Comment by crab_galaxy
4 days ago
Every winter in my city, once the leaves all fell, our trees would be draped in shredded plastic bags. Banning single use plastic bags has done a significant amount to beautify this place.
4 days ago
Every winter in my city, once the leaves all fell, our trees would be draped in shredded plastic bags. Banning single use plastic bags has done a significant amount to beautify this place.
When visiting Seattle for the first time my mom was simultaneously outraged at the lack of plastic bags and the recycling bins everywhere, and also in awe at how clean the city was. Never did the two thoughts cross each other in her head
> When visiting Seattle for the first time my mom was simultaneously outraged at the lack of plastic bags and the recycling bins everywhere
The first part I kind of get, humans get used to stuff they get, and get frustrated when it disappears without them really understanding why, it's kind of understandable.
But why would she be outraged about recycling bins being more readily available? Are the recycling bins like really ugly/disgusting, or why would they upset someone? Sounds like being upset about there being too many libraries or something.
> Sounds like being upset about there being too many libraries or something.
You joke but people who complain about public recycling bins would also likely be the ones to complain about public libraries too. I've encountered many people who think libraries exist to poison the minds of the youth and somehow make homelessness a problem and we should shut them all down to alleviate the homeless issues in our communities and ensure higher community standards in education (mostly, go read the bible at church, that's all you need).
It’s the same sentiment behind the weird boomer meme of getting befuddled in a coffee shop because they just want a cup of drip coffee.
People will get confused about what goes where and complain about it, when the option to just put it all in the garbage was always there anyways.
They were also so damn cheap that clerks would bag EVERYTHING without asking, so they not only covered the streets like you describe, but often after offering no actual utility to begin with.
People used to love giving out plastic bags for one item. Who needs a bag for a single item??
A plastic bag protects against water and dirt, and it has handles for carrying. I'm not necessarily defending the practice, but it has its reasons.
Yeap. In my pantry right now, I probably have 12 reusable bags. Some of them have been used hundreds of times (and have the battle scars and stains to prove it) while others were used once because I had to run into a grocery store unprepared. The math probably averages out to a slight advantage for reusable, and that doesn't take unique use cases into account: for example, I found every container I owned useful during a recent move.
I'm sure skeptics like the article's writers would tweak some numbers to say disposables have an advantage, so who cares? The fact is there are less gunky, sludge-riddled bags in the gutter of my downtown and that absolutely justifies the bans, despite what this article or the NY Post might argue.