Plastic Bag Ban

[Kapohocat]

Can I derail for a second?

Where does all our recycling go - paper, plastic , glass - after it gets to transfer station recycling center?

Can you buy the recycled glass anywhere anymore like the place that used to be on RailRoad in Hilo?

If you take back the plastic bags to the store's recycling bin, do they actually get recycled any where locally or shipped to mainland?

[Rob Tucker]

Call Hunter Bishop at Environmental Management and let us know what he tells you...

[StillHope]

quote:

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Originally posted by Rob Tucker

What is used around the world and is gaining traction here are reusable bags. You see them for sale for about 99 cents in most all stores.
Very popular in Europe are fabric mesh grocery bags. They scrunch up real small and last a long time and they have good strength and carry capacity.

Here's an example of the European method....

http://www.amazon.com/European-Cotton-Sh...B000XKPJRG

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Perfect idea!
Getting meat,especially on sale one from Hilo to Puna?
A Brit would say "Got a bloody reusable bag?"(Pun intended).

I think a mesh one would be particularly good for dog poo.

Anyway,vegan/cats -no problem!

[Obie]

If you think a bag ban is going to decrease the use of bags,you might want to read this article.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/2...-nat-brown

It irks me that we continue to waste taxpayer money by trying to regulate personal habits.If you want to use a cloth bag to haul home a fish and then use the same bag the next time for your fresh veggies,fine.
I use and then reuse my plastic grocery bags.I do not dump them along side the road.

Maybe the taxpayer money saved by not having endless hearings and meetings about bags could be used to hire more Ag inspectors to keep the brown tree snakes out of Hawaii.This is a real,coming to an island near you,ecological disaster.

[punaticbychoice]

Obie, I do agree about the Brown tree snakes.
There is a Federal (DoD) inspection program mainly dealing with preventing "exportation" of these snakes from Guam.
Otherwise, Hawaii's ag inspection services are a State of Hawaii function, not CoH.
This snake, or any snake coming to snake free Hawaii would be an ecological catastrophe.
As for plastic bags- I use my big compartmented carrier bag and some re-usable freezer bags for wet or frozen items when I grocery shop.

[peteadams]

Frankly, if all plastic grocery bags were to disappear tomorrow I would be fine with it, no matter the inconvenience. I really came to dislike the wretched things while living on Maui during 2002-4. We hauled our rubbish to the landfill on the Maui isthmus below Kula. North shore Maui is frequently very windy from the trade direction and the funnel effect of the valley creates a steady and strong breeze through the landfill. The perhaps quarter mile long access road to the rubbish drop off area is bordered by a six or eight foot high chain link fence. Nearly the entire fence, for its entire length, was coated by tens (hundreds?) of thousands of flapping grocery bags, like miniature ghosts taunting you. Evidently, the churning of the rubbish material by the machines brought the bags to the surface and the constant wind picked them up and plastered them to the fence. Once there they slowly disintegrated in the sun and their pieces scattered further into the landscape. While the scene was ugly enough, the sheer enormous quantity of disposed plastic bags displayed so graphically on the fence brought home what a wasteful and disgraceful addition to the environment these bags are. All for the convenience of waste baskets and dog poo? Good riddance.

[Obie]

It is your choice to carry around bags full of E.coli and bacteria.

My choice is to use clean plastic bags and recycle them.

Reusable grocery bags can be a breeding ground for dangerous food-borne bacteria and pose a serious risk to public health, according to a joint food-safety research report issued today by the University of Arizona and Loma Linda University in California.

The research study – which randomly tested reusable grocery bags carried by shoppers in Tucson, Los Angeles and San Francisco – also found consumers were almost completely unaware of the need to regularly wash their bags.

“Our findings suggest a serious threat to public health, especially from coliform bacteria including E. coli, which were detected in half of the bags sampled,” said Charles Gerba, a UA professor of soil, water and environmental science and co-author of the study. “Furthermore, consumers are alarmingly unaware of these risks and the critical need to sanitize their bags on a weekly basis.”

[Rob Tucker]

Obie, Nothing I have heard prevents you from using all the plastic bags you want. The ordinance affects commercial establishments, not individuals.

You can buy a roll of 1,000 cheap carry bags for about $20 on the internet. Go for it.

[Greg]

To paraphrase Obie's post:

The research study – which randomly tested "tighty whities" worn by shoppers in Tucson, Los Angeles and San Francisco – also found consumers were almost completely unaware of the need to regularly wash their undies.

“Our findings suggest a serious threat to public health, especially from coliform bacteria including E. coli, which were detected in half of the underwear sampled,” said Charles Gerba, a UA professor of soil, water and environmental science and co-author of the study. “Furthermore, consumers are alarmingly unaware of these risks and the critical need to sanitize their drawers on a weekly basis.”

[Bullwinkle]

Another case of carelessness of the few affecting the freedoms of the many?

Seems to me the issue is the dumping of the plasitic bags once folks use them. In order to keep the aina clean the rest of us prudent users will be denied access.

Mirrors much of what goes on in society today imho. Internal locus of control and social responsibility waning, replaced by rules and regulations from big brother