This is a separate problem caused by not providing homeless people access to toilets. Seems obvious that the solution is more public restrooms not more plastic bags.
> Seems obvious that the solution is more public restrooms
While I agree, it's like saying wrt plastic bags in the ocean, "Seems obvious that the solution is less littering" or "Seems obvious the solution is biodegradable bags" etc, etc. It is just so much easier for people to change laws and affect everyone than target the specific problem.
In agree. Enact a laws to provide sufficient puplic restrooms and support for homeless people while also enacting changes to reduce plastic bag usage. My issue is with the implication that reducing plastic bags caused this. Not helping venerable people caused this, the need for plastic bags is a side effect.
Two economists have claimed that the ban in San Francisco led to an increase in food-borne diseases. The proposed mechanism is that people don't wash their reusable bags, and dangerous bacteria gets onto them. It isn't clear to me how strong the evidence for this is.
I’ve seen this also and have not seen any evidence to the contrary. Considering how damning this study is to plastic bag bans, I’m guessing this means there aren’t any studies that rebut these findings.
That’s one way to interpret the results. Alternatively, the study shows that in the normal course of human behavior, plastic bag bans may have nontrivial negative health impacts.
Also, it shows that in considering the carbon footprint of reusable bags, we should factor in regular (not occasional) cleaning.
Considering that a reusable bag needs to be reused many (hundreds, if memory serves) of times before reaching carbon neutrality versus single use plastic bags, this is not necessarily a trivial impact.
Carbon neutrality is not the only metric by which we create these regulations. Nor should it be. Single-use bags introduce many externalities that are captured and controlled by imposing a minimal cost.
"Homeless people learned long ago that pooping in plastic-bag-lined containers meant you could wrap the session up and dispose of all the stuff without touching it, he said in a long email. So when it got harder to get the bags after the ban went into effect late last year, it became harder to find the bags and people who were able to keep things clean had to work a lot harder."
"Hepatitis A is spread by contact with feces or blood of an infected person. It can be trace amounts and it can be months old"
> other developed countries don't have so many homeless people
Not true.
Here are per-night homeless statistics from UN:
China has 2.6 million
Russia has 5 million
Ukraine 1 million
Germany 860,000
US has 554,000
...
But more profoundely, by homeless ratio, the US is not even close.
Germany, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Canada, the UK, Australia, Sweden, Luxembourg, Croatia, Bosnia, Russia, Peru France, Austria, the Netherlands, China and Greece -- ALL have higher homeless ratios than the United States. The US is in 33rd place for overall worldwide homelessness as a percentage of the population.
Can you please link to "per-night homeless statistics from UN" source that you mentioned? I can't not find it through a little googling.
5 million figure for Russia for example appears on wikipedia [1] where it is cited from IB Times[2]. IB Times[2] cites Homeless World Cup[3] as the source. Homeless World Cup[3] cites the original IB Times[2] article as the source for the 5 million number! This was the first number I investigated and it already seems super suspect.
They really don't. Trying to find a toilet you can use in downtown San Diego even as a regular looking person is a struggle and you will probably end up having to buy something. Businesses won't let you use their facilities if you look dirty or homeless, and there aren't any city owned bathrooms at least that I've seen in the 2 years I've been here so far.
Likewise in San Francisco. I like to take very long all-day or late night walks and bathrooms are very hard to come by. Sure as long as it’s daytime and I look presentable I can usually find a cafe/store that will let me use the bathroom, but after 9pm if I don’t happen to be near a hotel it’s often impossible for me to find a restroom. Many restaurants and convenience stores will say the bathroom is broken (even when it’s clearly not). Also it’s common to find places that physically block access to the restroom with boxes or whatever. Long story short, I’ve had to get used to peeing outside in shadows since it’s rarely possible to find bathrooms. I’m not sure what I’d do if I was female or needed to take a crap.
Fort Worth and Albuquerque give them jobs to clean up streets. In Fort Worth, they pay $10 per hour and provide housing. This would be similar - and a good idea, I think.