[rsj_hn]

The issue is how do you sterilize the bags between re-use to achieve the same level of hygiene as disposable bags? Doing that is very energy intensive and you are in a situation in which the energy cost of washing a bigger reusable bag is comparable to the cost of making a brand new plastic one. That is why I was emphasizing sanitation. We don't use disposable needles, containers for meat and produce, dairy, because they are cheaper per se, we use them because we are concerned with hygiene.

And of course the larger issue is the totalitarian nature of this. Who needs two cups of coffee? Ban the second cup! This idea that we should start using the government's monopoly on violence to ban what are symbolic and irrelevant things -- even without thinking through the repercussions for sanitation and energy -- is a very dangerous one.

[jabits]

No one will look out for the environment we live in, especially business. Try living with re-use bags for a month and find out just how inconvenienced you are...we as citizens are making these laws to live in a clean sanitary world, not Some unnamed totalitarian regime.

[rsj_hn]

No, you are doing it to feel good about yourself. You are doing it to feel like you are making the world better.

But you are not making the world better, you are forcing random laws on people as part of an empty performative ritual.

If you wanted to live in a cleaner world, you would focus on improving systems of sanitation rather than trying to force a very marginal reduction in waste going into these systems.

90% of the plastic in the ocean comes from 10 rivers in India and Asia. The plastic is in the ocean because of poor garbage pickup and disposal infrastructure, it's not there because some guy in San Francisco is using a single use plastic bag when he goes shopping. If you want to make the "world" cleaner, then improve the waste management infrastructure rather than trying to reduce plastic waste by 0.000000001%. The thin disposable bags are not gonna put you over the top.

These are all symbolic acts that have real world deleterious consequences in terms of personal liberty as well as increasing the number of food poisoning cases, emergency room visits, etc, due to people re-using bags without properly sterilizing them between each use.

[danw1979]

Why would you need to sanitise a plastic bag after use ?

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

What if you carried meat then carried lettuce in a reusable bag?

[psychometry]

Who's going to the grocery store and putting unwrapped raw meat in their shopping bag (plastic or not)?