Run your car on plastic bags?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Ryland

Best option of course is to ban plastic bags, but at least here in the USA we have plastic bag companies who put up a big fight a pour a lot of money in to keeping their product in stores and littering our streets.

If the US ever bans plastic bags, I'm moving somewhere free, like North Korea.

Kidding aside, I use the bags as trash can liners, among other things.

We can't ban every item that causes the smallest impact on the environment. If we really wanted to save the earth, we would ban people... but then nature would be pointless.

It's insane that bottled water costs more than gasoline, and it's annoying to see how wasteful the bottles are, but as much as I despise the thought of bottled of water, I can't impose my judgement on others.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

If the US ever bans plastic bags, I'm moving somewhere free, like North Korea.

Kidding aside, I use the bags as trash can liners, among other things.

They aren't (yet ...) banned here, but they're no longer free either.
So you don't get one unless you ask and pay for it.

The result ?
We're now using waxed bread bags (that can't go into the recycled paper) and buying trash can liners ...

It's insane that bottled water costs more than gasoline, and it's annoying to see how wasteful the bottles are

Only the premium waters are more expensive than gas here.

Our region is at the top of the European recycling scene, and we've begun to collect, sort and recycle even more household plastics .
It results in a massive reduction of the amount of remaining waste.
And it also shows how much plastics we're using.

Some charities collect LD and HD PE caps to fund their activities, as the caps are of higher value than the bottles.

[Ryland]

Per pound a lot of plastic is worth more then steel or aluminum, but it's not as dense.
Tossing plastic in the trash is just dumb, landfills are expensive and that cost continues for the rest of our lives and if you are worried about not having a liner for your waste basket then maybe you are producing to much trash, but just like the bag that a sandwich comes in at SubWay sandwich shops is only used for 30 seconds while you take it from the counter to the table, a lot of plastic bags are pointless and end up littering the streets, a friend of mine a few years ago did an art project where she picked up plastic bags off the street and twisted them in to a rope nearly 100 feet long, she would come home with arm loads of plastic bags and the shocking thing is, it didn't take that long to collect enough to make 100 feet of rope.
Single use items just don't make sense and there are plenty of cities that have already banned plastic bags and it's worked out fine.

[redpoint5]

I've always been told to toss the plastic caps. Strange if they are more valuable than the rest of the container.

I wouldn't mind an extra charge for using plastic bags, so long as the market made the move and not the result of a political agenda.

If I have few enough items that I can carry them by hand, I do that. Otherwise I prefer the convenience and other uses for the plastic bags.

Originally Posted by Ryland

Tossing plastic in the trash is just dumb, landfills are expensive and that cost continues for the rest of our lives and if you are worried about not having a liner for your waste basket then maybe you are producing to much trash, but just like the bag that a sandwich comes in at SubWay sandwich shops is only used for 30 seconds while you take it from the counter to the table...

While subjective, I would disagree that landfills are expensive. Digging a pit and tossing stuff in it really isn't very expensive. The largest part of your garbage collection fee surely goes towards the trucks, fuel, and manpower to pick it up at your curb every week. Tossing it in the pit was the cheap part.

The Subway example you give is a perfect example of a wasted resource, albeit small. I'd prefer to get my sub sans bag most of the time. Maybe it should be optional.

At my local McDonalds, ketchup is not directly accessible to the customers, and we are forced to ask for it, specifying exactly how many packets we want. It's very annoying, but I bet it cuts down on waste and saves them a few bucks.

[ron22]

Originally Posted by Ryland

just like the bag that a sandwich comes in at SubWay sandwich shops is only used for 30 seconds while you take it from the counter to the table

This is one of the things that really bothers me about this country. Same with all fast food places. Why do you need to wrap my buger and put my fries in a box. I am just going to eat it in when I find a table.

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I wouldn't mind an extra charge for using plastic bags, so long as the market made the move and not the result of a political agenda.

But there is a lot of money in politics because the companies who make plastic and make plastic bags spend it making sure the people you voted in to office are happy and have a nice time at their fund raiser.

While subjective, I would disagree that landfills are expensive. Digging a pit and tossing stuff in it really isn't very expensive. The largest part of your garbage collection fee surely goes towards the trucks, fuel, and manpower to pick it up at your curb every week. Tossing it in the pit was the cheap part.

We don't pay for curb side pickup, curb side pickup is an extra cost that would go to a privet company, we only pay for the land fill, digging the hole, lining it with clay, a layer of plastic, drain tile that goes to a holding tank, gravel, then trash, then after it's full it gets another layer of plastic and more clay with a waste water treatment truck that empties out the holding tank every time it's full (after a rain storm or the plastic diaper in there burst) because to many cities have been sued after their landfills leaked nasty stuff in to the ground water and made people sick, but the digging of the hole is cheap, so is the grass seed that goes on top, all the stuff that goes on in between has a cost.

[suspectnumber961]

Farmers urge Obama to suspend ethanol requirements due to drought’s ‘imminent food crisis’ | The Raw Story

Demand for corn ethanol was seen as a key driver of the 2007 and 2008 global food crisis.

About 40% of America’s corn crop went for ethanol last year – although the refineries then sell on “distillers’ grain” as animal feed.

But with expectations for a smaller harvest this year, there are fears ethanol will consume an even bigger share of the crop.

That will price corn out of reach of livestock producers as well as countries which rely heavily on imported grains, food security experts say.

Ethanol producers have already reduced production by more than 15% this year, and many refineries across the mid-west have closed because of high corn prices.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...bal+Warming%29

Although regional precipitations patterns are difficult to forecast, researchers in this report said that climate models are underestimating the extent and severity of drought, compared to actual observations. They say the situation will continue to worsen, and that 80 of the 95 years from 2006 to 2100 will have precipitation levels as low as, or lower than, this "turn of the century" drought from 2000-04.

"Towards the latter half of the 21st century the precipitation regime associated with the turn of the century drought will represent an outlier of extreme wetness," the scientists wrote in this study.

These long-term trends are consistent with a 21st century "megadrought," they said.

RuhRo....

....

So where is the "plastic bags into fuel" lobby? If we didn't have incompetent and corrupt leadership we would have a lot of plastic being recycled into fuel...so we could get the pollution into the atmosphere NOW rather than gradually over time?

....

I'm BIG and I like BIG STUFF.

[Duffman]

Originally Posted by euromodder

Our region is at the top of the European recycling scene, and we've begun to collect, sort and recycle even more household plastics .
It results in a massive reduction of the amount of remaining waste.
And it also shows how much plastics we're using.

My municipality is probably the leader in North America if not one of the tops in the world. It is amazing how much can be recycled if there is a will to do it (although it is costly in some cases). We are set to go to a 90% diversion rate of waste converted to useful materials not dumped in a landfill in 2013.

Edmonton Waste Management Centre :: City of Edmonton