March 13, 2004

BAGS OF HATE

Sydney Morning Herald environment reporter Stephanie Peatling presents today’s Super Logic Challenge:

The Federal Opposition has pounced on community hatred of plastic bags, agreeing to ban them as it beefs up its environmental credentials before the election later this year ...

Australia has been struggling for some time with its 6.9-billion-bag-a-year habit.

That’s how much the community hates plastic bags. Imagine how many we’d use if we liked them.

Posted by Tim Blair at March 13, 2004 12:37 AM
Comments

Completely OT (except that it does involve plastic), Mickey Kaus makes mention today at Slate of "the completely trivial story of Bush picking up an uncooked display turkey..."

CAN'T ANYONE SEE? An uncooked turkey is a pale pinkish-yellow. It is not normally displayed because it's about as appetizing looking as Grandma's inner thigh. The turkey Bush is holding is plainly COOKED. It could, theoretically, be an artful plastic replica, though that's not an excuse in this case for anyone who parrots the plastic turkey line and thus demonstrates that their reading is limited to other lefty sites parroting the plastic turkey line. WE know that it was not a plastic turkey. But for crying out loud, the one thing any photo instantly tells you it was NOT, is an UNCOOKED turkey.

Posted by: Mike G at March 13, 2004 at 12:49 AM

Those plastic bags would have to be replaced by something, say, 6.9 billion paper bags per year. In any complex system, you can't change just one thing.

Of course, we could use those canvas bags like they give away on fund-raising telethons. The thinking here seems to be, "If I can carry my organic groceries to my Volvo in a reusable canvas bag, then everybody ought to. Plastic bags today, compulsory tofu tomorrow!"

Posted by: Ernie G at March 13, 2004 at 01:50 AM

Stupid bimbo.

I was going to vent a bit, but what's the point.

She will still be a bimbo, and I've wasted my time.

Posted by: Pedro the Ignorant at March 13, 2004 at 02:25 AM

The best use for plastic bags is suffocating twats like this. After reading reports of the Madrid bombings, I am in no mood for such trivial crap.

Posted by: David Gillies at March 13, 2004 at 02:34 AM

Mike, I think what they do is use torches to cook the exterior to the desired look. The interior is large. It's done, I believe, at every military Thanksgiving dinner. It's done at large banquets and buffets.

Posted by: aaron at March 13, 2004 at 03:23 AM

The interior is left uncooked.

Damn touchpad.

Posted by: aaron at March 13, 2004 at 03:24 AM

Do what Russia does, charge for the bags.

Posted by: Sandy P. at March 13, 2004 at 03:48 AM

Like a lot of people I use shopping bags twice; as shopping bags then as garbage bags.
Now I'll be forced to buy garbage bags, which are much thicker; therefore for a given volume of garbage I'll be throwing out a far higher amount of plastic.

Posted by: Motley at March 13, 2004 at 08:13 AM

...smack still widely available.

Posted by: I hate Kaiser Bob at March 13, 2004 at 08:36 AM

I am NOT going to buy eclogically responsible bags to get rid of the cat's doo doo's every week - the Woolies bags were purrrrfect for that. Alas,no more.

Posted by: Louis Hissink at March 13, 2004 at 10:49 AM

Like Motley, we use the biodegradeable bags we get with the shopping as garbage bags. They then go to landfill and presumably degrade along with the rest of the garbage. In the future we will have to buy garbage bags, and either use paper (from those virgin forests protected by shower-virgin hippies) or use cotton bags and make multiple trips to the supermarket in the car to get the groceries. And what of the small bags that vegetables, fruit and meat are packed in? Are they out too? Knee-jerking without regard to the actual consequences.

Posted by: SezaGeoff at March 13, 2004 at 11:45 AM

Well, you know, plastic bags are a serious problem in a place like Australia, where there's such a shortage of uninhabited land to put landfills on.

Posted by: Mike G at March 13, 2004 at 12:00 PM

I wonder if they'll introduce a plastic bag buy back scheme.

Posted by: hast at March 13, 2004 at 02:00 PM

I don't know the other views of this person, but I'd be willing to bet she's against logging: the two positions go together so well.

Posted by: John Anderson, RI USA at March 13, 2004 at 04:59 PM

Oh yeah. Every time I go down the street, they're there...all around me. Under my feet, blowing in the sky, clogging the gutters, blocking the drains...They're everywhere.

Enough of the sarcasm. I can't recall the last time I saw a single itinerant plastic shopping bag choking a dingo or some stupid marsupial rat or whatever other ecological catastrophe these things are supposed to be causing. Maybe they are abundant in the world's oceans, but is anybody buying that wealthy Westerners put them there? More likely the less than fastidious waste handling of the third world is to blame, but hey...we can't blame (or tax) them, can we?

The reason, of course, for this hysteria is that the bags used to cart groceries and thence to contain and constrain garbage are a symbol. A symbol of our decadent consumerism, and an affront to the unhygienic tree huggers who swing just enough votes to prompt people like Carr into making bold statements.

No doubt, a big, fat, juicy tax will be the solution - dedicated, of course, to sound environmental initiatives.

The big question is: What's next? A 25 cent tax on each tampon? What about 50 cents for each of those whale killing incontinence nappies used by those infernal senior citizens who continue to defile Mother Gaia long beyond their fair innings?

Slowly, very slowly, people are going to wake up to just how dangerous the utopian visions of Green National Socialist Party really are.

Posted by: Al Bundy at March 13, 2004 at 08:14 PM

SezaGeoff:

If I remember rightly, there was a trial done in Ireland to eliminate plastic shopping bags, and it just resulted in a corresponding increase in the consumption of plastic garbage bags.

Posted by: wv at March 13, 2004 at 11:43 PM

Yeah, like we don't pay for the bags now. I guess all those supermarket bean crunchers never thought of factoring in the cost of the plastic bags.

And, of course, it's all the fault of the stupid general public. Remember those rallies back in the 70's
"What do we want" - "Plastic Bags"
"When do we want em" - "NOW"

Posted by: Jimi at March 15, 2004 at 10:24 AM