Ever tone-deaf to hyperbole, Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica, turned the melodrama dial to eleven:
Brownley has been fighting to reduce plastic bag waste for three years, calling single-use bags "an unnecessary scourge that blows like urban tumbleweeds into every corner of the earth."A scourge, Brownley? Really?
She shouldn't generalize: everyone generalizes too much.
ReplyDeleteAnd she shouldn't exaggerate: that's what gets everybody killed.
Incidentally, the single use bag blight appears to have completely bypassed where I live. Might it be because people up here, oh heck, pick up after themselves?
ReplyDeleteOh no, that's crazy talk. And certainly racist to boot.
How . . . poetical!
ReplyDeleteWe must close the plastic bag loophole, for the children.
ReplyDeleteMy experience with most current generation grocery store plastic bags is that after a relatively short period of exposure to sunlight and weather the bags begin to break down rather quickly.
ReplyDeleteHow fast it happens is directly related to the value of the object in the bag when you attempt to pick up the bag.
Remember when plastic bags were the answer to the scourge of the forest, paper bags?
ReplyDeleteI mean really, if they banned those plastic bags what would we do with all those plastic trees? Before you know it they would be hanging out on street corners, jumping in front of drunk drivers, and basicly creating a mess just like the real trees did when we stopped using paper and went to plastic.
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Maybe Assemblywoman Brownley could really deal with the an unnecessary scourge to the state of California, and play on the train tracks around 2:59 pm. Right before the 3 o'clock Missouri Pacific comes by.
ReplyDelete-Rob
(Adlai Niska voice) A Scourge? Does she *know* this thing? Perhaps ... she needs a more ... eh, *personal* demonstration of this ....some *experience*, yes?
ReplyDelete'Round here, those bags are not single use- have not bought small trash can liners for years....
Not exactly banned in DC, but there's a 5 cent tax per bag, that was enacted withing the past year.
ReplyDeleteWe're still waiting to see what happens to grocery store receipts from stores in DC and also waiting to see if there's a scourge of unscooped poop that smells like urban public porta-potties.
Wonder what Rep. Brownley's contribution to the "scourge" is. I remember the assemblywoman who steered the school soda-pop ban through the California legislature also keeled over in a diabetic coma on the floor of the Assembly. Them as can't moderate their own behavior often assume everyone else is equally feckless and in need of nannying.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what Rep. Brownley thinks of single-use parking tickets that just pile up. Or tires that you only use on one vehicle.
ReplyDeleteOr single use toilet paper, diapers, menstrual pads, paper towels, latex gloves, condoms, etc.
Even if you tie knots in one end, the light weight of the bag really doesn't get enough velocity for a real scourge.
ReplyDeleteNow it could do as a garrote in a pinch, but it makes a lot of noise for silent killing.
Not sure about urban areas, but in rural BAJA plastic bags are the national flag. They fly from every tree and cactus. It used to be you could tell how close you were to a town by the amount of cans on the roadside. When you could't see the verge you knew you were within a few miles. Then cans got recycled and disappeared. Not real sure where this is all leading but I am sure problems are caused by people not things. Wonder if the left will ever figure that out?
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of sounding like a progressive; a real scourge is cigarette filters. If the po-po simply ticketed for littering when someone tossed a butt out the window, all our general fund problems would be resolved. At least in MN.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I see a smoking butt tossed at a stop light, I want to get out of my vehicle and toss it back through their window.
And I smoke when I feel the need.
Epoch
Another moment of lucidity was not banning Open Carry.
ReplyDelete"Urban tumbleweeds" is racist code talk, but Santa Monica is run by racist high-rise living Jews.
ReplyDeleteBTW there are State-sponsored free single-use poo-bag dispensers at dog parks - do they have dogs in Santa Monica?
Whenever I see a smoking butt tossed at a stop light
ReplyDeleteYeah, because those butt's that congregate near the curb sure ruin the pristine view of the area. The crushed gravel mixed with tar and other petro-chemicals and rammed and packed down into a flat surface, painted with white and yellow striping. Concrete borders, equally spaced creosote soaked wooden poles, reflective metal signage and various materials used to build regularly shaped offices and dwellings.
Yep, some butts and bags in these places are an affront against the natural order and beauty of the area. Perhaps we can pass the national urban scenic beauty area act starting with Detroit, and double down on the fines for littering.
*Ok, Ok, only half snark. I don't like littering either. I also don't think a tossed butt, other than a lit one in a high fire danger area, is worth the amount of effort you gave into the though of tossing it back in the car.
GuardDuck,I live in Western Washington, and we have a shitload of trees. I'm not prepared to sacrifice any of them to careless smokers.
ReplyDeleteI think immediate capital punishment is in order for butt-tossers in my neck of the (literal) woods. For a first offense, anyway.
The best toss-from-a-car story I heard was a woman who used to smoke. She quit after a butt she tossed drafted back in a rear window and set her back seat on fire. A highway patrolman pulled her over when he spotted the smoke billowing from her rear windows.
But she probably would have figured it out herself in a few more miles.
Years ago, I knew a considerate smoker, who would watch the breeze, to adjust his smoking hand for wind-change, lest non-smokers be offended. He also 'field-stripped' his butts.
ReplyDeleteRegarding grocery bags, do you want tree destroying paper, or landfill destroying plastic? (stolen from a 20 year old cartoon)
Steve,
ReplyDeleteI live in western Oregon and I'm not advocating the loss of good timber to careless smokers either, hence my qualifier about high fire danger areas.
But since the original comment spoke about butts at stoplights, and I don't see many stoplights in the middle of scenic forest areas I was assuming he was speaking of urban environments.
"Regarding grocery bags, do you want tree destroying paper, or landfill destroying plastic?"
ReplyDeleteTree = slow growing wheat. Plant it and it grows.
Landfill = Hole in ground.
Plastic = Made from stuff removed from ground.
Remove stuff from ground->make plastic->put plastic back in ground.
Laws of physics - conservation of mass. We aren't going to end up in the fantasy world of WALL-E with piles of used garbage piling up everywhere unless we start importing stuff from off the planet.
Here in Portland, our bastard Progressive mayor is saying he's going to ban single-use plastic bags.
ReplyDeleteI intent to keep shopping outside the city limits, of course, and repeat my voting for anyone-else in the next election.
Nice city, Portland, if you can ignore the stink of self-righteousness and thoughtless leftism.
Which I mostly manage to do.
It is illegal in the State of Indiana to toss a lit cigarette butt out of your moving car's window.
ReplyDeleteThe reason this idiotic law ever got a first reading was because the illegislator who sponsored it was tailgating some guy one night who tossed a lit butt, which said butt (you guessed it) drafted through the illegilator's open driver's side window and landed on the illegislator's lap. Hilarity (as they say) ensued.
It really had nothing to do with littering or setting the side of the road on fire...but by God you're a life-threatening danger to other drivers if you pitch a butt out the window. And the Indiana Legislature has Taken Notice and made it a $10,000 violation.
Of course the law passed, as such things do, but I don't believe anyone has ever actually been convicted or even ticketed for a violation...
Oh, the last place I worked my supervisor got NAILED for throwing a butt out her window. Without noticing she was being tailgated by a cop. Who DID notice the cigarette butt that bounced off his windshield.
ReplyDeleteNice situational awareness there, Sandra.
One use?! That's bullshit! They can be used for all sorts of things! Picking up dog poop while you're walking, carrying books to be donated, carrying a lunch to school, storing a whole bunch of cables to be put in your suitcase, waterproofing...
ReplyDeleteI have this thingy on the back of the kitchen door. You wad up the plastic bags and push them into the top, and when you need a plastic bag, you pull one out of the bottom. The numbers usually more or less match.
ReplyDeleteSteve S.: In Italy, if you put wrappers or cigarette butts in the trash cans, you get a dirty look from the guy with the stabbing stick and big canvas bag on his shoulder. That's his overtime you're pissing away.
High end Italian cars used to have a cigarette butt tube next to the shift lever. A venturi sticking out from the bottom of the car generated enough vacuum to suck the butt down said tube and over the razor inserts that shredded it into damn near microscopic bits.
Also looked down on by the gent with the bag and stick. Some folks are never satisfied.
Another use is its ability to remove Parasitic Human Babies (according to the Discovery Channel Eco-Terrorist) that grew up and became Hippie Politicians. You take 3 of them( just in case there are small holes), place it over the Head of the Hippie Politician, tie it tightly around the neck and Voila! In 5 minutes you have reduced the Carbon Footprint of a useless Gooberment Parasite and its Tax-Eating, Gooberment Paycheck and Perk-Sucking presence from Poor Mother Gaia.
ReplyDeleteI don't like seeing bags blowing around as much as I don't like seeing anything else blowing around.
ReplyDeleteWhat surprises I is that the grocery stores haven't gotten together and agreed on 5 cents apiece for new ones, or no charge for reusable bags.
Jim
They have been trying to do the same in Florida.
ReplyDeleteI pointed out to one of the pointy heads in Tallahassee that since I use the plastic grocery bags for garbage bags, if you outlaw them - that is the stores can't give them away for free - I will be forced to buy them.
So you won't really cut down on anything.
Jim: Don't know if it's corporate (Stop & Shop) policy or just our local branch, but here you get a nickle off your total bill for each bag you supply instead of using a new one.
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