Roving Reporter | "By now you’ve probably read or heard about the Rockport City Council..." | By Jean Payne, Skip the Plastic
By now you’ve probably read or heard about the Rockport City Council Workshop last week where the possibility of a single use, plastic bag ordinance was discussed. It was a very informative and up-beat discussion ending with the Council directing staff to study all of the various ordinances out there (especially the 10 already passed in Texas communities) and to develop a draft ordinance tailor made for Rockport.
When completed, this draft will be brought to the Council for review, comment and alteration. Following ample opportunity for input, the ordinance will then be brought to the Council for votes to adopt. In order to pass an ordinance of this nature in Rockport, it must receive a majority vote at two consecutive, monthly Council meetings. The timeline for that action should begin in February or March. Should the ordinance pass, there will be a substantial grace period giving time for merchants to prepare.
We left the workshop with elevated spirits and optimistic that as a community we are on our way to reducing the proliferation of these unsightly things littering our landscape and polluting our watersheds, bays and Gulf. It will now be up to us to educate our friends and neighbors while supporting our City Council members and Mayor as they deliberate this ordinance. Please be vocal in your support of them.
Stay tuned for further developments and as public meetings are scheduled, we will be letting you know so you can be sure to attend. In the meantime, if you know of a group or organization that would be interested in a Skip the Plastic presentation, please let us know.
Jean Payne
Skip the Plastic
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Comments
If Walmart and HEB want to look good on this issue, they should consider making the switch proactively before it's required by a city law,
Neil
Los Angeles County passed the plastic bag ban, but the City of Santa Clarita did not. The result, the Wal-Mart and chain supermarket store in Stevenson Ranch lost a tremendous volume of sales revenue, and thereby sales tax revenue, to nearby Santa Clarita, whose supermarkets and Wal-Mart still offer plastic bags. That situation illustrates the point that enacting a plastic bag ban in Rockport may be found by many consumers to be a nuisance, and they may do their heavy shopping in Portland, Gregory or Aransas Pass. As of September 30, 2014 California has a statewide plastic shopping bag ban, so the sales tax revenue trend may reverse itself in Stevenson Ranch/Santa Clarita, but clearly given Texas' libertarian sentiments, it is unlikely that we will ever see a statewide ban on the use of plastic shopping bans here. Thus, the question becomes "How will Rockport make up lost sales tax revenue" if large volume shoppers use the Wal-Mart and grocery stores in neighboring communities? Clearly, by raising all of our real estate taxes, which Rockport's senior citizens can ill afford.
More important than the loss of sales tax revenue to the City of Rockport from such a plastic bag ban is the negative public health effect of requiring people to use recyclable shopping bags they own. Here's a news report by perfectly legitimate Bloomberg news, concerning the recyclable grocery bags role in spreading ecoli, salmonella and norovirus infections:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-02-04/the-disgusting-consequences-of-liberal-plastic-bag-bans
Think about it. How likely are you to wash 5 to 10 fancy canvas shopping bags every time you go grocery shopping? Alternatively, if one uses the free, cheezy plastic fibre bags like we receive at various events, which are not washable, those bags are equally likely to become soaked in bacteria and viruses and cause the same health problems.
See these similar public health oriented articles on the negative effects of plastic bag bans. You'll note that one is from the Los Angeles Times, which is not exactly a bastion of right-wing pro-business thinking:
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/09/news/la-heb-grocery-bag-diarrhea-20120509
Also see: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/sns-green-bacteria-in-shopping-bags-story.html
http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/10/08/californias-plastic-bag-ban-myths-and-facts/201064
http://www.foodprotection.org/publications/food-protection-trends/article-archive/2011-08assessment-of-the-potential-for-cross-contamination-of-food-products-by-reusable-shopping-bag/
Rockport and Fulton, and the surrounding county areas have a disproportionally large population of people over age 65. Those are exactly a demographic who, in addition to young children, are least likely to be able to fight off food borne-illness and the most likely to die from it.
As I often say to thoughtless environmentalists, here in the United States human beings are the most endanger species, yet very little thought is ever given, at the local legislative level, to protecting the public health.
Jennifer Shaw
Rockport, TX
Reply by Gayly Opem
Other times I mention to not bag my gallon jugs (milk, tea, flavored drink, etc.) and it's bagged anyway. Other times I have a few different items and they are put in separate bags just because they are different types of items.
I wonder how much the plastic bags cost. I mean, do the math and figure out how much they'd really be spending if they gave out reusable bags for free.
Our local group decided at the beginning to have an educational mission which is:
To reduce the impact of plastics in the environment by raising awareness about the dangers of plastic pollution and by advocating for reduction of single-use plastics and the recycling of all plastics.
We do not charge membership fees and do not fund-raise so saw no reason to become a 501c(3). However, we are more than willing to share information with anyone who asks. In the last two years, we made presentations to about 20 different groups such as the Aransas County Commissioners Court, the Key Allegro Property Owners, the Aransas County Navigation District, and the RV Owners Members of the Rockport Chamber of Commerce. We staged several public events such as providing environmental films for the Rockport Film Festival, Bag Monster march in the Oyster Fest and Tropical Christmas Parades and, with proclamations from the Mayors of Rockport and Fulton, the Skip the Plastic Weekend over Memorial Day Weekend in 2014.
Please feel free to contact me for more information at gaylygopem@yahoo.com
The big stores can absorb the cost of a ban much easier than the local retailers. It would be very unfair if these stores were exempt.
When tourists come into Rockport and learn of this ban...which they undoubtably will if they shop locally....they will be forced to think about this issue in SOME capacity, and hopefully, in my eyes, bring that nugget of an idea--this eco consciousness--back with them to their home city or town.
Jennifer Shaw
Rockport TX
Jennifer Shaw
Rockport TX
You can babble on about millions of people and plants on planet Earth, but it's clear you do not give a rat's patootie about the health of the people of Rockport.
Children and senior citizens are the two sectors of Rockport's population who are at the greatest risk of getting ecoli, salmonella and norovirus infections from fabric grocery bags and faux-fabric grocery bags which are NOT thoroughly washed in hot water each time they are used.
And you know darn well that most busy working people, especially the poorest sector of Northern Aransas County's population who have to pay to use a washer and dryer, are NOT going to wash their fabric grocery bags and they are going to get sick from the infectious agents which percolate and grow inside the bags after the bags' contents are removed. From your point of view it's just fine to let actual children and senior citizens living in Rockport get sick to because the planet has too many people on it anyway.
Jennifer Shaw
Rockport, TX
FACT: Studies Fail To Link Deaths To Bags And Washing Bags Can Prevent Contamination
Expert: San Francisco Study Fails To Rule Out Alternative Explanation. Brad Plumer, then a writer for TheWashington Post's WonkBlog, reported that the study claiming an increase in E. Coli deaths in San Francisco was based on incomplete information and failed to rule out an alternative explanation of the increase:
Expert: "Your Average Healthy Person Is Not Going To Get Sick" From The Bacteria. NPR's Shots blog reported that the study finding bacteria in most bags and E. coli in some failed to note whether the E. coli found were harmless strains:
Washing Bags Eliminates 99.9 Percent Of The Bacteria. The Federal Food Safety blog from the Department of Health and Human Services recommends washing reusable bags, which according to an International Association for Food Protection article eliminates over 99.9 percent of the bacteria found in the reusable bags:
Incidentally, the description Ms. Shaw used of "plastic bag ban ladies" is equally untrue. Skip the Plastic--Rockport/Fulton has male members in its founding group as well as much masculine support in the many prominent organizations that voted to support our mission and become sponsoring partners.
P.S. Why does the City mow the highway medians, and then leave all of the trash to float around? Why not finish the whole job, and pick up with trash exposed after they mow? Perhaps they should look into investing in a vacuum truck, like the ones they use in Canada.
Even though we do not currently have a ban, I use reusable bags now out of habit. Cleaning them is easy. Some of the fabrics can obviously be drip dried, and they dry quickly; canvas can get popped in the drier. I don't have the hang-up a friend has about taking only HEB bags into HEB. I have a mishmash of bags and use whatever I have with me; the people who pack them don't care. My sister says most vendors distributed permanent bags for free during a long transition/learning period. She collected quite a few in that timeframe and so paid nothing. I see no reason why the stores wouldn't do the same here, especially if requested to do so. HEB and Walmart are both familiar with implementing bans.
My goodness, some of the comments make it sound like HEB or Walmart is going to dump a test tube or Petri dish into the bag before loading the groceries. The tone and word choice of others swerve into personal attack territory, though (trying to be gracious here) perhaps they were not meant that way. Thanks to those who have reminded us that earlier articles about contamination were disproved. And thanks also to those who are driving this program. It will be good for our area's beauty and for its inhabitants: human and critters, domesticated and wild.
I confess I chuckled at the thought of people driving to Portland (50-plus miles round trip) or Aransas Pass (20) after a local plastic bag ban. I know several people who think going from one end of town to the other is "far," so I plan to rib them about their plans for future shopping.
The City, Town and other government entities do participate in all the annual cleanups - Adopt-a-Beach, etc. City employees have participated in 'Adopt-a-highway' for years. Civic organizations such as the Clean Team, Keep Rockport Beautiful and Rotary Club also participate in cleaning our community (others do too but these come to mind).
I liked Pat's comment - "collectively we can become a driving force". So next time you see the notice of the 'Adopt-a-Beach' clean up - volunteer. You'll be glad you did and help fix this problem.
To summarize:
You: “…here in the United States human beings are the most endanger species…” (I assume you meant “endangered” species, which specifically means that the population is getting smaller, to the point of possible extinction).
Me: Census records and population projections indicate that the exact opposite is true, which has caused, is causing, and will cause serious problems for the planet and its inhabitants, and maybe we should take steps to conserve resources.
You: From your point of view it's just fine to let actual children and senior citizens living in Rockport get sick to (too?) because the planet has too many people on it anyway.
Thanks again, that was the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time. Made my day. Who says irony is dead?