The Most Upsetting Thing About This Election - Grocery Bags

California voted to ban plastic grocery bags. Seriously, this is infuriating. Now I’ll have to lug a bunch of reusable bags around or pay a 10 cent surcharge for each paper bag. I can’t believe a majority of people in CA voted for this nonsense. This also means I’ll have to make double the trips back and forth from my car to my apartment every shopping trip, since paper bags don’t have handles which allow me to hang numerous bags off each arm. It’s just an all-round pain the ass.

Reusable bags are a cesspool of disease. Even the uber-liberal USA Today ran an article on just how filthy the average reusable shopping bag is. Ryan Sinclair of the Loma Linda University School of Public Health, is quoted as saying they were about as sanitary as “the bottom of your shoe.”

The article goes on to note that most people place the bags in the baby carrier of the shopping cart, which is, according to Sinclair, “the most contaminated public surface you ever come in contact with.” Sinclair did a study on reusable bag contamination, which found bacteria in 99% of the bags tested; half carried coliform bacteria while 8% carried E. coli, an indicator of fecal contamination.

Sinclair found that the vast majority of people who use reusable bags don’t wash them and don’t seem to care about getting a potentially deadly infection. A fact which further goes to prove why democracy is a dumb idea. People who are this retarded make up the majority of the electorate. Democracy is like putting monkeys in charge of a mafia and expecting a positive long term outcome.

When San Francisco banned the bags at the city level, they saw a massive spike in e-coli infections. One study found a 46 percent increase in deaths from foodborne illness in the three months after the bag ban went into effect in 2007.

This Today article also notes that reusable bags prompt people to buy more junk food, which is just what America needs – more fat people. Apparently when self-righteous people buy the bags because of their mistaken assumption they are saving the planet, they load up on junk to reward themselves for their great deed to humanity.

Even the uber-liberal Atlantic ran an article pointing out a study that found conventional plastic bags made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE, the plastic sacks found at grocery stores) had the smallest per-use environmental impact of all those tested.

Overall, I’d say this one proposition will probably end up killing more people than Trump ever will. God save us from ourselves.

Make a bunch of washable cloth/denim bags, and wash them in the clothes washer, often.

I wish Michigan would ban them they are everywhere except where they are suppose to be.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

You get used to it, and the paper bags at all the stores I've shopped at have handles on then. My county banned them 2 years ago, and no one I know has gotten E Coli.

I haven't bought a paper/plastic bag for years, i carry a backpack and two for big shopping.

I wash them once in a while, no way i'm going to throw money after the over priced bags at the shop, and i'm saving a little on the environment.

a reply to: Jennyfrenzy

Great anecdote bro.

I don't know anyone who's died of a heart attack, so I guess eating a mountain of bacon everyday is a great idea.

originally posted by: mikell
I wish Michigan would ban them they are everywhere except where they are suppose to be.

Maybe people in Michigan should stop littering. One of those bags makes a good trash bag for the rest and other litter.

Littering does seem to be a personal freedom to be cherished, though.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

Well, if people don't wash their reusable bags, then that's their bad.

Like I said, I've had to deal with the plastic bag ban for 2 years, and know no one that has gotten E. coli.

Take a big plastic trash bag with you to the store,fill it up and carry it over your shoulder like santa claus does

or better, take small trash bags with the handles on them,after you use them to carry your groceries in you can still use them for trash.

I wonder how people carried groceries before plastic bags were invented?

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

Cheer up MY state ordered Dr. assisted SUICIDE be mandated...

a reply to: Tardacus

Back in the day, people used these things. It's like we are regressing back to the stone ages.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

Those look worse than plastic bags, how many trees does it take every year to make millions of those?

a reply to: Tardacus

A lot.

Which is why the environmental study said they were worse for the environment than the plastic. It takes a lot more energy to transform a tree into a bag than it does to turn oil and gas into plastic.

We will be getting the bags banned soon as well. I suppose you just get used to it.

I hate this composting too. In the summer my garage stinks so bad. I want salmon for dinner but I think no, it's best to have that closer to the day the leftovers are leaving lol it's really pissing me off!

Back to the shopping bags. Before I moved to Canada , back in the UK we always brought our own bags to the store to fill up. It seemed so odd here nobody did that!

Paper bags are useless on wet food like frozen stuff

Seriously, there are other ways to reduce plastic, why pick on the grocery bags?
Do we really need a new pair of scissors packaged in that thick plastic you need scissors to get open?

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

Ban plastic bags to save the environment.

Use cloth bags.

Prevent contamination/bacteria by washing cloth bags.

Additional usage of washers/dryers.

More electricity being used.

More damage to the environment.

But... I guess banning plastic bags feels good.

a reply to: violet

I can't figure out why so many people voted for this nonsense. I can't believe there's that many idiots who want plastic bags banned. It was a close call.

What I think happened is that people were simply too dumb to understand what they were voting for. The proposition was worded in a very misleading way. This is how a YES vote (in favor of the ban) was worded on the ballotopedia:

"A "yes" vote supported upholding the contested legislation banning certain plastic bags that was enacted by the California State Legislature as Senate Bill 270."

So just reading that, is it clear to you that a YES vote supports a ban on bags?

originally posted by: Tardacus
Take a big plastic trash bag with you to the store,fill it up and carry it over your shoulder like santa claus does

or better, take small trash bags with the handles on them,after you use them to carry your groceries in you can still use them for trash.

I wonder how people carried groceries before plastic bags were invented?

The grocery stores had empty cartons of various sizes (in which the products

sold were packed) piled up by the exit checkouts.

The customer picked one out of the appropriate size to hold their purchases

and put it in their car boot.....easy?

I still do that when shopping at Aldi or lidl.


Personally i think the plastic coffee/soft drink cups are a far greater problem.

Just order online and pick up or order in, it comes in crates.

a reply to: cavtrooper7

MY state ordered Dr. assisted SUICIDE be mandated.

What does that mean? The doctors are now forced to kill you?

a reply to: TonyS

I think doctor assisted suicide is a clear violation of the Hippocratic Oath that all physicians take. Any physician who partakes in it is at the very least an oath breaker. Same goes for abortion when the life of the mother is not in jeopardy. I don't think any doctor should be forced to participate in either of those activities.