ronnie993tt

Sorry, I know it's off topic but I think we need to fight the Nanny State which unreasonably restricts speed limits on as many fronts as possible. If you are against the proposed plastic bag ban, filling in this online petition is one way to be counted. I just submitted my entry.

http://www.reversethebagban.ca/take-action/

pontifex4

Respectfully, I must say that I don't agree with the arguments that site presents.

I don't have a strong opinion either way, but they seem like reflexive counterarguments to me.

theiceman

how baout ban the bra instead ?

JimV8

Well sometimes anyway.

ronnie993tt

On not sure what basis you can disagree on? There have been buckets of independant studies done by Fraser Institute, CD Howe Institute, etc. and plastic bags are far and away the most economically and environmentally sound option.

Imo000

I need them to hide my oil filters during garbadge day.

pontifex4

I haven't done any studies, and I'm not about to advocate paper grocery bags over plastic, but I doubt that a plastic bag has less or equal environmental impact to no bag at all.

Whether the impact they do have is significant, I have no idea and don't really care. Again, I don't have any strong opinions about it -- I just don't like the way they present the arguments on the site. Since you asked, here's a breakdown.

They do make a partial argument for why it's unnecessary (that Toronto has reduced its bag use by about half) but what about the remaining half, and what are the negative consequences they threaten?

I can see nothing wrong with this, but it casually implies that everyone in those municipalities recycles the bags, when that may not be true.

This is opinion, not argument. I will, however, grant that this list is called, "Points to consider."

This is a juvenile way to present it: "The other side is wrong because they want to use paper bags, so they are tree murderers." is just as weak and unreasoned an approach as saying categorically that, "Plastic grocery bags will choke and kill mother nature unless we ban them."

I don't think this is the right way to frame this. It should be a slam dunk for the 'reuse' argument: plastic bags already come with your groceries in them, and using them for this task is one of the rare chances we have anywhere to reuse packaging. I'm with Imre on using them to seal up old oil filters.

This may well be true (again, I don't know anything about the environment) but when their first sentence is "Many of the claims against what I support are untrue" and the second one has a grammatical error and nothing to back up its claim, I remain unconvinced.

If true, a valid argument. This could be a great closing argument with some real numbers behind it.

Christien

Remember that anything called an "institute" is rarely if ever objective. They're all biased - some left, some right, but at the end of the day they rely on donations, mostly from corporations. "Independent" and "institute" are more or less mutually exclusive.

Imo000

Don't ban them but dather make then cost $10 a piece and watch how fast people will stop using them.

Mark Lue

We live in such a nanny state here in Ontario, we don't need any more rules... I'm for anything that allows the individual to make good decisions for our environment not more rules or by laws.

theiceman

wow i just cant belive you guys dont take the time to take your used oil and filters to the dump .. You guys are putting used oil filters in regular garbage is the most dissapointing point for me ..

P0rsch3F113

All bags (paper & plastic) should be banned. We should bring our own reusable bags/containers to the store and use them. That's what we've been doing for a couple of years now, and it seems to be a growing trend. Used oil & oil filters should be disposed of properly (not placed in the garbage).

Christien

You know Clive, I never thought of it. I do take my old oil to the transfer station for proper disposal, but yeah, I always just put my filter in a bag and toss it in the garbage. But now that I think of it, it should go with the oil to the hazardous waste disposal with the oil. I'll do that from now on.

As for the plastic bag ban, we use reusable shopping bags (as long as I don't forget them ) and avoid plastic bags as much as possible. However I would say we as a society have bigger problems to focus on right now, so it's really not much of an issue for me. I know Rob Ford has his axes to grind, but really he should be looking at why he city is in a downward spiral, rather than pissing around with insignificant issues. It really irks me when politicians waste precious resource on "sexy" issues that really don't make much difference in our society.

jumper5836

Driving the other day I noticed that out of 100 cars I couldn't count on one hard 2 or more people in a vehicle, it's pretty much 1 person per car. That to me means we have a terrible transportation system and once looking at the cost of it for the people who use it. It really looks overly expensive. No wonder everyone is driving by them selves.
Plastic bags don't hurt that much and paper bags means trees are being cut down. Re-useable grocery bags are a good thing but a lot of us use the plastic ones as kitchen garbage bags and don't need to spend money to buy them separately at the store for it.
I think there are many better ways to help but unless the corps and govt can make money off it then it won't be done.

pontifex4

Excellent point. Might be time to reassess my strategy there.

Completely agreed. What's more, I'm (obviously) tired of the lack of any real argument from the key political players for their own causes. Emotion and straw men are all I see these days.