the percentage of oxygen in the air, which will require many humans to be walking around with oxygen tanks.
What effect this will have on animal life is unknown but many will die.
An easy solution is to incinerate all garbage this would save billions of dollars that we spend shipping garbage out of state and country, as our dumps are all full. If done properly with scrubbers on the smokestack it can be environmentally friendly and everyone can use disposable plastic bags.“I would wager that the process to create a single plastic bag is more harmful to the environment start to finish than a single paper bag.”
According to the NY Times, quoting the Britain’s Environment Agency:
“You’d have to reuse a paper bag at least three times before its environmental impact equaled that of a high-density polyethylene plastic bag used only once. And if plastic bags were reused repeatedly, they looked even better.”
“The study found that an avid shopper would have to reuse his or her cotton bag 131 times before it had a smaller global warming impact than a lightweight plastic bag used only once.”I keep the plastic bags and reuse them to throw away baby’s poopy diapers
They sell fancy “diaper genie” bags but thats a waste of money, i just reuse the plastic bags from the storeI’m going to attempt to dispel some of the myth about trees and paper bags. In todays economy paper comes from renewable resources aka trees. I live in an area with numerous tree plantations, these trees are harvested and sold to local pulp mills where the are processed into pulp and shipped to paper manufacturers here in the US and in other countries. Trees are replanted after harvest and harvests are timed. The industry has massively shifted in the past 30 years when most of our pulp went to low grade newsprint. With the decline in demand paper manufacturers have expanded their markets. Technology has also advanced when it comes to recycling all types of paper and paper bags. Most paper bags produced in the US are made from some percentage of recycled paper.The newer paper recycling processes have a far lower impact on our resources, take less energy and water to produce and lower emissions.
When paper is sent to the landfill it decomposes. Plastic bags do not decompose, they merely breakdown to smaller pieces of plastic. Most of the plastic bags that we make here in the US need light and air to breakdown, landfills don’t provide the light and air to quickly break them down into smaller pieces of plastic. Plastic never goes away.
If you want to learn more about this subject explore the websites of companies like Georgia Pacific, BPM, International Paper, KapStone, or Rock-Tenn.
Now back to your regularly scheduled programing.
Sure
Explore paper company websites to learn the dangers of plastic.
That’s going to give you accurate informationLast I checked, plastic is made from crude oil.
After sorting
You get gasoline and many other products
One of these is plastic.
As long as we are using gas, the plastic is being extracted.
If you don’t use it as bags it will either be used in another way, or thrown straight out and the cost passed along to all other crude oil components.Nu so how was the first day of the plastic bag ban. ( For those living in New York State) Did your store still offer plastic bags? Did the line at the cashier move faster because they are not packing the bags?
Plastic bags with handles are weaker than the same weight of plastic in t-shirt style.
No, the law is on hold for a month (meaning they are not giving fines) and it’s being challenged in court
So many stores are still giving out plastic bagsThis is plain amd simply a tax on the poor. This is another way for liberal politicians to clamp their heavy hand down on us. Can someone please show me where in the constitution it gives politicians the right to ban plastic bags. And plastic straws. And a million other things. Last i checked the constitution was written to protect the rights of us the American people. Not the fish in the sea. Enough is enough.
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