L.A. banned plastic shopping bags

[BAllen]

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-plastic-bags-20130618,0,6576624.story

For the environment, of course. Never mind the fact that norovirus spreads with re-usable bags.

[amy31416]

Will we be seeing them on MTV any time soon?

[BAllen]

The title should read: BANNED, not band.

[amy31416]

The title should read: BANNED, not band.

Really? Well that's much more boring.

[angelatc]

Will we be seeing them on MTV any time soon?

Does MTV still play music?

[amy31416]

Does MTV still play music?

Last time I checked, no. Only really trashy shows.

That said, I don't understand why more people don't go back to paper bags (if the store even has them), they're generally much more useful. I get a mix of both, since I do actually re-use both. Banning them seems stupid, but if you take a look at the local dump you'd probably see why. A much better route would probably be spending a much smaller amount of money and publish pictures of the dump, while encouraging people to reuse the plastic bags or those other types of reusable fabric ones. They could even offer discounts at the grocery store for doing so, if they don't already.

[PSYOP]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjmtSkl53h4

[PatriotOne]

I'm ok with this. I'm no environmental nut but this is reasonable to me considering how extremely wasteful plastic bags are. Water bottles are another item I wouldn't mind seeing go by the wayside.

[PatriotOne]

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-plastic-bags-20130618,0,6576624.story

Never mind the fact that norovirus spreads with re-usable bags.

I remember a time before plastic bags. Dead people from norovirus littered the streets. It was a real pain having to step over them all the time to get to my car.

[PaulConventionWV]

I'm ok with this. I'm no environmental nut but this is reasonable to me considering how extremely wasteful plastic bags are. Water bottles are another item I wouldn't mind seeing go by the wayside.

"Going by the wayside" is not the same thing as using government force to eliminate them from the market.

[BAllen]

Incentives are the solution. In my area, if you bring recyclables to the dump, you pay half price. I recycle plastic, cardboard, and cans, because it saves me money, not because it's mandated by the government with fines.

[69360]

The grocery store here has bins to accept plastic bags for recycling. Makes sense and works. I use the reuseable bags for my weekly shopping. If I stop in for something quick and get plastic I save them up and bring them in to recycle.

Our town charges 2.50 a bag for trash but recycling is free. That's a good incentive to recycle. We also get 5 cents a bottle to return them at the redemption centers.

Makes a lot more sense to have incentives to recycle rather than mandates.

[One Man Wolf Pack]

They ban plastic bags....definetly more important than doing something about real problems we all face. Glad they got their priorities straight....

[kcchiefs6465]

I remember a time before plastic bags. Dead people from norovirus littered the streets. It was a real pain having to step over them all the time to get to my car.
Did everyone use reusable bags from home or paper bags?

[opal]

in answer to the question.. why doesn't everyone use paper bags.. because they don't have handles on them anymore! I can carry a whole lot more in to the house from the car in plastic bags and make fewer trips because there are handles. I do get a mix of paper and plastic though.. frozen goes double bagged in paper.. long drive home.. keeps cold longer.

[Zippyjuan]

I've been using cloth bags for years. Plastic ones can end up spilled all over the back of a car. Cloth hold more and are easier to carry. When I was in London a while bak they were charging like 30 cents to use one of their plastic bags.