Plastic was the mantra word in the late seventies and as such had billions of $$$ poured into its’ technology. If paper were to be the “new” thing, billions of $$$ would be poured into making it more affordable, less polluting, and more resource friendly.

Reusable bags are indeed a good alternative, but they have their set of drawbacks also. Depending on the material, they can rot, mold, or deteriorate rapidly. They require washing and/or maintenance which requires energy also. Convenience is low due to storage and “take-along” requirements. Once used to their limit, were back to trash/recycle questions.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating paper or reusable necessarily. My personal preference would be hemp bags in either reusable or disposable formats. But we all know where that conversation leads to.

Yeah, go ahead and “inhale” hemp Senator… see what that does for you. I’ll be waiting with the Aleve when you’re ready!

And still… My main concern is the taxation that will be relied upon by government. The tax idea is a “long term revenue-negative”(my term) program that will only require an increase in tax for every decrease in use of plastic bags. Then, at some point, we are literally paying a tax on something that no longer is an issue.

And this issue is clouded over in the argument about which material is better so that we lose focus of the taxation and let it go to our children and their children. I am really trying to make this a better place for them and why I comment on both fronts here.

–Paper sacks generate 70 percent more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.
–It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag. Energy to produce the bags (in British thermal units): plastic bags: 594 BTU; paper bags: 2511 BTU.
–Current research demonstrates that paper in today’s landfills does not degrade or break down at a substantially faster rate than plastic does. —In fact, nothing completely degrades in modern landfills due to the lack of water, light, oxygen, and other important elements that are necessary for the degradation process to be completed.

I was told years ago by a friend who worked for a pest control company that cock roaches like to lay their eggs in paper bags. I discovered the hard way it is true.

Of course the problem with plastic bags is trash cans. What bags are the most environmentally friendly ones on the market that we can line our trash cans with?

What didn’t get noticed there is why they had to RAISE the tax. Usage went DOWN as expected per “environmental externality” root reasoning for the tax. That means revenue followed suite and they had to make up for that shortfall.

So… The more “Greenies” get their way, the more it will cost on a never ending, ever inflating, tax on something we no longer use!! Go figure…

Anybody remember brown paper bags? All you have to do is ask for them. Ocean, landfill, stream damage mitigated. Root cause solved. All with a renewable resource made from Mother Nature herself.

Someone will figure out how to tax her next.

http://use-less-stuff.com/Field-Report-on-San-Francisco-Plastic-Bag-Ban.pdf

Not sure if I have ever seen a report documenting litter rates but the City has been very hush about any improvements in clean up costs or other goals such as reducing downtime at MRF.

Basically for every ban passed to date not city has produced a progress report.

Only independent activists such as ULS have actually taken that on.