Does anyone still recycle?

Where I always stumble about regarding this, is that maybe the carry-it-out-the-door bags are banned, but what about the myriad smaller plastic bags, for the fruits and vegetables and various bulk items. More rethink needed?

 

I haven't been out to the left coast lately, but I thought that a plastic bag ban meant a plastic bag BAN.....
Some bags are more plastic than others?

According to the wikis:
Phase-out of lightweight plastic bags - Wikipedia

 

I have never experienced acid rain, what's it like east coast people?

 

Something from Oz, in that case at least, it was just the carry-out bags banned, not the smaller bags for fruit/vegetables, what they call "barrier bags":

https://www.ehp.qld.gov.au/assets/documents/pollution/management/waste/plastic-bag-ban-factsheet.pdf

Excerpt:

 

Hmmmm.....I'm not sure how recycling figures into this.....but:

Back in the day, Acid rain was a noreast thing.....mostly in upstate New YOWK! and the Canada.
In the 40 years since ultra low sulfur fuel and mandated pollution controls on the few remaining coal-fired plants, it's my understanding that acid rain, like...........political civility.......is pretty much gone these days, perhaps never to be seen again.
Of course.....there's money and power in code enforcement.....BIG MONEY!
This is why you'll see a bunch of articles in the Googles asking where all the acid rain went, followed by some strident rebuttal articles maintaining that the fight still hasn't been won yet.
There is probably some truth in that, but the battle with acid rain has largely been fought and won.
See also: The Ozone Layer Crisis.....Population Bomb.....etc...

The truth, as always, is where YOU find it.

 

That Population Bomb sure hasn't gone away.

 

Don't be so sure about that.

I'm seeing lots of articles in nations like Japan and Italy about a different kind of population problem, and even China has reefed in their one child policy if I'm accurately informed.
As it turns out, human capitol is a real thing and as nations become more and more prosperous, their population replacement draws down a bit....sometimes to even less than 1:1.
Most octogenarians have trouble working 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, and their medical needs require the time and attention of those younger than themselves.....AND the warranty on humans is now getting closer to 5 score rather than the OEM three score and ten.
In other words.......population is a self moderating thing.

I grew up in a time where they used to scare the crap out of school children with dire predictions about a dystopian future where people are crammed nut-to-butt in nations the size of the US (and China.....we're roughly the same size....) and fighting for rapidly diminishing resources all after the year 2000.....because that number looks cool, or most people have 10 fingers........or whatever.

Turns out?
Their math at least was a little off, and there is some evidence to suggest that HUMANS are also......a resource.

...at least that's what I like to tell people mired in the great migrant debates.
It's more of a distribution thing than anything else.

 

I figured salt would be a problem, and fresh water needed for cleaning it off. There is generally plenty of sun out in the middle of the ocean for solar stills though.

I've heard a military base in Hawaii used to just dump it off a cliff into the ocean. There is a pulverized glass beach there now.

There are some stands of dead trees farther north, maybe ponds, but road salt may have played a part in some of them.

I just keep forgetting to take the reusable bags back out to the car.

I did get a niffty little trash can that holds the disposable shopping bags up for scooping cat litter.

 

The last couple of hundred years have been an unprecedented, phenomenal spike, that doesn't seem self-moderating, barring a terrible "correction".

 

yeah.....but what's the upper limit on how many beans we can fit on a planet?

Decline in World Fertility Rates Lowers Risks of Mass Starvation - Bloomberg
What population boom? We're facing a population bust | MNN - Mother Nature Network
The possibility of food crisis due to population explosion is decreasing - GIGAZINE

 

We have received so many such bags handed out for free as promotional items over the past several decades, that I have difficulty thinking of why anyone would need to buy them.

Except maybe to avoid displaying advertising logos.

 

About a decade back, bags such as bread bags went for being just a plain bag, maybe with an inked-on label, to having a fairly large paper label (securely bonded) listing nutritional values. What's this doing to it's recyclability I wonder.

 

LOL!! They didn't really ban anything, that I can tell. You can still get all the plastic grocery bags you want. 10 cents. (But all the plastic produce bags are free.) And all the department stores give out plastic bags, and all the smaller stores in the mall. And Walmart. And Target. And drugstores... What plastic bag ban??? And a lot of the take-out food places.... plastic bags.

And they say there is no oil drilling off the coast of California... Yet I count about two dozen oil rig platforms, and three large oil islands just along my small area of the coast. I don't ever believe a California politician.

 

I don't believe POLITICIANS period!
(full disclosure- I have county councilpersons, DAs, and Clerks and the odd Judge in my extended family.....and NO. I don't believe them either!!)

 

I remember when fir trees scented the air in the Appalachians, but not so much anymore.

 

"SOYLANT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!"