New York, NY – In a bid to curb nearly 1 billion plastic bags used by NYC consumers annually, the city’s council passed a bill today requiring large stores to set up recycling programs.
The bill, which will likely be approved by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, also requires stores that occupy at least 5,000 square feet to make recycled bags available and to use bags printed with a pro-recycling message.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said costs to businesses would be “insignificant” in part because stores can sell bags to recycling businesses, which pay as much as $100 per ton of plastic bags, and turn them into new products like plastic furniture.
Environmentalists have targeted plastic bags as a scourge that take years to biodegrade and contaminate soil and water. [Reuters]
Let’s recall why we use plastic bags in the first place. Those under thirty may not recall the large brown paper bags once used for greceries, but they were put on hold after the environmentalists claimed that we would have no more trees left if we used paper shopping bags. So we switched to plastic. No plastic is a problem. It’s kinda like the energy situation. We used to burn coal we which we have in abundance, the tree huggers complained so we switched to cleaner oil, the tree huggers still complained, so we switched to pollution free atomic fueled nuclear reactors and the tree huggers complaned vieder. I think the time has come that we realize that the tree huggers, many whom have never had a productive job in their life, but manage to continually criticize people and organizations that actually accomplish something positive or produce an actual commodity at a reasonable market rate. The Solution? If you don’t have a job doing domething creative, you can’t criticize someone who does. Problem solved. That goes for politicians also.
Approx 50,000 18 x 10 x 30″ .65 mil bags would make a ton. The space required to store it would cost more than that considering real-estate prices in NY.
The city council is out of touch with reality.
This is just another stupid law meant to hurt businesses in New York.
2000 lb
The recycling businesses pay up to $100 a ton for plastic bags. Does anyone have any idea how many plastic bags are in a ton?