The Nanny State in Full Swing
Assemblyman Lloyd "The Bachelor" Levine, also known as the "Patron Saint of the Nanny State" has been working on a government solution to force you to recycle your plastic shopping bag.Tuesday morning, Los Angeles Supervisors Yvonne B. Burke and Zev Yaroslavsky will take up the issue at their weekly meeting as well.
This is despite the fact that market solutions to the issue of plastic bag waste are out there and working.
Furniture retailer IKEA now charges customers 5 cents for every plastic bag they take out of the store. Customers can either bring their own bags or purchase a larger, reusable IKEA bag for 59 cents to avoid the 5 cent fee. As a nice added touch, IKEA donates a portion of the money raised to environmental efforts. Grocery store Trader Joe's has a similar program where they sell cloth shopping bags. Each time you use one, you get a drawing ticket for a prize.
BioBag is one company that produces plastic bags made from a material derived from corn starch. The bags are 100% biodegradable and compostable.
In related "Nanny State" news, Sunday night's 60 Minutes featured a story on lobbyist Rick Berman who is a hero in the fight against increasing government regulation.
Posted by Mayor Sam @ 4/09/2007 12:29:00 AM
8 Comments:
Perhaps if you had had a more affectionate nanny, Mayor Sam, you wouldn't be so corrosively cynical about keeping the planet cleaner.
Did mean ol' nanny smack your bobo to make you clean your room?
Poor Sam! Waaaah!
I think it's a pretty good idea for retailers to show a little concern for the environment. I mean, how are we gonna spend all of our hard earned money if we can't go outside, right?
But to have legislaion forcing the consumer to pay to use plastic bags? Shouldn't the retailer share the responsibility? doesn't it make as much sense to have the retailers pay a tax to use these plastic bags?
Plastic bags are always a dilemma for me.
"Paper or plastic?" is always met by my response:
"Destroy a forest or choke a whale?"
I hate taxes and environmental controls that don't make any sense; this one makes a whole lot of sense. People should get discounts for bringing their own cloth, re-usable bags to any grocery or similar store.
And, Mayor Sam, thanks so much for taking down Huggy Hertzberg's ugly mug from the opening. Jack Weiss is going to clean his clock if he gets in, and he knows it.
He should content himself with making enough money to afford his wives and his kids; it's over for him in elected politics.
Sam, you know I'm a fan, but I have to disagree with you on this one.
"Nanny state" refers to laws to protect you from yourself: smoking, transfat, etc.
Cutting down on unnecessary waste, by contrast, protects you -- or future generations -- from unnecessary pollution by others. The IKEA bag demonstrates how easy it can be to eliminate, painlessly, a massive source of pollution.
We generate SO much trash as a nation, I don't see what's wrong about modest measures to cut down.
For Walter, 646, et al...
I am all for cleaning up the environment. In fact, it was the Republicans under Teddy Roosevelt who brought about the notion of conservation and it was probably Nixon who flushed it down the toilet but I digress.
I have given you two examples of stores who are already running a program on their own. I am sure there are others who are doing this. I have also given you an example of one company (there are assuredly more) who produces an environmentally friendly bag (no doubt because the market presented a need and an opportunity).
I have no issue with the intent. But can you honestly tell me Levine et al ARE NOT doing this for political grandstanding?
And can you explain why we need the government to force this. How will it be enforced? How many tax dollars and how many bureaucrats will it take to make it happen? If you think it through, you can see where it is problematic.
And this is really a non-issue. Most people are responsible about disposing of their trash properly especially now a days.
This is a nanny state issue because we don't need the government to force us to do this. We can do it on our own and the market (the stores) will respond in kind to that.
Politicians like Levine et al should focus on things like crime, terrorism, etc. and stop the grandstanding and photo ops.
Mayor Sam,
You are dead wrong: "Most people are responsible about disposing of their trash properly especially now a days."
Go visit the Ballona Creek (I live along it) and look at all the trash gathered in the lines trying to keep this trash out of the ocean. Drive down the freeway and watch people throwing cigarette butts, food waste, paper cups, and even gum from their windows. Walk through the parking lot of a busy mall during the holiday season.
We are pigs. We throw our trash around, knowing very well where it will likely end up.
I scuba dive locally and the shores of the Santa Monica Bay are a mess with plastic bags. Kudos to people at least talking about it.
Mayor Sam,
This is the agenda of Stuart Waldman.
Why you support him is beyond me.
Stuart is part of the problem not the solution.
I don't really care about Levine's or other politicians' motives so much as I care about the policies they advocate. And I don't think the free market takes care of the cost of pollution; rather, it's the classic externality. The government could promote this as easily as requiring stores to charge seperately for bags. And I do think pollution is up there with crime.
Speaking of which, anyone else see 60 Minutes re the French nuclear program? Very interesting and promising.
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