CHINA BLOG: China -- the Place that Makes Most of Them -- Bans Free Non-Reusable Plastic Shopping Bags

"Portland will become a socialist dictator controlled socialist city as of next year"

Only in your perverse world of Sam-worship, Terry. The rest of us will go on living our lives exactly as we do now, recognizing the very limited power our system of government gives to the mayor.

"It is those disposable latte and espresso cups that are the real problem."

Many shops are moving toward fully compostable cups. In a few years, that is all there will be. So, you can add that to the graveyard of ridiculous complaints you manage to come up with.

Terry: Ironically, In many ways the libertarian unfettered free economic market you always seem to promote has been the defacto policy here in China. The result is pollution beyond imagination, unsustainable energy consumption, mind-numbing congestion and very inequitable distribution of wealth. Not wasting precious petro resources on non-resuable shopping bags is a no-brainer. The list of cities and countries banning them is growing longer and longer. Sam

Sam,

You keep mistakenly call paper and plastic type bags “non-reusable”. Maybe such a no-brainer needs an education. Many people reuse the plastic type bags to line their in-home kitchen trash containers and wastebaskets thereby saving water because they do not need to be washed every time the garbage is taken out. The same is true for the outside garbage receptacle where trash in plastic type bags also makes it much cleaner for the haulers and their trucks. Both plastic type and paper bags from grocery stores are also reused by many small businesses to save money by not having to buy them. Paper bags can be re-used to collect inside the home instead thereby saving the energy by not opening the door as many times in cold weather to take them out to those huge oversized recycle containers that don’t fit anywhere, Nowhere in your proposal do I see a mandate that business to business freight be ship[ed in reusable containers or be charged a ridiculous fee for one-time use cardboard boxes. In other words, targeting only consumers at the grocery store or where ever is discrimination.

Hard core environmentalists and global warming alarmists are using induced fear as a vehicle to develop social engineering and special interest agendas that are placing the economy in what can be called green shackles. Unemployment is again growing at a fast pace. Bit by bit the democratic freedoms this country was founded upon are being eaten away with the intent of having the government dictate lifestyle, housing and transport choices to the people. . What you are proposing here is yet another form of the inequitable distribution of taxes and mandates. This is just like with your transport social engineering tax and toll agenda whereby you refuse apply tax equity and directly charge bicyclists and transit users to help pay for roads. Instead you subsidize those modes of transport thereby placing both the generations of today and of the future into paying off a continual and reoccurring public debt. Only with a balanced tax system and the absence of mandates can diverse opportunities for wealth be equitable for all of the people.

Terry:

You write, "Bit by bit the democratic freedoms this country was founded upon are being eaten away with the intent of having the government dictate lifestyle, housing and transport choices to the people."

I respect your libertarian point of view but disagree with much of it. I beleive in personal liberty. But a collective community approach is necessary to some pressing issues such as climate change and green house gas emissions (yes, I know you dismiss them).

The everyone-for-themselves point-of-view I have heard you espose over the years just will not work in the face of some daunting collective challenges.

Sam

Sam,

You say you believe in “personal liberty” (and diversity), then take the opposite socialist dictator direction on just about every issue. Referring to your remark “a collective community approach is necessary to some pressing issue” - Collectivism as defined by Webster is a political or economic theory advocating collective control esp. over production and distribution or system marked by such control. The word “collective” is also appears as a synonym for “socialist” as does communist, Marxist, Leninist & Maoist. The word “capitalist” is an antonym. Furthermore, this country was founded on the principals that come with the freedom of a democracy to escape the socialism and collectivism in other parts of the world.

Global climate change has occurred without human intervention throughout the history of the Earth. Volcanoes, comets and the even the sun have changed the climate drastically. Evidence of palm trees that once existed have been found beneath one of the polar caps Only 11,000 years ago, a sheet of ice miles thick covered much of Canada. The melting of Ice created the Columbia Gorge. None of those dreaded SUV’s that date back to when it was created have yet to be ever found petrified and imbedded in the gorge walls. It is politically motivated science is that says humans are to be blamed for global warming. A couple or so decades back when more so-called greenhouse gasses were being omitted than today, the Earth was a cooler place in part because the gasses partially blocked the rays of the Sun from heating the planet. Therefore, it can be concluded that if man is, at least in part, causing climate change, it is due to our numbers, over population, rather than our activities. Yet you and other alarmists completely ignore that premise in preference to injecting fear into the community for the purpose of controlling the daily lives of the people including lifestyle, housing and transport choices.

The following three paragraphs are from reliable information sources on the internet:

The human body itself generates heat, and more heat than it needs. The body has adaptations for releasing that excess heat, such as convection, radiant loss, dry respiration, latent respiration, water diffusion, and evaporation. The rate of heat production in the body is known as the metabolic rate, or met, where one unit is 360 Btu/hour. The typical person, awake and seated, generates 1 met. A fast game of tennis or a quick bike ride will generate 4 mets. The excess heat has to leave the body or the person will overheat and die. That excess heat is released into the environment.

The current world population is 6,707,035,000. Assuming each is simply standing around, there are 6,707,035,000 mets being generated each and every hour of every day. Now, assume each person only needs to shed 25% of their generated heat as excess (a conservative number, by the way). The result is that we have 603,633,150,000 Btu’s of heat being released into the environment every hour.

To give you an idea of how much heat that is, the required Btu’s to melt one short ton of ice in 24 hours is 12,000 Btu/hour. The people of this planet, then, generate enough excess heat to melt 50,302,762 tons of ice every 24 hours. That is a lot of heat no matter how you look at it. It works out that each person, at rest, is shedding enough heat to melt 15 pounds of ice each day!

Therefore, if the theory that humans are aiding to cause global climate change, then the first step in any discussion, especially with the public, MUST be to find ways to stabilize, or even reverse the growth of human population on the planet instead of just dismissing over population and stating “I like babies”.

Wasn't it a collective community aproach that came to the conclusion that the sky is falling? The iron fist rules are what we left behind in the old country

Paper bags can be re-used to collect newspapers inside the home instead thereby saving energy by not opening the door as many times in cold weather to take them out to those huge oversized recycle containers that don’t fit anywhere.

I grew up in Germany and the norm was to bring your own bag when shopping -- ranging from a heavy duty canvas bag to a sharp and pretty pink cloth bag, depending on one's own tastes. Plastic bags came later and we were charged at the store for them.

Plastic actually was looked down upon, socially, and even the store clerks will look at you funny for not having your own bag. Developing this attitude takes a long time -- and perhaps some German arrogance -- but i remember learning to "Give a Hoot and Not Pollute" when i was about 5-6 years old. And maybe it wont take as long as one thinks: how many smokers feel ostracized these days?

I live in China (for the time being) and i carry garbage around in my pocket sometimes because here there are still not enough garbage cans and people are used to throwing stuff anywhere. This is changing rapidly.

But I still get looked at here with wonder sometimes when i pull a snickers wrapper out of my pocket and throw it away. But just as often as strange looks, i see a mother bend over and say to her kid and say: see that?

is this socialization a form of sinister government intrusion? or perhaps a nudge towards responsible libertarianism?

russellfromportland said; “I can use a trash can without paper or plastic.” (bags)

It seems however the City of Portland and Metro can not. The majority of trash cans on city sidewalks downtown and elsewhere are lined with PLASTIC bags - as are all the trash cans at the Metro controlled Portland Convention Center and the Expo Center. This is just more proof that Sam’s brand of collective dictator controlled socialism is ripe with double standards when it comes to discriminatory mandates to ordering the public around. I do not take my own plates, cups and bowls to a restaurant because they would charge extra if I did not. When I buy groceries at the grocery store, I expect the same free package service deal to carry the groceries home.

Shopping at the grocery store today I picked up some fresh produce – some of which was wet from the spray of watering systems that keep it fresh – and placed it in the bags provided, a pre-packaged meat selection from the butcher, and loaf of freshly baked still warm un-sliced French bread in its own bag. All the pre-packaging was one-time use disposable. I see no difference in this type of packaging and the bags I received at the check out except for the fact I will reuse the check out bags again and probably even the clear bags from the produce department. I can only imagine that “ban the bags or charge for them” elitists must not shop in the same stores I do because they would, be appalled, avoid all this packaging and toss their grapes, berries, melons, wet radishes and cabbage heads all in the same reusable canvas bag along with unpackaged raw meats and bread, Yuck what a mess. Then too, they could put an un-sliced unpackaged loaf of bread under their arm European or Chinese style if they don’t mind mixing their bread with underarm sweat including a little deodorant flavoring, put the raw meat in one canvas bag and have fruit salad in another. If they don’t do this, attempt to mandate to others what they should do, and purchase packaged goods to place in their little canvas bags, they are hypocrites whereby the whole elitist “ban the bag or charge for it” propaganda needs to be thrown out as just another collective socialist dictator mindset to controlling what should be a free marketplace and a choice of the people.

"portlandjimbo":

Thanks for your blog post. In Ireland there are a number of common-sense exemptions addressing the transaction you describe. I would expect the same for our approach.

Sam

Erik said: “I don't see Sam Adams putting out a city edict that ALL CITY EMPLOYEES must bike/walk/use transit to reach their workplace and to conduct city business.”

The fact is that many so-called on-call City employees and police officers who live in Vancouver, the suburbs and outside the City of Portland (as not to pay the high cost of living and taxes within the city) are allowed to routinely take home city motor vehicles and police vehicles at taxpayer expense – yet another double standard of the party line rhetoric spewed to the public.

"Erik H."

Thank you for your blog post. I know we both want what is best for Portland, Oregon and the US. So, dependence on foreign oil is not in the best interests of the people of this nation. I respect your opinion but I disagree with it. Based on the logic of your 'all or nothing' argument, you would have opposed Oregon's returnable bottle deposit law and you would oppose the city's incentives relating to curbside recycling. We will have to agree to disagree on this issue.

Sam

Mary, I guess you must hate the SOLV organization too. They use plastic bags for beach clean ups and hand them out after the parades during the Rose Festival to avoid litter being left on the streets. Obviously to avoid any kind of discrimination towards grocery stores providing bags free with a purchase and people like myself that expect that kind of "good" customer service when shopping at them, the SOLV organization also must be charged 20 cents per bag or be required to use only reusable ones.

We should really get people to quit throwing bags into the ocean and to bury them in landfills like resposible people