By adamg on Tue., 9/22/2020 - 4:20 pm
Boston's ISD announced today that it's banning thin plastic bags at supermarkets and other retailers come Sept. 30 - and bringing back the five-cent fee for paper bags or thicker, reusable plastic bags for shoppers who don't bring their own bags.
Boston had unbanned the bags in March, as the pandemic was hitting us like a ton of bricks.
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N/t
By b from Ros
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 4:30pm
Deleting double post.
Was able to stockpile a few.
By b from Ros
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 4:29pm
Should carry me over till the next pandemic.
NBD.
What happens if you reuse a
By anon
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 4:30pm
What happens if you reuse a thin plastic bag that the city has deemed to be non-reusable?
Bags
By BostonDog
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 4:45pm
Many retailers won't let people use their own bags. The Trader Joes on Mem Drive (yes, not Boston) goes as far as to make people leave their backpacks outside the store.
Is that still true today?
By Ron Newman
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 4:49pm
Cambridge waited a few extra days after the state re-legalized reusable bags, but finally did so on July 25.
No Clue
By BostonDog
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 4:58pm
I know the Trader Joes still enforces many restrictions as I see lines outside every store. Each location seems to have their own policies. The Mem Drive one was the only location that prohibited any bags inside the store of the several I've been to recently.
I stopped going to Trader Joes when I went to the one in Assembly and was told I needed to use a shopping cart even if I didn't want one. If a store imposes baseless regulations, I'll just shop somewhere else.
Shopping cart
By Ron Newman
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 4:58pm
Could that have been an attempt to force social distancing between shoppers?
Yes, that was the idea
By BostonDog
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 5:46pm
A well meaning but dumb idea since no one stays rigidly behind their cart when they shop regardless and the last thing I want is another shared surface which is frequently touched by many people. (That last part is true irrespective of COVID.)
How do you carry your stuff?
By anon
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 9:34pm
How do you carry your stuff? Unless you’re only getting 3 or 4 items, without a cart you would need a reusable bag or your own cart, and they don’t want those in the store.
In that case
By BostonDog
Wed, 09/23/2020 - 9:55am
I only wanted two items (cheese to go with dinner) which I could carry in my hands. That's why I found it so absurd that they insisted on a cart.
I've used my own bag
By Irma la Douce
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 7:23pm
I've used my own bag at the TJs in Back Bay the last few times I've shopped there.
Wrong on Trader Joes
By jjj
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 4:57pm
It's been well over a month since TJ on Memorial Drive has allowed the use of your own bags again. They were merely following Cambridge regulations which went a few weeks longer than the State regulations.
Varies by Town/City
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 5:10pm
Like all these things, the decisions are left to the communities.
I used my own bags at MB in Woburn, but couldn't in Somerville.
That makes sense
By BostonDog
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 5:44pm
Since COVID and the laws of physics are highly dependent upon municipal boundaries.
Plus, people in Somerville and Woburn rarely leave the town borders nor do they allow entry from people neighboring cities.
LOL!
By Lee
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 10:04pm
LOL!
MB Reading allows you to use
By roadman
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 5:44pm
reusable bags again.
Roche Brothers allows reusable bags
By Waquiot
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 7:53pm
It’s been that way for a few months now.
I was in New York City a month ago. I got charged for my bag at CVS.
That's just not true. You
By anon
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 8:32pm
That's just not true. You shouldn't get your need from right wing conspiracy sites. I was they're 2 days ago, and have been going weekly, and i filled my backpack with my groceries. If this happened to you once months ago, you should say that instead of lying to promote your weird right wing theories.
The one near Alewife allows reusable bags
By anon
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 11:05pm
it still has lines on weekends, but not so much during the week anymore.
why make someone leave a
By the real matt
Tue, 09/29/2020 - 3:07pm
why make someone leave a backpack outside?
I thought reusable bags can carry cooties.
By StillFromDorchester
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 5:07pm
That's what "they" said when they banned them.
We cant bring reusable bags into the stores but that mask you've been wearing for two days next to your mouth is ok?
I can't keep up. :)
Airborne
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 5:18pm
You can't get respiratory diseases by touching stuff unless there is some odd mechanism involved, like bloodborne pathogens invading via your GI tract.
You get them by breathing.
I'm hoping that this pandemic puts the fomite cult of physiologically impossible theory never demonstrated by science to rest for good - their dirty doorknob BS was never scientifically sound. Stuff does not travel from your eyes to your lungs. Tears don't work that way. Nor does snot, nor does the mucocilliary escalator system. Other than air, your entire respiratory tract works to push everything out.
It feels like doing something to spray lysol everywhere, but all it is doing is making sure the next GI superbug is heinous.
Your clerk isn't putting on your mask and breathing through it honey. Isn't even touching it, unless you are engaging in some sort of new Rule 34 stuff. So cover your pie hole and get on with it!
(whining mask excuses and stupid ass questions about them are tiresome).
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/...
No idea what you're saying
By JohnAKeith
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 5:36pm
Can you write it again so it makes sense? It seems you're criticizing the poster before you but who knows why since he didn't say anything about the post in question.
What you seem to be saying is, clothes and cloth bags won't carry the virus in any way shape or form that would cause it to bring risk.
I'm curious
By JohnAKeith
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 7:14pm
Regardless of my smarm, I did want to know what you meant.
Combination response
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 09/23/2020 - 3:51pm
1. this virus is spread by the air, not through contact with surfaces
2. many of us who have been researching airborne viruses in the past are fed up with the Lysol Cult, and tired of the ridiculous and physiologically absurd belief that touching your eye gives you the flu. It makes no sense in terms of how our bodies work, and never has. This concept has never been demonstrated in the wild. Sells a lot of disinfectants, though.
3. The post I responded to was a standard "ooohhhh scientists can't make up their minds and blah blah I'm stupid blah" rant of the sort that anti-maskers and other science deniers think is clever.
What?
By lbb
Wed, 09/23/2020 - 8:52am
The entirety of the previous comment is about reusable bags. How is that not saying anything about the POST?
Masks
By BostonDog
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 5:57pm
The likelihood of contracting COVID from a passing jogger or cyclist is about as likely as it is from using a doorknob. Not impossible but extremely low.
Yet some cities and people still insist everyone wear a mask when outdoors even when there's no evidence there's a substantial risk.
So why did shared surfaces get the all-clear but joggers have not?
how
By berkleealum
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 6:55pm
would you go about relaxing guidelines for jogging vs other outside activities? as soon as you stop jogging you’re not a jogger anymore; you’re just a guy standing around.
They were using jogging and
By anon
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 11:32pm
They were using jogging and biking as examples of safe outdoor activity. Not saying you have to be jogging or biking to avoid transmitting the virus and you become unsafe if you stop moving.
It's OK, even though it's just theater
By Gary C
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 7:47pm
Biking home via Brookline, every walker, biker and jogger on the street is wearing a mask. So much so, without even saying a word, that I feel out of place biking through sans mask. And so I have adapted and leave on the mask I wear at work and bike home wearing it. I'd prefer that people lean hard into mask wearing versus being lax and not giving a hoot.
Airborne respiratory diseases
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 09/23/2020 - 3:55pm
They are not spread through shared surfaces. You inhale the virus. Otherwise, your body pushes everything out through snot, tears, mucous escalators, etc.
The only rational way that something could get from your eye or even nose snot to your lungs is through the blood.
It is still a good idea to wash your hands, though, because your GI tract is an input - touch your mouth with stomach virus laden stuff and you may get sick because everything going in that swallow hole heads in, not out.
Aren't there ACE2 receptors in the nasopharynx?
By Tim Mc.
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 9:29pm
Not saying that fomites are as serious a threat as droplets in the case of SARS-CoV-2, but... as I understand it, it's *not* just the deep lungs that have relevant surface proteins.
Still has to get there
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 09/23/2020 - 3:57pm
Snot flows out. Tears flow out.
Air flows in and out.
Unless you are really rooting in your nose, it won't likely matter.
Still possible to get norovirus, so still good idea to wash hands.
Other articles say it’s still
By anon
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 9:32pm
Other articles say it’s still up in the air if you can get COVID from touching your eyes, and experts don’t all agree one way or the other. And it’s likely you can get it by touching your nose or mouth.
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200526/can-you-c...
Theoretical
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 09/23/2020 - 4:00pm
Never been demonstrated that it vectors like this.
Like I said, sells a lot of disinfectants ... but actual studies of the sort involving infected frat boys, uninfected frat boys, playing cards, and cones of shame have not demonstrated any transmission from face touching even when snotty playing cards were handed to a clean group.
Good. Should have done this a
By Kinopio
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 5:32pm
Good. Should have done this a couple months ago.
They kind of did
By johnmcboston
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 10:35pm
Around two months ago they announced the Sept 30th ban reinstatement, and also said "it's OK to use reusable bags now if you want". Most stores missed that part. A month ago WF started asking for reusable bags, and about 2 weeks ago star did the same. But Roache and my local store still won't take them. sigh.
My Roche Bros.
By cw in boston
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 10:48pm
West Roxbury, has allowed reusable bags for over a month now.
thin plastic...
By anon
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 5:41pm
Does that mean the CVS bag is safe? I like it a lot. Thicker plastic, sturdy.
Lot of bags blowing around in the wind lately
By anony-mouse
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 7:12pm
so this is probably good
And speaking for those who
By anon
Tue, 09/22/2020 - 7:58pm
And speaking for those who can now only afford Save a Lot, I will use their bags for my local food pantry to lug a big bag of processed no name far from local edible foodstuffs.
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