Monday, November 21, 2016

California's Going Green - Sort Of

It was a nice lazy, rainy Sunday yesterday.  My plan was to stay home and not have a plan.  After watching television and doing a little boring house cleaning, I spent some time snuggling with the puppies, THEIR favorite pastime.  That's when it dawned on me I didn't have all the ingredients for my turkey dinner.  I need to make a grocery run.
But first ..... I saw a recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip moon pies.  YUCK!  That really did NOT sound good at all, but I happen to have one last can of pure pumpkin in the cupboard.  Maybe I'll just try them.  They were a real quick fix and an even quicker bake.  Ten minutes later I got to try the first one.  Not bad .. not bad at all!!  Well darn ... now I'm one cookie short of a pie.
What a shame .. I'll have to eat another to make them come out even.  HOWEVER, lets make sure that one has frosting on it!!  I whipped up the cream cheese filling and grabbed my pastry tip.  I guess I need new glasses because I had a slight miscalculation, ending up with the tip stuck to my knuckle.  Yes, those little points are sharper than puppies teeth.  Now a bloody mess, I spent ten minutes trying to staunch the flow and bandage my finger.  Never a dull moment!!

I frosted the one remaining cookie and scarfed it down.  MY OH MY that was delicious!!  I packaged them up in Christmas tins for a run in the freezer.  Oops!!  I forgot about all those meals I have stashed and there was no room.  I called my girlfriend who happens to live on the way to the grocery store and she agreed to let her family be guinea pigs.  She got the largest can of goodies.  Now ... off to the store!!
Apparently there's even MORE fallout from the election than I thought.  California voters determined by a minimum vote of 52% to remove single-use plastic bags from the planet, at least California's portion of the planet.  Who knew?  I never saw any signs, nor any advertisements that it had even passed.  When I got to the counter and was asked the usual question ... paper or plastic ... I said paper.  
Paper bags work better for me.  They stand upright and don't let everything roll out on the floor.  "That will be 10 cents each".   Really?  Ok then, how about plastic?  "That will be 15 cents each".  Are you kidding me?  "No ... ever since that stupid election, you have to pay for grocery bags."  Yikes!!  So I guess I better stock up on big reusable bags and carry them around in my vehicles.  Trouble is, I never remember to put them BACK in my vehicles!!

I understand it will be nice not to see plastic bags all over the highways and byways of California, but honestly, most of them are due to the garbage company trucks driving 60 mph down the road without covers on their loads.  

You would think they would just go to recyclable paper bags.  I'm sure it all sounded wonderful when people voted, they just didn't expect it to really impact THEM, nor did they realize how many people they just put out of work.  Those bag manufacturing plants are now closing.  I wonder who gets the money for those grocery bags?  It looks like just one more special tax!!

Wouldn't you know ... each store keeps the money for themselves, to offset the cost of those overly expensive paper bags, keeping that industry alive and well.  Once again, Californians got the wool pulled over their eyes.  They voted for something that sounded wonderful without looking into who it would impact.   

As I walked out the door, I heard comment after comment about what a rip-off this was.  Yes ... yes it is.  Did you vote for it??  Maybe when you secede from the Union, you can write entirely new laws and get your plastic bags back.  In the meantime, they sell the big reusable bags for $1.00 each.





13 comments:

  1. I'm glad I live in Oregon. I use my plastic bags to line my garbage containers in the house

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  2. I live in CA on the Central Coast and we have had to provide our own bags for almost two years now. It takes some getting used to, but soon it will be second nature. And it isn't just grocery stores, any store over 1500 sq ft I believe, does not give bags. So Target, Home Depot, Lowes, CVS etc won't be giving you a bag. Those are the hardest to remember. But they all sell cute bags for 99 cents. Soon your trunk will be filled with bags.

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    1. That's what I'm afraid of Debbie ... I'm going to have hundreds of those new bags!!!

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  3. We've had the bag thing for a while now too. My trick is any time I bring a bag in and empty it, I hang the bag on the doorknob of my front door. That way, I can't help but see it and take it with me when I go out the next time. I guess it helps that I only have one door to go out from and one vehicle to put them in.
    -Joanna

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    1. Joanna, I had no idea it was so widespread! Great idea ... I'm going to hang them on the back door!

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  4. Then you have to remember to actually take the reusable bags from your car into the store. We became aware of the "no bag law" because we spend our winters in Pismo Beach. It hasn't hit our area of Washington yet.

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    1. That's my problem Carol. I actually found one under the seat in the truck when I got home, but no one remembers to take them in the store!!

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  5. PLASTIC BAG FACTS

    Each year the United States uses 30 billion plastic and 10 billion paper grocery bags, requiring approximately 14 million trees and 12 million barrels of oil.


    Each high quality reusable bag you use has the potential to eliminate an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime. The bag will pay for itself if your grocery store offers a discount per bag for bringing your own bags.


    Introduced just over 25 years ago, the ugly truth about our plastic bag addiction is that society's consumption rate is now estimated at well over 500,000,000,000 (that's 500 billion) plastic bags annually, or almost 1 million per minute. In a landfill, these single-use bags will take up to 1,000 years to degrade.


    According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. An estimated 12 million barrels of oil is required to make that many plastic bags.


    Four out of five grocery bags in the US are now plastic.


    Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistake them for food.


    The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store.

    Each high quality reusable bag you use has the potential to eliminate an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime. The bag will pay for itself if your grocery store offers a discount per bag for bringing your own bags.

    Annual cost to U.S. retailers alone is estimated at $4 billion. When retailers give away free bags, their costs are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. (According to The Wall Street Journal, Target, the second-largest retailer in the U.S., purchases 1.8 billion bags a year.)

    WHAT ABOUT RECYCLING PLASTIC BAGS?

    It is estimated that only 3 percent of plastic bags are recycled.


    According to San Francisco Environment Department spokesperson Mark Westlund promoting recycling is not the best solution. "We've had in store recycling in San Francisco for over 10 years, and it's never really been successful," says Westlund, who estimates that the city achieved only a 1 percent recycling rate of plastic bags at the stores. "People have to pack up the bags, bring them into the store and drop them off. I think you'd be more inclined to bring your own bag…”




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    1. I blame all of that on the grocery stores, whose baggers put two things in each bag. I always have to tell them to FILL THEM UP please. As far as recycling ... they don't do that in my area ... too expensive they tell me!!

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  6. Part 2

    WHAT ABOUT PAPER BAGS

    It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag. (Film and Bag Federation, Society of the Plastics Industry)


    To transform virgin timber into paper, manufacturers consumer more fresh water than any other industry on the planet, and in return emit significant quantities of dioxin and other hazardous materials. (Environmental Protection Agency)


    In 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans.

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  7. Our local coop has a sign on the door reminding you to go back to your car and get your bags. :)

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    1. Now that's a good idea Linda, because no one remembers to take them to their car, let alone IN to the store!! LOL

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