More Wisdom From Philadelphia City Council
By Wyatt Earp | June 11, 2009
You really have to hand it to the men and women of the Philadelphia City Council. The city is $2 million in the red, crime is completely out of control, and the mayor closed seven fire stations. But what is city council spending their precious time on?
They want to enact a ban on plastic shopping bags.
Seriously.
Philadelphia is moving toward an outright ban on disposable plastic grocery store bags. A City Council committee has okayed a ban to take effect in 2011.
Shari Jackson, a representative of the petroleum industry, argued on Wednesday against a ban on plastic bags. She told Council members that the industry instead prefers to get people to recycle the bags.
So, despite the industry opposition, the committee approved the plastic bag ban. (H/T – KYW1060)
Fantastic! Now we’ll be a first-rate city!
Jackasses.
Topics: Philly | 20 Comments »
Plastic bags are bad because someone has to make those bags, someone has to collect the bags for recycle, and then someone has has to recycle them, and then someone has to sell them to the stores, and then someone has to deliver them to the stores, and then the cycle repeats.
This is doubtless employing many people and therefore must be stopped.
What council really fears is that someone will take a few of those plastic bags and tie ‘em up real tight around their necks. Suffocation isn’t the easiest way to go, y’know?
It’s a decent idea….for a city that’s not closing fire stations and in total chaos. They should be stupidity in City Council.
Oy. Just when you think these morons can’t go any deeper into the pits of stupidity, one of ‘em finds a shovel.
Fortunately, I don’t live in Philly, so this won’t affect me. Unfortunately, I live close enough to Philly to make this quite irritating.
Disregard that last bit in my first comment. I was gonna say something, but changed my comment and forgot to delete that last half-a-sentence.
An alternative being used by the major stores over here (Tesco) is to encourage re-use of plastic bags. When you shop you take back the bags and pack them and the number used is the number of “green” reward points you get. Points are totalled quarterly (along with their own reward points of 1 point per £1 spent) and vouchers issued. Each point is worth 1p on Tesco shopping or you can use them to buy other services where they are worth double.
If you want you can buy a “bag for life” which is much stronger and you get a free replacement as necessary. I double them and they can take a bag-full of tins.
I’m happy with this and the bag points are worth appreciably more than the reward points.
Not everyone agrees but it works forme.
We need to enact a ban on the men and women of City Council. If we ban plastic bags, what are my neighbors going to use to pick up after their dogs and then throw the mess under a parked car?
Hey, if you need them, I’ve got piles and piles of Kroger plastic bags. They’re marvelous for lining small garbage cans.
The only way they’re getting my plastic bag is from my cold, dead hand.
San Francisco is about to make it illegal to throw a bananna peel into the trash. Must be something about being in a big liberal-run city that breeds and glorifies stupidity.
Mark – Yeah, because 9% unemployment isn’t enough CHANGE for America.
Bob – Too good for these ignorant bastards.
Randal – Well, what are the chances there will be a fire in this town?
Raptor – You may want to move further away. The stink is really bad now.
Alan B – We do that. When we get plastic bags from the market, I use them to take my lunch back and forth to work. Also good for disposing of diapers.
Mrs. Crankipants – Oh, that was YOUR car???
GroovyVic – Send them to me, I want to drop them on the street in front of City Hall.
Crankipants – Thank you, Charlton Heston!
Mike47 – 60+ years of uninterrupted Democrat rule. How is that working out for you, Philadelphia?
Take:
1 wife or significant other of someone with massive clout.
Add:
1 paper shopping bag containing maybe $100 of high quality meat.
Throw in a driving rainstorm.
Hilarity ensues.
Wyatt-
Sadly, I’m a poor (okay, broke) college student, so moving isn’t an option. Once I graduate, land a job, and get some money coming my way, then the situation will change.
Lergnom-
Happened to my mother once (store was “out” of plastic bags). Wouldn’t exactly call what ensued hilarity, though…
[...] Wyatt: You really have to hand it to the men and women of the Philadelphia City Council. The city is $2 million in the red, crime is completely out of control, and the mayor closed seven fire stations. But what is city council spending their precious time on? [...]
The palstic bags pose more of a problem than say fires or crime. so plastic baggs need banned. shakes head.
Thinkin’ of the children.
We think plastic shopping bags are bad but not bad enough to immediately outlaw them. We prefer the “phased” approach that will grant us separation between the idiotic measure and the actual implementation.
Will this be another city law that is on the books but not aggressively enforced? What about all of the “poor” people who use plastic shopping bags to carry their daily essentials?
Priorities are important to City Council. God forbid they do something really good like banning spandex on queen-sized women.
[...] Latest Brillianter Idea… Wyatt shows us how they save the world in the City of Brotherly Love. [...]
Lergnom – 3. Put on YouTube.
Raptor – I remember being a broke college student (I went to St. Joe’s). Being a broke college student sucked.
Rick – I simply do not get their reasoning.
CGB – About time someone did! Heh.
Jason – Next thing outlawed: Shopping carts for the homeless.
(Oh, I was at Holt’s last week getting cigars for my golf trip. I picked up (3) Robustos and (3) Marquis. Terrific, all!)