Austin has decided to ban all disposable grocery bags in the near future, another of the city’s retarded attempts to save the environment from demon plastic, evil oil and deforestation. The city council cites overflowing landfills as the immediate looming disaster guaranteed to be averted by this idiotic decision.
Retailers and consumers will be undoubtably be inconvenienced by this mandate and you have to wonder what other offensive plastic products will be next in line to fall under the council’s disapproving scrutiny. Trash bags, disposable diapers, sandwich baggies, rubber bands, Crocs?
Progressives seem unable to either comprehend or accept the wonderful fact that mankind is quite ingenious at creative problem solving when faced with new dilemmas, needs or desires. The knee jerk reaction of most progressives to anything they dislike or deem dangerous is to ban it, tax it or criminalize it.
These hysterical people don’t have much faith in science, engineering or technology to tackle new issues or provide cost-effective solutions, preferring to harass our ignorant politicians into making terrible decisions that annoy the hell out of rational people like me.
Plastic grocery bags don’t degrade in landfills for five hundred years. That’s their Chicken Little, end-of-discussion statement on the topic. Of course, they’re wrong, but when has that ever stopped a furious ideologue from completing their fruitless mission?
As a matter fact, plastic bags could degrade in landfills within a very short time frame if one very cool science discovery was deployed. A few years back, a really bright teenager discovered that a refined strain of microbes could naturally degrade 46% of grocery bag plastic in six short weeks. I would be shocked if commercial applications of this discovery aren’t already being aggressively pursued considering landfills are a huge municipal concern and ripe for lucrative, tax payer cushioned profit margins.
There are a few other all-natural solutions on the horizon posed to solve the plastic terror, but in the meantime, there are plenty of companies offering plastic bags that chemically bio-degrade within five years. Why wouldn’t the city council ask retailers to exclusively use those products to combat the immediate landfill problem?
I’ll tell you why, because if you live in Austin or the any of the surrounding communities, your flimsy plastic grocery bags already meet that fast rotting standard. Walmart and HEB use them exclusively, Whole Foods, always the innovator, went the solo brown bag route at least five years ago.
Those are your three choices to stock up on groceries within a seventy mile radius from downtown Austin.
I can only conclude that Mayor Leffingwell and the craven simpletons serving as council members are busy trying to burnish their Green credentials with the Silicon Valley horde of progressive elitists who’ve infested central Austin over the past ten years.
The main activists leading the anti-bag revolution appear to be an impoverished crew of devoted Hackensack’s who’ve garnered the financial support of those who love their expensive luxuries. The hip money backing this current wave of insanity reside in high six figure, inner city homes, revel in weird their lack of children (no breeders here!) and brag over the two hemp bag’s worth of organic groceries they fill once a week at Whole Foods or the Barton Creek Farmer’s Market. It’s all about aesthetics, popular lifestyle and the latest cause de jour for these progressive, environmental vanguards.
None of these pristine people could ever imagine filling a HEB grocery cart to overflow in order to meet an ordinary family’s food needs for the week, much less hauling forty reusable bags along to take the goods home. That just doesn’t happen in their tight little circle jerk of a world.
It seems they can’t be bothered to acknowledge the extra gas-guzzling trips that will follow their no bag rule or the industrial waste produced and energy consumed by the increased manufacture of their mandated glut of sustainable bags.
I guess I shouldn’t wonder why they adamantly refuse to avail themselves of pertinent facts on this onerous ban. High brow fantasy is always preferable to reality when pushing through bourgeoise policies that will never taint a single progressive front door.
Progressives are always backward thinking. They pine for a pristine history that never existed. They believe if they could turn back the clock, all things would reset, be shiny and new and voilà for the few of them what can ‘preciate it who remain….eternal bliss is at hand. Serenity now! Progressives are Luddites at heart. Progluddites. Rhymes with troglodyte.
I’d just be happy if they bothered to examine the goddamn facts before waving their regressive legislative wands.
Facts – or rather, truth – tends to be rather inconvenient to those who are high on the power trip of saving the world from other, lesser people.
Perfection…two bags and no kids…you’ve nailed it.
I’m amazed they haven’t done it here in Minneapolis yet. Of course, we burn our garbage to heat the downtown buildings. But our leftist idiot city council is dumb enough to do it anyway.
Nothing but drive-by beatdowns will stop these sluts. Nothing.
It is amazing what the innovative mind accomplishes, prodded by greed and avarice of course. By the time alleged environmentalists had soda cans being recycled, the cans had one-sixth their original mass. Not good for bums and pre-teens trying to make a buck.
It is absolutely remarkable how many plastic bags can be jammed into a few square inches.
Time was, people committed suicide through just turning on the car engine in the garage. I remember that pretty well. Then it took a hose into the cab to get the job done. Now the stuff is practically air freshener.
But there is no learning curve within obsessive-compulsive-disorder, which is the fuel of leftiods. Democratic recycling is pure OCD.
Nowhere is the ignorance more tasty than here in California. The latest bit is the California High Speed Rail idea. The first part is supposed to go from Fresno to Bakersfield, which is hilarious all in it’s own right. From Bakersfield it is supposed to go to Palmdale and on into LA.
The parts that gives me the rib splitting guffaws are The Tehachapi Loop and the San Andreas Fault. If you’ve never heard of the Tehachapi Loop ask a train buff. It was built in the 1870′s and is today still considered an engineering marvel. It’s a 70 mile long loop that crosses itself to reach the Tehachapi summit. I’m picturing a high speed train whizzing around the loop with it’s passengers canted over, much like astronauts in a centrifuge.
Thankfully, you’ve now reached Palmdale in the high desert. From there you will first cross a rather steep ridge, commonly known as the San Andreas fault. What could possibly go wrong with that?
What the hell is with democrats and trains?
These are the same folks who preach the benefits of diversity and multiculturalism while living on the other side of town from all the diversity and multiculturalism.
Kick the hippie fascists to the curb. Bring your own plastic bags to the store and transfer your groceries to them. Any problems? None a Concealed Carry permit won’t iron out.
Allen, I think it’s the removal of people from their freedom to go wither they will go and forcing them into trains and buses that so excites them. Control freaks. It starts with model railroads and model towns and they think they can grow up to be the giant that controls everyone and everything. Only the giants are all politicians.
So, are these people refugees from Silicon Valley, and hence, California?
I don’t get these Inverted Tom Joads. They abandon Mexifornia because of the stupid business-busting political climate there, but bring their progressitard notions along with them, thereby fowling their new nest as well. Is Mayor Leftwingwell also a California transplant?
Either other states about to be inundated by refugees from the (formerly) Golden State should turn them back like 1930′s Dust Bowl Oakies, or they should make them sign loyalty oaths to the prevailing lifestyles of their new home.
Actually my Wal Mart plastic bags bio-degrade before I even get them home.
I agree with Vanderleun. But if I may be permitted, I’d take it a step or two farther.
Drive by beatings of anyone carrying a permitted shopping bag.
“I see you are using a sack made from woven human hair.”
“Yes, it won’t pollute Mother Gaia.”
“Oh. Ah. Well, let’s see you carry that sack after I smash your elbows with this axe handle.”
“Ahhhhhh! I’m maimed!!”
“No kiddin’. Next time, use plastic, like a normal person. We are watching.”
One way to thin the herd: Immediate execution of people who double-bag (for secure, easy carrying, don’t you know!) 1-gallon plastic milk cartons which already have built-in handles.
Bozo, erect fences and repel the western infestation at all costs.
Californians are pestilent cockroaches.
“the Silicon Valley horde of progressive elitists who’ve infested central Austin over the past ten years.”
20 years. I moved there in 1992, and it was starting then. All through the 90s we were bitching about them.
Such a hostility they have against individuals acting as individuals to solve problems individually. It’s always, we ALL have to come together and do our thing to right the wrongs, taking our marching orders, like little ants.
I also notice step one is always: Everyone has to pay attention to [blank] to find out what to do.
Do you have a drawer or closet stuffed full of empty grocery bags? I hate to throw anything away that could be useful so I have my share of plastic (and paper) bags. Through the years, I’ve discovered many ways to use those bags.
I don’t want to store/clean/remember to take out to the car the number of reusable bags that would be necessary for our shopping trips. I think beginning of next year I’m going to buy a roll of cheap plastic trash bags and take that with me into the grocery stores to have cashier bag into. They aren’t as strong as what they have now. But I can store them under the sink and reuse them the way that I do now. And when there get to be too many bag them all together and take them to be recycled — will there still be recycle containers at grocery stores?
I’m willing to carry one or two for quick trips. Though I don’t know how to wash them and if being used for groceries I fear they will get gross pretty quick.
Or I’ll head to Bastrop for my large grocery shops. Or Kyle. Kyle has a wonderful HEB and I can use it as an excuse to visit friends.
Wish they’d hurry up and get a grocery store out here in Del Valle so I didn’t have to worry about it.
I’m with you, Sarah. I’ll be scooting over to Williamson County for my grocery shopping, a short five minute drive from my house. Austin will have to live without my business and tax revenue.