> What IS helpful is facilitating a dialogue between landlords and potential small businesses that could result in universal benefit without requiring any outlay by the city.

OK.  Dialogue.

SMALL BUSINESS: “I want cheap rent.”

LANDLORD: “No.  I want high rent.”

SMALL BUSINESS:  “I disagree.  I’m not renting from you.”

LANDLORD: “Great.  We agree.  I’m not leasing to you.”

END OF DIALOGUE.

So.  What have we accomplished?

> I also have issues with dirty bags being used to contaminate food, which is backed up by scientific research.

This is a BIG issue, for which the bag authoritarians have no answer.

Therefore, they will pretend they didn’t hear of the “disease vector” problem of recycled bags and parrot their mindless talking points.

“SQUAWK!  We’re saving the planet. SQUAWK!”

I was treated to a discussion of conjunctivitis (“pink eye”) at my health club this past weekend.

It is HIGHLY contagious.

If you’re a checkout clerk at Whole Foods, and the smiling yuppie with the Obama lapel button hands you a big wad of “Save the Earth” re-usable bags, how do you know you’re not getting a big dose of some liberal’s pink eye, rhinovirus, or cat leprosy viruses?

Where the hell is the union?  Don’t they care about protecting the health of their members?

You still never answered the question; how much energy is saved using recyclable bags that need to be washed and dried, versus plastic bags that can be recycled? And 9bean, if it were up to me we would still use paper bags that are safe for the environment, can be made from either recycled paper or harvested wood (which can be raised and harvested like any other crop), and are much safer for our health than using cloth bags which can contaminate food if they have not been properly washed. I never wanted to switch to plastic bags 30 plus years ago; it was your environmental buddies that pushed this down our throats, the very same ones that are now telling us how great electric cars are, blind to the fact that fossil fuels still power them, only now these cars have a thousand pounds worth of batteries to power them. Somehow, I bet you are in love with electric cars too.

Sure, many people reuse shopping bags, but most people would admit that they reuse only a small fraction of the ones they accumulate. Some good citizens return the remainder bags to the grocery store for recycling. The rest are either thrown in the garbage, tossed incorrectly into the recycling bin, or “reused”  (translation: filled with crap and then throw away, where they end up in a landfill). Most plastic bags have a half-life of about four hundred years.

But let’s be honest, this isn’t so much about the environment as it is about businesses being scared they are losing customers, or feeling silly when they have to tell out-of-towners they have to pay for a bag. But most people who live or work and shop in San Jose have easily transitioned to habitually using their reusable bags, and are doing that even when they aren’t shopping in San Jose. There are big reasons for people to shop or start businesses in San Jose, but whether or not customers get a free plastic bag with the deal isn’t a significant one of them.

But to get on with it, to suggest that using huge amounts of material, energy, and financial resources to manufacture and dispose of a product that exists solely for a brief moment in time is better for the environment and our pocket books than everyone just buying a dozen or so bags of their own and washing them occasionally is ludicrous.

The plastic bag ban is here and it has drastically reduced our consumption on a number of fronts, even though some of us find it to be a bitter pill. Who knows, maybe one day it will be sent to the trash heap, but by then people’s habits will have changed, so the good will have already been done.

Way to drop a bundle of wet blankets on the pop-up party, commentists.

Bemoaning the fact that you are no longer doled out plastic bags by the thousands for free isn’t helpful. But calling for ideas, enthusiasm, and participation by the community is. What IS helpful is facilitating a dialogue between landlords and potential small businesses that could result in universal benefit without requiring any outlay by the city. It IS helpful to keep cultivating and showcasing our special brand of community, including all its artisan decorative bottle caps and giant plush vegetables, while working to create new draws to downtown. StartUp might not have changed the tide, but it was something that was good and unifying, and it brought together a lot of people that believe in the future and present of our sometimes dysfunctional, sometimes magnificent little city. So I say kudos on that note.

And on a totally unrelated topic, it is also helpful to pass legislation that coerces intransigent fuddy-duddys to change their habits ever so slightly for the sake of progress. Long live the tyranny of progress and the plastic bag ban.

How much hot water and energy does it take to repeatedly wash and dry cloth grocery bags? Personally, I think it is progressive to recycle plastic grocery bags as they are made into composite boards which save millions of trees each year. What is ironic is I remember when plastic bags were pushed by some environmentalists 30 years ago to replace paper bags in grocery stores, and now these plastic bags are evil according to these same environmentalists.

Palo Alto, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and now Redwood City… they are all doing the exact same thing. The plastic bags clog the recycling systems, there is a huge monetary cost to deal with these in addition to the environmental costs. Is it really that big of a deal to keep a few reusable bags in your trunk?

Joshua, we will have to respectively agree to disagree. The city I live in has a specific way to leave these plastic bags in the recyclables so they do not clog anything. I also have issues with dirty bags being used to contaminate food, which is backed up by scientific research.

Per the recycled bags.  Remember when our local polls decided it was unhealthy for poor, fat, low income kids to get a “Happy Meal” at McD’s and so they banned them?  That was nothing but show.  Go to a Walmart or other super market and look what the food stamp card mothers are checking out – soda, cookies, white bread – junk food – for their poor, fat, low income kids who will only become expensive public health problems in a few years time.  Why does the food stamp card allow this?  Can’t it be barred just like alcohol and cigarettes?

But, on to the recycled bags.  We all have to carry the filthy things to the market with us.  But not if you have a food stamp card.  These special people are not required to use recycled bags.  Why?  Because they purchase new paper bags with their food stamp card so why bother with carrying in your own bags?

How stupid are we for allowing this?