Boston council passes ban on plastic bags

What am I supposed to do now (or a year from now) when I have a turkey carcass to discard, cat litter to dispose, and where do I put wet trash that I pick up around the yard/neighborhood before I get back to my trash barrel ???

I'm Ok with this. Most of us, I assume, already use our own bags. I rarely forget mine, but when I do I hate having to carry 25 plastic bags in the house.

Once you start using your own, you'll like it better. Better for packing and carrying. Plus, not eyeing a plastic bag stuck in a tree knowing you'll be looking at that thing till it disintegrates is a good thing.

Plastic bags just aren't practical for groceries anyways.

Paper bags + rain = even more litter on the ground

Washington DC banned free-plastic-bags way back in 2009. If anything, Boston is late to do the same.

Just like when restaurants started to require customers to pack their own leftovers, it's weird at first, but people get used to it pretty quickly.

I'd prefer a 5 cent discount for every bag you bring yourself (plastic, paper, or reusable).

I've never let a plastic bag end up in a tree or waterway. I reuse them until they rip or get dirty, then bring them to the bag recycle bin in the store, or put my trash in it (which the city requires). Yet I'm still being punished by this law.

I don't see how I'd get a book or a greeting card home from the store on a rainy day without using a plastic bag. Maybe in places where everyone drives you can fake it with a paper or reusable bag, but if you're on foot or taking transit it will get ruined during your walk home.

I've gotten some amazing quantities of stuff home by bicycle using plastic bags. Paper bags would have torn on the first bump.

Now I'll have to take a large stockpile of bags whenever I go shopping in another town. And the Pacific garbage patch is still there. So what have we accomplished?

To the people saying buy plastic bags yourself and don't expect them for free -- well, it would be nice if stores were allow to sell them to me in the quantities I need. But that's illegal now.

If plastic bags in city recycling are the problem, the correct solution is to slap large "NO PLASTIC BAGS" stickers on everyone's bins.

Banning grocery bags isn't the answer. People still end up with a lot of plastic bags from food packaging.

Cambridge already did this 2 or 3 years ago.

Dogs did not form packs and terrorize the city.

Buildings did not collapse.

The world did not fail to continue turning.

Stores have not gone out of business.

it would not pass.

(Just an aside issue, but,.... I re-use every plastic bag to pick up after my dog. I'm curious how this will impact conscientious dog owners who clean up after their dogs. Will there be some option for cleaning up...? Scoopers and then placing the debris openly in public trash receptacles ? City-Supplied poop bags? Reusable poop bags? Recycled paper bags? Oh, hell, why bother about it all, why not just leave it on the sidewalk like every one else.)

as long as they don't take it to absurd ends, like Cambridge did -- am I really supposed to bring my own bag to a coffee shop if I want a muffin to go?

The bags aren't free - stores charge the customer through product pricing for the bags you get for 'free'.

I know there are many people who also rely on them to reuse for household purposes (cat litter/bathroom trash bags, etc.). Maybe if we all have pay for this resource perhaps it will lead to more creative ways of disposing waste (and I'm not talking about dumping it by the side of the highway). Composting, for example. The city has municipal compost bins at various points across the city (Project Oscar). If you have access to a yard your an also compost your pet waste. I know this is wishful thinking - but you never know.

Also - paper bags - while they come from a reusable resource - are much heavier and we then have to use more gas to ship them.

And to another point - I'm continually amazed by how people constantly put plastic bags in the recycling....It seems like a vast majority don't know what goes in the blue bin...I blame the classic recycle symbol (three arrows in a triangle) with the number in the middle - which does not mean something is recyclable - but identifies the item as plastic. The #6 (styrofoam), for example, isn't recyclable but many people believe it is so because of the symbol.

This is one step in the right direction, but if the Council really has the guts to do something, they should take on styrofoam next - all the Dunkin Donuts cups and takeout containers, which are not biodegradable and take up a ton of space in trash.

99 comments and a bag ain't one.