MESSAGE
| DATE | 2016-05-20 |
| FROM | Rick Moen
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout-NYLXS] Bag the Tax
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Quoting Ruben Safir (mrbrklyn-at-panix.com):
> Taxing plastic retail bags will have no effect on the economy.
> Fact
Ruben, are you reciting plastic industry lobby talking points in order
to hustle _me_? I think you might have lost sight of my not being a New
York voter.
Get a grip.
> The plastic bag industry employs over 30,000 Americans across the United
> States, with 1,800 working families in New York State relying on the
> plastic bag manufacturing and recycling sector for their livelihoods.
Or they could be paid to dig holes and fill them up again, I suppose.
> Alternatively, “reusable” bags are largely produced overseas.
Oh, how horrible!
Out of curiosity, I fetched the nearest canvas bag that I use over and
over for groceries, to look more closely at it. It has a science
fiction painting applique on the front, with caption 'LosCon 24,
November 1997. Burbank, CA'. Obviously I picked it up in Los Angeles
at the annual Thanksgiving Weekend convention of LASFS, 'LosCon', where
it probably was passed out with freebies. So, it appears that I've been
using it to carry groceries home for, um, decades.
The picture on the front's pretty faded. Label on the inside, which I
hadn't thought to look at before, says "Augusta Industries, Made in USA'.
But I'd have been perfectly happy with it if it'd been stitched together
in, say, Thailand or Sri Lanka or El Salvador, because I've gotten
tremendous use out of it -- and it looks to be good for another couple
of decades, at least.
We've accumulated from here or there a dozen or two such canvas bags,
and I neither know nor particularly care where they were produced --
because the main point is that they are reusable over and over for
decades.
But I'm sure they're horrible because the mean, coercive, fascistic
nanny state wants to control your behaviour by putting a 5 cent tax on
carry-out plastic bags, the very same plastic bags that so gloriously
festoon such a large percentage of the trees in your fair city.
Coincidence, I'm sure.
Did I mention that there is essentially no more plastic grocery bag
litter in the San Francisco Bay Area? Gone. Pfft. But that's Bad and
Wrong, of course.
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