The Top Ten Reasons Why Portland’s Proposed Luddite Plastic Bag Ban is Unneeded

July 18, 2011

SHARE

Sigh. Portland’s Rainbow City Council takes up another plastic bag ban this week and once again I’ll go through the clearly obvious lies, jive, denial of reality and faulty logic that these guys will use to sell their product ban. Their logic is about at thin as those bags.
Sam Adams feels an unalloyed moral imperative to get rid of “plastic” bags. Of course morality was missing in action when he bedded a teenager but it’s returned now and he has plastic bags in his “gun murder” sites.


The Mayor was kind enough to come on my program on Friday.
Take a listen to our interview here, and then behold my Top Ten Reasons Why Portland’s Proposed Luddite Plastic Bag Ban Is Unneeded: 

1. They’re not “plastic” bags. They’re ethylene, a by product of ethane which ordinarily would be burned off into the atmosphere if they didn’t make bags out of the stuff. They’re not petroleum based. It could be argued that creating these bags actually HELPS the environment.

2. They’re not “single use.” Anti corporate types and environmentalists–but I repeat myself–have dubbed them ‘single use’ to somehow demonize them and marginalize their usefulness. I think most people are hip to this contrivance, but not the mayor who thinks we’ll fall for his clap trap.

3. There’s nothing wrong with using–as he claims–444 bags a year. Who cares? Take them back to the store and recycle them, already! Better yet, have trash/recycle guys pick up everybody’s ethylene bags at the curb. For crying out loud, they want to pick up our food scraps and pick up our trash every other week, why not the bags? What does it matter that people use lots of these bags per year? Because we use something it should now be demonized? Why? Plus, if his numbers are true, doesn’t it mean that these items are useful and well loved and used?

4.  Sam Adams says San Francisco is doing it so it must be a good idea. So what? Those pinheads have banned Happy Meals and goldfish sales too. These are the arbiters of probity? Pul-eeze. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has forgotten the real job they’re supposed to do, taken leave of their senses and imagine themselves Kings. Sam, if your friend jumped over a cliff would you follow him, too? Don’t answer that.

5.  Sam told me in the interview that he’s seen the ravages of plastic when he lived in Newport and cut open the bellies of fishes. Apparently he’s just recovering those memories now because heretofore he’s never mentioned it. Amid my guffaws I think he claimed that there was plastic ‘film’ inside the bellies of the fishes. I want to see it.

6. He knew better than to trot out the garbage isle twice the size of Texas fantasy on my show but that hasn’t stopped him from telling news reporters this fiction. As an Oregon State University professor has admonished: stop saying the garbage isle is twice the size of Texas. It’s not. It’s smaller. Greenpeace has told these flakes to stop saying these isles or gyres are full of plastic bags. That’s a lie. If there’s plastic in there it’s fishing line and nets.

7.  Sam told me that the poll question (which gives push polling a bad name) they used to trump up support for the ban wasn’t really used by the City to trump up support for the ban. Say wha? Here it is:

“Single-use petroleum-based plastic shopping bags pollute our land, contribute to a swirling mass of garbage twice the size of Texas off Oregon’s coast, and continue our dependence on dangerous foreign oil supplies. Making paper shopping bags is a toxic process that pollutes our rivers. To encourage more use of reusable shopping bags, do you favor or oppose banning plastic bags in the City of Portland and requiring a 5-cent fee on paper bags?”

The city did too use this poll question as support for their ban. The mayor now denies it.

As I blogged at the time:

Even though a call to the Mayor’s office couldn’t produce a picture of this huge swirling mass of garbage,  Roy Kauffman, Sam Adams’ spokesman, says he’d seen pictures at this website. Eric the Great combed through the website. No pictures. You know, you’d think anything that big should have a resort on it or something, but it isn’t there.
Even if the Mayor’s office (relying upon environmentalist websites for his ban information) calculate “twice the size of Texas” in linear miles, it’s still a 5,000 mile long span of garbage isle. The distance from southern Oregon to the Bering Straight is 2,300 miles, so you’d think SOMEone would have seen a 5,000 mile long span of garbage off the coast. We’re waiting for the pictures.

8.  Bags in the landfill is not all bad. As the Save the Plastic Bag people point out the bags help create a barrier to keep methane from escaping into the atmosphere. As the enviros keep pointing out methane is a worse ‘greenhouse’ gas than CO2–unless they change their minds.

9. You’ll forgive me if I sound alittle tired. I’ve been down the plastic bag ban road before. But not even THAT road is littered with plastic bags. Here’s what we did find, however:

Beer Cans
Pop Cans
Cups from fast food restaurants
Cigarette butts/packs
Fast food bags
Water bottles
Diapers
Advertising
Garbage bags (not grocery bags)
Candy wrappers
Wwwwwwayyy down on the list is plastic grocery bags

So where’s the plan to ban cans, cups, bottles, diapers and Clear Wireless flyers?

10. The mayor says people who love plastic bags and don’t like paper (which will be next on the ban or tax list in my opinion) such as the elderly and handicapped will be able to pick up (convenient, huh?) a GOVERNMENT ISSUED BAG.

And as an added bonus I’ll give you another reason why the bag ban is stupid.

11. These Oregon manufacturers of bags may be next:

Buck Rock Enterprises – Trail, OR

Manufacturer
Company Profile: Custom manufacturer of plastic bags, pouches, & webbing straps. Materials include lightweight nylons to heavy ballistic, a variety of weights of fabrics & sizes of products. Capabilities include full pattern-making, cutting, & sewing capabilities as well as finishing hardware.
Pacific Packaging – Portland, OR -no grocery bags
Distributor, Manufacturer, Custom Manufacturer
Company Profile:Manufacturer & distributor of printed plastic handle bags & pouches. Bags & pouches are available in materials including OPP, PET, LLDPE & LDPE. Custom reverse, rotogravure & flexographic printing available in up to nine colors. Options include carry holes, de-gassing valves, handles, tape seals, spouts,
Pak-Sel – Portland, OR no grocery bags
Distributor, Manufacturer
Plastimayd – Oregon City, OR
Manufacturer, Custom Manufacturer, Service Company
Company Profile: Flexible Vinyl Canvas & Reinforced Vinyl Products
ecoSolutions Intl. – Ashland, OR 9 employees
Manufacturer, Custom Manufacturer
Company Profile:Sourcing, developing & marketing eco-friendly products & materials. Stretch wrap, biodegradable shopping bags, compostable bags & reusable bags.
xpedx – Portland, OR
Distributor
Company Profile: Distributor Of Adhesives, Plastic Bags, Film, Tape
Omnipak Corp. – Portland, OR
Distributor
Company Profile: Distributor of of shipping labels, poly bags, packaging materials, truck placards & janitorial supplies. 
Packaging Plus – Corvallis, OR
Custom Manufacturer, Service Company
Company Profile:Assembly & packaging, testing, inspection, warehouseing, remanufacturing, labeling, package design, prototyping, assembly, fulfillment, cutting, glueing, soldering, stapling Service
RJS Industrial Distributing – Eugene, OR
Distributor, Manufacturers’ Rep
Company Profile: Distributor & rep of plastic bags
Bagit System – Dundee, OR
Manufacturer
Company Profile: Manufacturer Of Plastic Bags
Allstate Plastic Bags – Portland, OR
Manufacturer under 50 employees/ most business over seas
Company Profile: Manufacturer Of Plastic Bags
McDowell Bag Co. – Portland, OR
Distributor, Custom Manufacturer
Company Profile: Distributor Of Bags
Friedman Bag Co. – Portland, OR
Manufacturer
Company Profile: Manufacturer of burlap bags.

NWmaterialsmart – Portland, OR
Service Company
Company Profile: New & used materials, free & low cost, residuals, reusable & recyclable surplus, buy, sell trade; Service

Mayor Adams’ unedited statement on banning plastic bags:
Dear Portlander,
Oregonians use an estimated 1.7 billion single-use plastic checkout bags each year—the equivalent of 444 bags for every man, woman, and child in Oregon, every year. That’s a bad habit worth kicking.

Growing up on the Oregon coast, I saw firsthand the devastating effects that discarded plastic has on our waterways and wildlife. In Portland, and in all of Oregon, single-use plastic checkout bags are an eyesore, getting into our waterways and our storm drains. Plastic bags are a nuisance, jamming up recycling facility machines and costing those facilities tens of thousands of dollars a month in maintenance and labor to fix the mess.

And globally, plastic bags are part of an environmental crisis—from the oil needed to manufacture and transport bags around the planet, to the massive plastic islands of trash destroying our oceans and intoxicating our marine food web.

That’s why I’m introducing an ordinance at City Council on July 21 at 3:45 pm that would prohibit the largest generators of single-use plastic checkout bags—large grocery stores and large retailers that have pharmacies—from distributing these bags to their customers at point of sale. See today’s Oregonian story for more details.

This policy is a pragmatic approach to a real and seemingly insurmountable problem, and was shaped by a coalition of businesses, environmental groups and city staff, and informed by lessons from cities and nations that have already taken action on single-use plastic checkout bags—from San Francisco to China. Portlanders are prepared to lead the way in Oregon.

If approved, the ban would take effect on October 15, 2011. The policy also promotes the use of reusable checkout bags, and provides reusable bags free-of-charge to qualifying low-income residents and seniors. This initiative does not mandate retailers to charge a bag fee, and does not prevent retailers from offering a reusable checkout bag discount. Full details of the proposal, including answers to frequently asked questions and a copy of the ordinance, can be found at mayorsamadams.com/bagban.

Portland and Oregon have always led the nation on smart environmental policy. Portland’s economic prosperity is being built on our creativity, our innovation, our expertise in sustainability, and our heritage of great manufacturing. By taking action now, we’re continuing our city’s leadership in sustainable urban living and making an investment in our city’s future.

Sincerely,

Sam Adams
Mayor 

RECENT BLOG POSTS ABOUT THE FOLLY OF BANNING ETHYLENE BAGS
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2011/01/zero-warns-of-anti-plastic-bag-ban.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2011/01/oregon-lefts-plastic-bag-ban-claim.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2010/12/plastic-bag-ban-and-tax-on-paper-bags.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2010/07/city-of-portland-claims-that-536000-sq.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2010/07/96214000.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2010/07/plastic-bag-ban-portland-to-issue.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2010/07/plastic-bag-ban-phony-poll-government.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2010/07/portland-vows-to-ban-plastic-bags-save.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2010/06/plastic-bag-haters-out-in-force-again.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2010/02/oregon-democrats-plot-job-killing.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2010/02/they-talk-about-saving-children-and.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2008/07/paper-plastic-or-dirty-canvas-icky-milk.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2011/07/kayaking-on-willamette.html
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2011/02/suffocate-plastic-bag-ban-proposal-in.html
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=121597401219861
http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2011/02/suffocate-plastic-bag-ban-proposal-in.html

Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com