This seems to be gaining a lot of momentum. It's either a tax per bag or an outright ban on businesses using them to checkout. Paper bags are still fine.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/plastic-bag-legislation.aspx

I think I'm for it. It seems like there is very little downside and it can make a big difference with the local environment.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

old news here in Chicago. We banned those a year ago and now we're working our way towards banning soda and bottled water.

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The ban doesn't exist anymore in a few days.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Shocking

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

If you are a 1 trip guy like me paper bags are the worst. Now they want to tax them and it's ridiculous. Another regressive tax proposed by our politicians.

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Wait until February 1st and it becomes a tax.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

What is the argument against it? It seems to me it is a public health issue with little to no downside.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Correct.

No tax or ban or any of that happy crap out here in God's country though.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

the downside is paper bags suck and for some reason the nitwits at the Jewels think its a contest to see how much they can cram into one of them.

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Well, the obvious argument is convenience. Why don't we ban SUVs? They are much more destructive to the environment than plastic bags are.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Why are paper bags inconvenient?

Your SUV point doesn't really make sense. If you are banning cars then that may make sense but there would be a significant downside to that.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Nas and shakes already answered your first question.

And of course the SUV point makes sense. You just don't have a good answer for it. There's a reason I didn't say all cars. Think about it for a second.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Because they suck in rain, you can't make 1 trip, they tear easily, you can't use them as garbage bags and you can't put as much stuff in them.

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GO BEARS!!!

There are high quality paper bags. Shop somewhere that gives you them or if you are a guy who can't handle it bring your own bag.

Cars are bad for the environment. There are plenty of SUV's that are better for it than other cars. That is why it doesn't make sense.

SUV's are not clearly worse than other cars. Plastic bags are clearly worse than paper bags. In regards to cars though, I am all for the regulations that already exist about things like safety and fuel economy.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

So why not use a reusable bag? They are even better than plastic bags for rain and making only 1 trip, they tear even less than bags. You can't use them as a garbage though but I'm not sure that is a reason to continue with them.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

You're banning plastic bags but half the things I can buy from the grocery store come in plactic that I could never reuse.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Because of convenience. I can never remember to put them back in my car.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

It's a shame that there's no way for humans to verbally indicate to the bagger that your preference is for them to not 'cram' so much into a given bag.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Well, the average SUV is clearly worse for the environment than the average compact car. If you want to argue that, you're not dealing in facts and it won't be worth it to continue.

So, moving on, banning cars would create a ton of issues economically. Banning the worst cars for the environment wouldn't be nearly as impactful. Why don't we do that?

The answer is that we already do things far more harmful to the environment in the name of convenience. You aren't going to the save the environment by banning plastic bags. All you're going to do is make it more inconvenient for working class people while still not putting even a small dent in the damage our collective lifestyle does to the environment.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

My wife does it right. She takes two huge canvas bags and puts everything in there. No waste, and I don't have to carry 20 plastic bags with 1 or 2 items in each in.

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Yeah, this one hasn't been thought through.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

ALL "disposable" bags are being taxed. They're not even trying to claim an environmental angle now. It's a flat out money grab.

7 cent tax per bag, 5 cents goes to Rahm & 2 cents goes to the business.

I assume that the businesses will reduce their prices now that the cost of providing bags is being covered and there is no longer a need to build it into the prices of their products.

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Your stance is that it's like pissing on a fire, right? That's how I view it too.

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So now all of a sudden it is about compact cars? That's a pretty large jump you just made. You'd be surprised at how many SUV's can compete with "normal" sized cars.
Well, we pretty much do, and will be doing it for the forseeable future too. There are limits that the government sets that get stricter as time goes on.

On another note, do you know that they used to put lead in gasoline and now they don't by government regulation? Was that a mistake?
Oh no, not the "working class people" card.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Only beta's carry reusable bags with them all the time.

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and then you run into the other problem where you end up with twice as many bags as you would if they were using plastic. And the bags don't have handles unlike the plastic ones.

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You got it all wrong.

This is about saving the environment.

Just like the red light cameras was about saving lives.

This city is the shits.

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You couldn't come up with one single rebuttal to that besides wanting to get bogged down in arguing about specific car models? You've lost a step my friend.

And yes, I consider how this affects working class people. I'm glad you find that amusing.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Most change is incremental though. Based on the science, plastic bags at the point of checkout are a huge part of our environmental damage including filling our lakes and rivers with plastic. The ironic part is that FavreFan seemed to fully support the protesters who were against the pipeline because it could potentially contaminate a water source but not this.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Yep! Just like the tax on bottled water. The tax on sugar drinks are about obesity though.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!