San Francisco Reverses Single-Use Plastic Bag Ban
To combat transmission of Wuhan coronavirus on reusable plastic bags, shelter-in-place place order said facilities cannot allow “customers to bring their own bags, mugs, or other reusable items from home.”
On March 20, Fuzzy blogged that the plastic bag bans could backfire during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic because the reusable totes harbor germs and bacteria.
San Francisco reversed its 13-year ban on plastic bags. Now the liberal city banned reusable grocery totes!
The San Francisco Department of Public Health issued a shelter in place order on March 31.
The order said facilities cannot allow “customers to bring their own bags, mugs, or other reusable items from home.”
Recycling activists lost their minds:
“This fear of bringing reusable bags into the stores is misguided, but I certainly understand why store employees don’t want to handle somebody else’s things,” said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste. “I wouldn’t have any expectation that somebody is going to put my groceries into my bag that I brought from home.”
Murray said he had been working with union representatives and the grocery industry to try to get Newsom to issue statewide guidelines. Murray said the concern thus far has been driven by workers.
“CalRecycle is aware of that recommendation, and they haven’t been able to take action or get the administration to take action,” he said.
CalRecycle did not respond to a request for comment.
California has been obsessed with the environment for a long time. Gov. Gavin Newsom banned “hotels from using small single-use plastic containers for shampoo and other toiletries.” State lawmakers hope they can ban all single-use plastic by 2030.
The Wuhan coronavirus has changed a lot of minds in San Francisco and California. The coronavirus has infected almost 9,900 people and killed 215 in the state.
People keep buying bottled water. Starbucks and Peet’s Coffee resorted to paper cups instead of filling a customer’s reusable mug.
I’m going to encourage you guys to keep reading Leslie’s wonderful work on diseases. She blogged in September 2017 that California’s plastic bag ban probably contributed to the Hepatitis A outbreak in San Diego.
Maybe California lawmakers will finally realize that people should have a choice.
I’m not getting my hopes up high.
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Comments
So, corporate environmentalism and Green policies are probable forcings of Wuhan-virus (SARS-CoV-2) infections, perhaps others through evolution, Covid-19 disease, and excessive deaths.
Your average virtue signaling San Francisco resident is going to be distraught at this ban. How can you virtue signal if all you’ve got is a single use plastic bag?
And boy howdy those reusable virtue signaling bags get pretty danged grotty with meat juice and broken eggs in them–a petri dish for pandemic pollution!
The folks in San Francisco are too soon diseased and too late smart.
Now we know where Lefties draw the line on harm to their precious environment. How many in SF have died from the Wuahn virus?
It appears that California is underachieving in the WooHoo virus competition. Theory is that the tens of thousands of Chinese who entered the state in 2019 before China admitted the existence of WooHoo virus infected so many people that Cali has already peaked and their residents already have widespread immunity to it, accounting for the lower than predicted infection rate. Can’t verify that without checking a significant percentage of the population for antibodies,
from The Old Man and The Lisa,
Lisa: Stop! Don’t recycle! It’s murder! You’re helping Mr. Burns!
Woman: [robotically] But you told us to recycle
Man: [robotically] You convinced us it was good
Bwahahahahahahaha
Bringing your own recyclable bag: not OK.
Pooping in the store parking lot: OK.
What a sick city …
Perhaps the homeless could now use the plastic bags discarded in the trash to pick up their poop after they are done defecating in the streets. You know, like people do (or supposed to do) after their pets poop in the street. Gross, but that would solve that problem for a while at least.
Y’all do realize that after this is over that California will pass an ex post facto law making the use of plastic bags during the crisis a crime. California has no use for the Constitution.
Subotai Bahadur
Grocery stores could never acknowledge this because it goes against the prevailing environmental orthodoxy that has been hammered into the populace, but they have always hated re-used grocery bags because of… cockroaches. (This was conveyed to me about 20 years ago by a pest treatment technician that I know to be highly competent.) The grocery stores, as this technician knows from first-hand experience, are constantly fighting a battle against cockroaches. He explained that a lot of homes are infested with roaches; a lot of those occupants engage in virtue posturing by using these bags. The bags often contain some residual moisture from chilled or frozen item, and often contain some organic matter from produce. And they typically place these bags in a nice dark place, like under a (roach infested) sink cabinet. Roaches find the bag to be a congenial home. When the environmentally virtuous shopper goes to the grocery store, opens the bag to light… the little critters scurry out.
Nonetheless, I am confident that once the CoronaVirus issue is under control, the environmental fanatics will once again push to ban (all) plastics, and tout the virtues of the tote bags (preferably emblazoned with an environmentally correct slogan).
So … let me get this straight. First, of course, plastic bags were banned. Probably because grocers weren’t getting paid for them. Oh wait, it was to protect the environment. So … grocers started selling reusable bags so they wouldn’t have to give them paper bags for free Oh wait, grocers got their toadies to order use of paper bags and customers to pay for said plastic bags. So … how to protect this revenue source. Coming soon the toadies will ban reusable bags. Oh wait, they already have.
I don’t get your comment. Even out here in Marxachusetts, most people– except the moonbats who finally pushed the statewide ban through– were sorry to see the demise of the so-called single use plastic bag.
Retailers always considered it good customer service to offer them, and some store employees actually apologize to customers now that they can’t give them out. They are far less expensive for store owners to buy in bulk than paper bags.
Um, the fraction of a cent per item purchased that the traditional paper and plastic grocery bags cost is already figured in to the operating costs of the store. Retailers don’t charge only for the product & provide the other costs of operation- facilities, staffing, utilities, maintenance, materials & supplies- free of charge to the customer. They wouldn’t last long if they did. The Connecticut stores I frequent (mom&pop’s and 1 frugal chain) have all voiced opposition to the state’s policies, most offering the basic reusables at cost as it benefits their operations (enhancing customer experience at minimal cost) while denying the state it’s cut (taxes).
You sound exactly like the perfect San Franciscan. That, or a faculty-lounge warrior. Everything is at the behest of big bad evil corporations. What a sniveling little pants-wetter.
First, most retail grocery stores don’t want or support banning the plastic bag and going to reusable bags. They cost more to provide and are often filthy as customers don’t realize they have to wash the damn things every week at least. Reusable bags are also larger than plastic and are commonly overloaded (by customer demand) so as to contribute to employee injury over the short term.
Second, under plastic bag bans paper bags are not free. Retailers are forced to charge a fee per bag for customers requesting paper bags. The fee is theoretically used to force customers to use their own reusable bags and not paper. The fee goes to the city/state that imposes it. The retailer does not keep the paper bag fee.
Third, under plastic bag bans retailers cannot provide plastic bags for a fee or otherwise. Plastic is banned, no exceptions.
Fourth, please take your medicine like the good doctors at the state mental hygiene institution told you to do before letting you out. It’ll help. Really, it will. Guaranteed.
My town passed a plastic bag ban right as the Wuhan Virus was starting to pop up in the USA. We haven’t made it through the phase out period yet so at least the grocers have single use plastic bags available. One of the stores came right out 3 weeks ago and said they would ban reusable bags and the activists lost their minds. The ugly little truth is that most reusables are filthy and the store didn’t want their employees handling the bags.
Mary, I think there’s an extra word in the lede. “To combat transmission of Wuhan coronavirus on reusable
plasticbags.So call the police about the reused bag, not the shoplifting mobs
https://www.vladtv.com/article/261054/video-shows-looters-raid-store-after-san-franciscos-no-arrest-policy
Yeah, whatever. How about you just don’t bring in your filthy, disease ridden bags into my store and plop them down on my counter int the first place. Because after you leave I’m going to have to sanitize the counter and anything the bags have touched. So let’s just go with single-use plastic for the moment. Better for everyone.
Source:
https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/04/01/its-come-to-this-liberal-san-francisco-bay-area-bans-reusable-grocery-bags-1270319
I live in California.
I get to say: I TOLD YOU SO.
Loudly.
Feels good, but futile.