So I’m not the only one who feels this plastic baggie thing is out of hand.
Comments(2) 
Honestly, does the average beverage container need to last ten thousand years.
I’ve been paying attention to how many plastic bags, wrappers, liners, etc. go into the trash every meal, shopping excursion or just about any function of life or commerce these days. The mind boggling mass of flimsy suffocating petroleum based baggy creatures is insane. We’ve all heard the stories of Turtles at sea ingesting and drowning on bags but do we realize how BIG the issue really is. Apparently I’m not the only one because somewhere in California they are outlawing the things. I usually think California is over the top but this time I think they are on to something. I do the usual refusal of plastic when I’m purchasing, unless I absolutely can’t carry the stuff without a bag and paper is not available, but lets consider breakfast cereal. You buy it in a box with a bag liner, carry it home in another bag and throw away the bag in a trash bag lined trash can. Try counting for just one day the numbers of flimsy little chokers you use. You know those things are flying off the back of the trash truck and never making it to the dump, even if you properly dispose of them. They will be on a bush waving goodbye to you on your commute, the day after trash day. It has been said that every item ever made of plastic, unless it has been burned, still exists.
We have a few ‘smart bags’ purchased for grocery shopping. They pack up very nicely and contain the same cubic space a plastic bag would, only the smart bags are made of fabric and are much stronger. They’ve been a welcome addition to our way of life, but we still need carrying products. We ask for paper when we go shopping, and rather than have plastic liners in our trash can, we line it with doubled up paper bags and reuse them.
However, I can do more to be a better inhabitant of this planet.
Would it be so hard to follow a friend’s lead and take containers with me if I go out to dinner somewhere? If I don’t finish my meal, I wouldn’t need the styrofoam containers and carrying bag readily available.
On another note, would it be so hard to turn off the shower when I am soaping up and turn it back on to rinse off? I’d save a little bit of water and energy to heat that water up to bring me happiness. But over a year’s time, that would be gallons of water and energy. Taking in the bigger picture really helps to make a connection with understanding a person’s imprint on this planet.
I came across a most interesting and compelling photographer’s web site this morning. His name is chris jordan and I believe his vision fits in with tidewoven.
Plastic bags were a godsend, they became available just as the homeless street population exploded when Reagan cut off the money for mental hospitals and the CIA started flooding LA with cocaine and crack, and your Uncle chose homelessness 50% of the time.
I do a lot of dumpster diving lately, $300 of food some nights, but we have a chronic shortage of plastic bags, because i won’t buy plastic made from rendering dead Arabs.
The LA county tried to put mandatory trash-can rental on Don and everybody’s property in the desert when i serving on the Acton Town Council. I told the Supervisors that if I ever went to Acton McDonalds, I would always take the food out of the bags and foam, etc., and stuff it back through the drive-up window. It’s true, I’ve done this many times.
~~~~~
L.A. County considers ban on polystyrene containers
By Susannah Rosenblatt, Times Staff Writer
May 23, 2007
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to consider banning plastic foam food containers from restaurants and stores in unincorporated areas because they add to the region’s mounting pollution problem.
At the urging of Supervisors Yvonne B. Burke and Gloria Molina, the board unanimously directed legal and sanitation officials to first study the effects of removing the containers from county facilities and then whether they should be outlawed from food-service and retail outlets countywide.
A few weeks ago, supervisors launched a similar study on whether to ban plastic grocery bags. Like certain other kinds of non-biodegradable plastic, polystyrene does not break down the way trash does in county landfills. It also clogs storm drains and litters beaches.
Brandishing the foam box from her breakfast burrito, Molina said environmental “reform starts at home.”
The county spends about $15 million a year on devices to block the containers and other garbage from entering waterways, said Donald L. Wolfe, director of the county public works department. “It’s basically with us forever,” Wolfe told the board.
A polystyrene industry representative told the board that littering and lack of recycling programs are more harmful than polystyrene itself.
The supervisors’ action lends county support to a bill by Assemblywoman Betty Karnette (D-Long Beach) that would outlaw polystyrene containers at state facilities, including colleges and universities, by Jan 1, 2009. Santa Monica and other cities have passed similar measures.
susannah.rosenblatt @latimes.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~