What Plastic Bag Problem?

Mr. Dorfman
Your statement stinks of pro-plastic bag attorney. It is certain that a Santa Barbara devoid of a bag ordinance is not a part of the solution. The problem however is something much larger than our beautiful city. Please wake up and smell the big picture. When your done with that please try to grow up and quit the speculative reasoning. When you say "I'm thinking this is a non-existent problem" that tells me you have no idea what you are talking about. That also tells me that you are about as smart as my pet gerbil. After you have put on your grown up pants then go a few hundred yards offhsore and collect some floating bags like I do on a daily basis. Join the good side Glenn we are the future.

Well done gauchopaddler in avoiding ad hominum attacks and proving your point with data and logic...or not...

Well hello mr Dorfman,
Who on earth allowed you to publish such nonsense in the newspaper?

Let me invite you on a journey, the journey of the plastic bag. You'll like it, it's narrated by Jeremy Irons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h...

But maybe you're the kind that only believes when CNN has broadcasted it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgoi5K...

Ok and since we came this far, lets let Captain Charles More (who devoted his life to researching the effects of plastic pollution) explain the synthetic sea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEKohT...

Finally, last one, check out what happens to a whale who eats your innocent plastic bag: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEqotO...

Please, in the future, either think and inform yourself first or do not spew destructive "rubbish" like that!

Yes hello italiansurg. You mean ad hominem?
Try google scholar if your crunched for time and search "plastic bags sea life" Fast and easy connection to scientific resources from the Marine Mammal Commision in Washington DC. The information supporting a bag ordinance is there and will remain and grow. This ordinance was first brought before our city council in 1998 where data and evidence was presented. Need more proof? Maybe since Mr. Dorfman here has lived in SB for so long he has visited the Museum of Natural History. Go today and ask about the autopsies performed on the dead birds and dolphins washed up on our beaches over the past 10 years. Want to guess what they found in the stomachs? Now people are asking "What data? What proof?". I laugh.

I am aware of the evidence that plastic bags can be a lousy addition to the environment. That was why I specifically did not state anything to the contrary; use facts not personal criticism. That was the point of my comment to gauchopaddler.
While I do not think the government should ban plastic bags, as my vision of how this country should work is far different, they're clearly less than beneficial.
On the other hand there's a ton of things out there that are probably not good for the environment but are not being brought up for banning. How about the destruction of the southwest deserts by hordes of illegals? Why did the Sierra Club specifically walk away from that demonstrable environmental mess? Plastic water bottles are far less necessary in my little mind than plastic bags and are dumped by the billions.

"Why did the Sierra Club specifically walk away from that demonstrable environmental mess? "

Two words: "David Gelbaum". Google his name, along with the conditional $100,000,000 donation he gave to the Sierra Club, and you will have your answer.

billclausen, I'm so glad I saved this; every couple years or so you bring this up about the Sierra Club and David Gelbaum.
--------

" billclausen, I believe you create the appearance of a causality that may not be there; a timeline is important:

--- 1994 or 1995 Gelbaum, an important but far from leading contributor to the Sierra Club mentions to a Sierra Club honcho that (in light of Prop 187) should the Sierra Club take an anti-immigration stance, he would no longer contribute.

--2001 Gelbaum makes the $100 million contribution, becoming their biggest single benefactor (six years after his supposed dispositive threat);

-- 2004 a potential slate of directors committed to “tighter controls on immigration to stabilize the U.S. population and its impact on the environment," is defeated by a vote of the Sierra Club MEMBERSHIP. (Three years AFTER his huge donation.)

As Gelbaum takes great pains to maintain a high degree of anonymity, I suggest his influence may be overstated in this instance. But the Sierra Club brass would be foolish to ignore such an important donor (who is married to a Mexican-American)."

(first posted on October 13, 2008 at 9:37 p.m., in response to billclausen's insistence a single donor is steering the Sierra Club).

Binky: What about his line that they wouldn't get any more money out of him if they addressed the issue of immigration/it's impact of population surge?

binky- at a minimum you made my point, so thanks. Your facts demonstrate that the Sierra Club membership ignores the destruction of the southwest deserts by illegal aliens and drug smuggling from Mexico and infers the influence of Gelbaum.
And to toto-Stop trying to confuse people with facts when their minds are made up. In addition to "Jewish Bankers" I suggest "Reckless Eyeballin' Black Men" as another example of how the environmental zealots are no different from anyone else that allows their opinion to become an uncontrolled agenda that is not open to dissension...Wow, they sound kind of like "Creation Scientists" now that I think about it...

The thing w/ plastic bags is that it isn't the plastic bags themselves, it is LAZY HUMANS that feel it is somebody else's job to pick up after them.
Come visit my silly little hometown of Isla Vista & watch some of these "best & brightest" who claim to be "environmentally conscious" & are all about "saving the Earth" from the evils of plastic bags.
I have time & again personally witnessed some of these geniuses coming home from the store, laden w/ their plastic bags, & during the grocery unload a bag or 2 may get loose in the wind. Do they chase the thing down & retrieve it? OH, HELL NO! The reasons why are:

1) Just 1 bag won't be that bad.
2) Somebody else will pick it up on a beach clean day (not MY job).
3) I'm too intoxicated or hungover.
4) Out of shape from too much smoking, beer pong & sitting around playing X-Box.
5) All of the above.

Let's NOT even get into the sickly amount of cigarette butts these brainiacs dump on the ground.
How about all those Solo cups blowing down the street after the latest night of beer pong?
Of course, when it is all about "ME" the Earth just doesn't matter, much less your neighbor.
Bottom line is simple, the plastic bag ban is a $$$ machine for somebody. The ONLY "green" concern here is the color of US dollars.
If you REALLY want to go after a truly toxic mess, cigarette butts are the biggest "consumer polluter" to date.
Maybe I'm biased being an athlete & therefore a non-smoker, but the reality stands as is: ENVIRONMENTAL HYPOCRISY.
The ONLY way I'll respect any notion of a plastic bag ban is when those looking to make $$$ from it come forward & admit that is THE driving force behind said notion. Otherwise go pound sand (laden w/ cigarette butts no doubt) :) henry

I recall that in the 70's there was plenty of litter blowing around the streets--specifically, I remember seeing a lot of the old, styrofoam containers from Micky-D's. And, while there had been anti-litter campaigning since the 50's, I don't think litter really started to fade until the 80's.

As it is, there are two major aspects to limiting environmental impact of long-lived trash (plastics): 1) Pick it up, and 2) limit production/use. In the first case, it's much easier to clean up a yard or parking lot, than the ocean. The second case is about the only realistic tactic for keeping plastic bags out of the ocean water, whether it's only decreasing the impact, or stopping it completely.

Personally, it annoys me when litter blows into my yard--plastic bags, candy bar wrappers, soda cans, etc.. And, while I don't own any specific piece of the ocean, I don't like the idea that trash, which can easily be controlled at the source, might find it's way into the water.

Lastly, on the legal front, I might agree that a ban on plastic bags seems extreme. However, since it's even more ridiculous to expect people to police themselves and their trash, then it seems the only viable option. Moreso, because reuseable bags are a simple alternative.

The jist of Dorfman's letter appears to be ... "I don't see plastic bag litter at the beach or in the ocean" so they must not be a problem".

That would be an incorrect conclusion to make.

From a litter viewpoint, City staff has said anecdotal evidence indicates you don't see a lot of plastic bags on the waterfront because they blow away over mostly flat surfaces.

But ... in the creeks, the City Creeks Division says they see lots of plastic bag litter. That's because they get into the storm drains, into the creeks, then get snagged on rocks, trees, sticks, etc. At the last Council meeting, Creeks Division said they haul 40-50 tons of trash & debris out of the creeks each year from 1,000 sites. ~90% of those have plastic bag litter.

In addition, the City's Where's Your Bag program reported to the Council that plastic bags are among the top-10 items collected during Channel Keeper's beach cleanup days.

That holds true for the California Coastal Commision's annual beach & waterways cleanup day as well. The cleanup is a 3-hour event held each fall. Last year, in SB and Ventura Counties, over 8,000 plastic bags were collected in those 3 hours.

http://www.coastal.ca.gov/publiced/cc...

Other municipalities are also seeing large amounts of plastic bag trash in their waterways. Washington DC looked at the Anacostia River basin and found plastic bags to be the #1 litter item in streams and the #3 litter item in rivers:

http://plasticbaglaws.org/wordpress/w...

http://www.mwcog.org/

Finally, at the last Council meeting, City staff said they believe a large percentage of the estimated 29 million plastic bags issued in the city each year end up in the Tajiguas landfill.

What a waste of oil (and a recurring one at that).

Plastic bags seem to be the Kony 2012 of Santa Barbara :) henry

^^^

Both natural gas and petroleum are used to make grocery bags:

http://www.vipirg.ca/archive/publicat...

And if you consider that fuel needs to be expended to haul those billions of bags from where they're made (primarily in the Gulf Coast states) then there certainly is a recurring cost in petroleum as well.

That doesn't change the nature of the waste issue.

The old saw comes to mind ... can't see the forest for the trees.

We dolphins plan to use this to your advantage. When we consume plastic bags, we re-direct them to our colons. When this happens, they become poop-catchers and when we finally fire out the finished product, instead of the traditional butt biscuit you have the waste matter neatly and hermetically sealed inside a bag. By the time the bag falls apart, the waste matter becomes inert so no harm is done to the environment.

"The thing w/ plastic bags is that it isn't the plastic bags themselves, it is LAZY HUMANS that feel it is somebody else's job to pick up after them."

Numans ARE lazy, I meant "humans".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkCRRv...

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? Those school children who showed up to defend protecting our ocean and marine life are smarter than the author of this post and his supporters by eons! Using petroleum based plastic bags, many of which end up degrading in our ocean to become poisonous food for innocent marine life is simply just NOT ACCEPTABLE. I have been taking my reusable bags to the store for years. It is easy and second nature to me now. How lazy and irresponsible can you be? Watch the video on what is happening out in the Pacific Ocean and then buy a few re-usable bags and shut up.

Over the years I've picked up more than my share of plastic bags off the beach.

vlhamilton: "Watch the video on what is happening out in the Pacific Ocean and then buy a few re-usable bags and shut up."

Obviously a proponent of choice. Who's choice? :) henry

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?"

We suffer from too much emotional BAGage.

^^^

LOL, dolphins *are* among the most intelligent animals!

Wonder where sixdolphins is, wintering in Baja perhaps?

@EastBeach: To answer your question, read my post (as of right now I'm the only one that's posted) on the tragic demise of those in our pod.
http://www.independent.com/news/2012/...

The solution is simple and convenient: just recycle plastic bags to make plastic sea turtles and plastic sea birds.

@EastBeach

I think sixdolphins got sacked.

Good news for dolphins and humans alike ...

Today, LA County won the lawsuit brought against it by a large plastics manufacturer from South Carolina:

http://plasticbaglaws.org/la-county-w...

The suit sought to invalidate LA County's bag ordinance by claiming the 10-cent paper bag fee is a tax under Prop 26. This was a very important case because, as our own City Attorney Steve Wiley has stated, it is a "case of first impression" and therefore precedent setting.

This decision should help clear the way for other future bag ordinances similar to LA County's.

To me, the real issue is about minimizing resources such as natural gas, oil, and landfill space. All are limited resources.

A plastic bag in a landfill or the beach won't decompose while a cloth or paper bag will.

As we seek to become more energy independent, we should reduce or eliminate products that consume energy, even if that energy comes from US natural gas. Why? We still import gas and oil even if local production is temporarily increasing.
Reducing our dependence on fuel for products is critical to improving our trade balance and reducing our national debt and reducing the need to send troops like me overseas just to secure resources. I
Plastic bags are just one item in the product and waste stream. Recycling programs help on the tail end while banning products reduces the front end.

Myself? I choose my cloth bags or no bags at all. Or paper over plastic. My choice. I choose to reduce and minimize because I know where plastic comes from and where it goes.