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City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and City Council member Peter Vallone presented a proposal withnew requirements about grocery stores' use, recycling and storage of plastic bags. Stores bigger than 5,000 square feet would need to:
- Use recyclable bags
- Have bins where customers can return bags
- Print "Please return this bag to a participating store for recycling" in 3"+ high letters on bags
- Provide reusable bags for sale (this can also mean more durable plastic)
- Record their amount of plastic bags that "recollect, transport and recycle" as well as a "submit annual reports to the Sanitation Department"
Hmm, we think some other chains should also be subject to this ban - like the bookstores, department stores and drugstores (yeah, Duane Reade, we're looking at you!). Updated: It turns out that this proposal would apply to any store over 5,000 square feet - so big bookstores would apply.
Photograph of some One Night of Fire participants by dogseat on Flickr
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It's so wonderful that all of our other problems like crime, education and poverty have been eliminated so that the city council can move on to polishing up the rest of our city.
Tim, the destruction of the earth is a pretty massive problem, not to mention the waste in this city.
these are great ideas. while i try to remember to carry a reusable bag for groceries, sometimes it doesn't happen. i've lived in municipalities where grocery stores collected used bags for recycling - easy to bring them and drop them off. i spent a summer in germany where they made you pay for bags if you didn't bring your own - that is another way to curb the problem. i'm for either of these - but it would be nice if the city would offer collect these as part of the recycling program. ditto for non #1 plastics, as well.
Yes Vanessa,
You are so right. I am for bringing my own cloth bags, I will even pay for bags if I forget, but i do not want to use plastic bags that have been used by others. It just does not seem sanitary. I do not know what was in that plastic bag. I also do not believe anyone should be forced to BUY a bag or get a used bag if they do not have one.
is that screech in the middle?
Aren't there enough people being paid money by the city to watch over everything that we do? Do we really need another group of illiterates patroling our streets carrying summons books?
Sanitation police are just one level above those meter maid cops, which means they are just level with the top of the curb.
@vern, i don't think they intend to re-use the collected bags, just collect them for re-processing. i think it may be illegal to literally re-use bags in that way.
If not now, then when? What are Vallone and Quinn supposed to do about crime and poverty? Maybe you have some kind of magic bullet for these intractable problems you'd care to share with us? Maybe you'd prefer that they were still arguing about naming a street after an avowed racist.
I, for one, am happy there are people out there who aren't fixated on one thing. There are more than enough problems around, both big and small, for everyone to work on.
[8] was addressed at TimSPC, BTW.
Verm, what are you talking about? Recycling bags doesn't mean giving them to somebody else any more than recycling cans and plastic bottles means just refilling them. The bags are melted down and used for other plastic products. And nobody's forcing you to buy bags if you don't have one. You're welcome to try to juggle a bunch of groceries in your bare hands all the way home. People are just lazy and never bring their own bags if they know they'll get bags for free. I especially hate the clerks who automatically double-bag everything since it's not coming out of their salaries. Talk about waste. It's a bag of potato chips, it doesn't need to be double bagged! Duh!!!
Verm here. As long as there are free, unused recyclable bags avaialble then fine. I was in a store this weekend that charged 5 cents for a plastic bag. Either I bought the plastic bag or I carried my items in my hands. The 5 cents I was told will go to help plant trees.
i save my paper bags and bring them back to trader joe's to be refilled. easy, cheap, and i get raffle tickets for winning 20% off an order. its not really that big of a deal to do. quit being lazy. the earths downfall is your laziness.
#1 tim:
the great thing about government is that we can tackle a lot at one time.
by the way, what are you doing, other than bitching and moaning?
I normally don't go in for these kind of state-driven solutions, but I have a weakness for this one. I hate plastic bags.
I favor the mesh kind which I've found are hard to find but they have them at:
http://www.reusablebags.com
Ian Frazier had a great article about removing bags from trees a few years ago. I think this is the same one from the New Yorker:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2001/01/treebags.html
OK, enough pet issue.
I Germany they charge about €1 for plastic bag, and most stores sell reusable ones for about €1.45. If this were added to the above plan, we'd rapidly see a drop in the plastic population...
You know, I'm guessing here... but doesn't it take some degree of oil to recycle plastic bags?
edEx, reusing my plastic bags, like I've been doing for years, for one thing.
Certain supermarkets have already started plastic bag recycling. They'll also take the plastic from dry cleaning, plastic newspapers wrapping, and anything "stretchy plastic." It's extremely nice to have all those bags out of my apartment. Combined with regular residential recycling, there's hardly anything in my kitchen trash can at the end of the week.
I always put the plastic bags in with my recyclables. Is that wrong? I figured that it is plastic and belongs there. Emmm, no one ever said a word about it.
I purchased a bag the other day at Waldbaums to shop with. It had wild animals on it and the proceeds went to conservation something or other. Great idea! Plus when you go to Price Club or BJ’s they don’t give you bags.
You know what always bugged me though, the fact that this bag that I discard will be in a landfill intact long after I am rotting and turning to dust. That is not what I want to leave behind as a reminder of my existence.
In case anybody else was unclear, NO, you cannot currently recycle plastic bags through the City's residential recycling program.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/recycling/recycle_what.shtml
I think like 97% of the bags end up in landfills - so it actually IS a big problem, Tim.
I was thinking about that bags-in-the-trees story just the other day when I was walking down the street and saw some bags stuck in some branches. Good to see someone else remembers.
i have always reused my plastic bags as my garbage bags. i havent bought a package of garbage bags in maybe a decade. so now i'm destroying the environment b/c others are lazy and the bags are going into landfills?? right...
anyways, the dry cleaning bags are the real culprits in my mind. those things are a complete waste.
TK - here's an idea for re-using drycleaning bags (which I do):
Tie the ends (where the hangers go through), and then use them as recycling bags for shredded paper or plastic bottles. NYC recycling requires clear or blue plastic bags and I use dry cleaning bags for this purpose.
thanks smitty. good idea!
i cant explain how much junk mail i have to shred on a daily basis. we probably get 3-5 mailings from non-profits per day alone. what a waste of resources for those organizations. i understand banks/credits cards wasting their time and money but seriously can these non-profits afford to stuff our mailbox with junk??
recycle plastic bags? Totally ridiculous! They should just be banned as they are in San Francisco!
Haha I was standing next to those people in the picture the whole time on the subway on one night of fire. The guy on the right had on roller blades too.
Or start charging money for them. So if you want/need one you will have to pay 25 cents. That should solve the problem.
Someone should find out the address of John Catsimatidis' office. Then we could mail all our used plastic bags back to him.
Czech guy has the right idea. 25 cents per bag is annoying enough that people would get angry but not asking too much. So people might learn to bring their own bags.
But the earth is fine. No amount of garbage that we can produce, or global warming, or atomic bombs can destroy this planet. It was here billions of years before us, itll be there billions of years after us. Eventually the planet will reach carrying capacity for humans and we'll die out, everything will correct itself. ....
For more details, rent Planet of the Apes.
Landfills are the future. When all is said and done and humans are lacking raw material they will mine landfills for raw material. Put your money into landfill stock NOW!
I use the plastic bags as trash bags too. Why actually buy trash bags when the store provides free ones?
Do we really like the idea of another government nanny law?
City council should put those plastic bags over their heads tie them securely to their necks and breath deeply.