Interests:Training small dogs to drive small cars. To hell. Expertise:Becoming the world leader in producing hamster hair reinforced bullet proof armor. Occupation:Computer related (Internet) Industry:Textiles
went to ralphs with one of my roommates yesterday. after i bought my stuff, she drew my attention to a bag of coins sitting on a nearby coinstar machine (thingy that counts coins and gives you real money for them). it was a plastic rubios bag with a couple holes in it and the coinstar machine was off/broken. our guess is someone came to cash in on the coins, saw the machine didn't work, and was like ah screw it, and left the bag there. the bag was pretty heavy. 5-10 pounds, maybe?
we decided to take it. got an extra ralphs bag to put around it, and brought it home. we started a pool. whoever had the most accurate guess gets to keep the value of the coins in amazon gift certificate. (coinstar usually takes a percentage if you redeem in cash, but gives you full value if you redeem in certain gift certificate amounts, like for amazon.com.)
first i just jokingly guessed it was like $5, but then my roommate said she cashed in some coins before and estimated the bag be worth $65. i was like psshhhhh, but here were our final guesses: cat: $29 me: $40 sarah: $65
CALIFORNIA POLITICIANS ARE LOOKING TO RAISE YOUR TAXES IF THEY DON’T HEAR FROM YOU SOON.
As if the cost of gas and food isn’t enough...
politicians now want to charge you $.25 on every grocery bag. That adds
up to about $400 per family per year!
BUT WILL THIS SAVE THE PLANET?
NO. Plastic bags are fully recyclable. Grocery stores already make it easy to recycle with convenient recycle bins.
WHO WILL THIS AFFECT?
This will affect everyone, but it will be especially
devastating to low income families, seniors and anyone living on a
fixed income. Plus, it could cost thousands of California jobs.
Sponsored by the Progressive Bag Affiliates of the
American Chemistry Council and The California Film Extruders and
Converters Association
mmmmmm yeah.... so.. several things...
"That adds
up to about $400 per family per year!"... you're an idiot if you know you're being taxed 25 cents per bag and you haven't done anything to reduce your use of plastic bags. that figure is based on some pretty ridiculous assumptions. then again, a lot of pretty ridiculous people will buy into that figure.
"Plastic bags are fully recyclable." ... recycling isn't a process where a material is magically resurrected. the entire process, from collection to breakdown to manufacture to redistribution uses many resources.
this is an obvious attempt by the bag manufacturing companies to save their own asses ("sponsored by...")
so, do i support the tax? my knee-jerk reaction was "yes" just to spit in the bag-manufacturers' faces for their lame attempt at persuading people to oppose the tax. however, after some consideration.. although i'm all for reducing the use of plastic bags, i don't think a tax is the most effective way. taxes mean more bureaucracy, more of the government sticking its fingers in other peoples' business. ideally, the effort would come from consumers and retailers, like how ikea is charging a few cents for their plastic bags or how ralphs gives you a 5 cent refund for every bag you bring.
i'm not proposing any specific solutions, but i think there are better ways to discourage the distribution of plastic bags. sometimes government involvement gives people a good kick in a certain direction, like how santa monica and san francisco banned styrofoam take-out containers. however, this case is different to me because it involves handling money, which is much more of a logistical nightmare.
now i'm kinda hoping all the tree-huggers out there don't go urging their legislators to support the tax. if "the people" are in favor of reducing plastic bag usage, they can uhhh... STOP USING PLASTIC BAGS. why go through government when your actions are what make a difference.
update: coincidentally, i ran into this column, which discusses banning plastic bags. i'm actually against banning plastic bags. i am for reducing their use. occasionally i won't have a reusable bag on me and i'd rather just get a plastic bag (or be willing to pay 10 cents or whatever) rather then buy a new reusable bag. that would just be wasteful. plastic bags have great reuses, such as trash liners or portable trash bags. i just think there should be incentive for people to stop being wasteful about plastic bags. in most cases, using plastic bags is very avoidable.
it's wasteful when many groceries are double- or triple-bagged when they don't need to be.
it's wasteful when you take two or three disposable bags (then add double-bagging) when you can fit craploads of groceries in a single reusable bag
it's wasteful when we need to get plastic bags primarily just to give items a "handle", like how a gallon of milk usually gets its own bag (or is usually double-bagged)
it's wasteful when along the same lines as the previous point, sometimes people request a paper bag be put inside a plastic bag so they can have the combined strength of a paper and plastic bag, plus have the handles of the plastic bag
it's wasteful when for small items, like a greeting card or something we can easily carry in one hand, we request (or are suggested by others) that we get a bag for it because it looks more "legitimate" walking out of the store like that so people don't think we're stealing.
charging consumers 10 cents a bag would make people at least think twice.. which is all we need to get things started.
took the alternative vietnamese bus (xe do hoang). ehhh. well, it's cheaper at $35 instead of $40, but the stop is like 2 miles north of the old vietnamese bus' stop.. so i either have to take an additional bus up there or walk like 30 minutes like i did today hah. i'm taking the bus next time... didn't look that bad on google maps... but i guess it's a lot smaller on screen. :o| plus, instead of rice and meatish sorta vietnamese lunch, the alternative vietnamese bus gave us a vietnamese sandwich. not bad... but... not as good as vietnam xe khach. aw... i miss vnxk.
oh yeah.. so i had to replace the battery on my fossil watch... saw a watch place yesterday near my sublet.. gave em a call... their estimate: $18. yikes. brought it to la chinatown today. cost: $5. booyah.
vietnamese bus... where are yoooou?? i've been using the same vietnamese bus company for years (vietnam xe khach... yeah no idea what that is... i mean.. apparently it's vietnamese). it's been so dependable. and even the one time we ran into a hitch, they recovered oh so beautifully.
recently fonzie alerted me that their number wasn't working and their voicemail was full. that was about a week ago. it's still the same today. wonder what happened. recently megabus.com canceled their norcal/socal service. they're a semi-well-known tour bus/shuttle company, infamous for their as-low-as-$1 deals. i know of their service change because there was an article about it in the la times.
so the la times writes an article when megabus.com removes one of their routes. hey la times... where's my article about vietname xe khach??? :o0
(hahah but really.. that'd be awesome if there were an article)
