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Thread: The Disgusting Consequences of Plastic-Bag Bans

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    The Disgusting Consequences of Plastic-Bag Bans

    Concern for the environment is good but without concern for consequences it can go awry.

    ...San Francisco has been discouraging plastic bags since 2007, saying that it takes too much oil to make them and that used bags pollute waterways and kill marine animals. In 2012, it strengthened its law. Several West Coast cities, including Seattle and Los Angeles, have also adopted bans for environmental reasons. The government of Washington, D.C., imposes a 5 cent plastic-bag tax. (Advocates prefer to call it a “fee” because taxes are unpopular.) Environmental groups and celebrity activists, including Eva Longoria and Julia Louis- Dreyfus, support these laws.

    The plastic-bag industry, predictably, wants to throw them away. It says that the making of plastic bags supplies a livelihood to 30,000 hard-working, law-abiding, patriotic Americans, many of whom have adorable children to support. It cites a 2007 report by San Francisco’s Environment Department that said plastic bags from retail establishments, the target of the ban, accounted for only 0.6 percent of litter.

    Most alarmingly, the industry has highlighted news reports linking reusable shopping bags to the spread of disease. Like this one, from the Los Angeles Times last May: “A reusable grocery bag left in a hotel bathroom caused an outbreak of norovirus-induced diarrhea and nausea that struck nine of 13 members of a girls’ soccer team in October, Oregon researchers reported Wednesday.” The norovirus may not have political clout, but evidently it, too, is rooting against plastic bags.

    Warning of disease may seem like an over-the-top scare tactic, but research suggests there’s more than anecdote behind this industry talking point. In a 2011 study, four researchers examined reusable bags in California and Arizona and found that 51 percent of them contained coliform bacteria....

    <snip even more>
    @ The Disgusting Consequences of Plastic-Bag Bans

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    zelmo1234's Avatar Senior Member
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    Priceless! However, the law had the cood intentions and compassion for the enviroment at it hesrt, so liberals will judge it as successful. there will be no concern for thos that get sick and die, bucause the law was inteneded to me conpasionate.

    At the very most you will see a new group of celebrities that will do a public service announcement telling people to wash their reusable bags, and they will sue the manufacture of thos bags for not having a warning label.

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    GrassrootsConservative's Avatar Banned
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    We. Told. You. So.

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    Chloe's Avatar Senior Member
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    See this is the good thing about having a doctor for a mom because I can just ask her questions before she leaves for work, like I just did, and get some common sense insight into this.

    Norovirus (food poisoning) is easily spread and is not uncommon in hotels, schools, daycares, etc, and not even super dangerous in most cases. If you have a soccer team staying in a hotel and one player has bacteria on their hands because they failed to wash their hands after going to the bathroom then chances are whatever that player touches could easily infect others, especially if they touch food, and since they are a team they probably were around each other a lot which contributed to a lot of them getting sick. The reusable bags were being stored in the bathroom of a hotel, and so if a food bag is in a room with the types of germs that can get you sick already all over it, then common sense tells you that it wasn't necessarily the bag that decided to infect the world, it was probably a combination of an unclean bathroom and unclean hands touching a lot of things in and around those hotel rooms getting the players sick, including the bags that they were using for their food. Also it could have very well have been the person staying in the room before that group even checked in. The person could have contaminated the bathroom from being sick, it wasn't cleaned well by the housekeeper, and when the team checked in they touched things in the bathroom, door knobs, and so on, and got sick, or they could have simply gotten the virus from lunch earlier that day, who knows.

    Also who keeps their reusable food bags in the bathroom???? There is always the possibility of contamination from it simply being the bathroom at that point because of fecal matter and other gross stuff that is all over the place. The bag didn't cause the outbreak, chances are the virus was on the bag because of someone not washing their hands, and maybe even because the bag wasn't ever wash as well, still not the bags fault, it's the person'a fault. All easily fixable by washing your hands and washing your shopping bags if you use them to carry food that can be contaminated.

    At our house we have designated shopping bags for food that will need to be washed when we get home, things like fruits and veggies, and even meat since my parents do eat meat on occasion. Those bags that we use for those things get washed anytime we use them since it could carry bacteria from what we touched or if something was on the food and transfer to the bag, the rest of the reusable bags that we use at the grocery store for things packaged things and boxes get washed periodically but not every time.

    The disgusting consequence you are talking about is not from a plastic bag ban it's about people not washing their hands and not washing their bags that they use to carry foods that could be contaminated. How often do people go to the store usually? Once, twice a week, if that? Use one or two bags for those types of foods and wash the bags and your hands afterwards. You don't have to go crazy and wash them every day, just use common sense, and wash them if you put the types of food in them that could get you sick. When you stay at a hotel wash your hands and be careful. People get other people sick by not paying attention and by ignorance usually, bags don't have a say in it.
    Last edited by Chloe; 02-07-2013 at 10:57 AM.

  5. The Following User Says Thank You to Chloe For This Useful Post:

    Peter1469 (02-07-2013)

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    The point though is the ban increases risks. An unintended consequence. Jumping solutions become problems.

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    In general tinkering with the market is going to have some consequences other than those that are intended. We should only do so when inaction would be morally unjust. For example, the market for selling human organs is restricted, and imo rightly so.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    The point though is the ban increases risks. An unintended consequence. Jumping solutions become problems.
    Well sure there are unintended consequences to almost everything in some way, but there is a bigger risk continuing on with producing millions of plastic bags that will not decompose then the increased risk of food poisoning due to ignorance in my opinion. It's possible to teach people good environmental practices and also good health practices without using food poisoning as a reason to continue on with the status quo.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chloe View Post
    Well sure there are unintended consequences to almost everything in some way, but there is a bigger risk continuing on with producing millions of plastic bags that will not decompose then the increased risk of food poisoning due to ignorance in my opinion. It's possible to teach people good environmental practices and also good health practices without using food poisoning as a reason to continue on with the status quo.
    Some people just need to get sick a couple of times before they catch on.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter1469 View Post
    Some people just need to get sick a couple of times before they catch on.
    Well no I didn't mean it that way

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chloe View Post
    Well no I didn't mean it that way
    I know.

    But I did.

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