Published in the March 23, 2017 edition.
By MARK SARDELLA
MARK SARDELLA
It was only a matter of time.
A small group of our fellow citizens have decided that they know better than the rest of us and want to dictate how we can carry our shopping purchases out of a store. Ten citizens have signed a petition to place an article on the May 1 Annual Town Meeting to prohibit the use of so called “thin film” plastic checkout bags in Wakefield.
Who could have imagined twenty years ago – or even a decade ago — that purchasing recreational marijuana at a store in Wakefield would be viewed as perfectly normal, but using a plastic bag to carry a half-gallon of milk out of a store would make you a lawbreaker?
Well, depending on what happens at Town Meeting this year, that could be Wakefield in the very near future.
The proposed new bylaw has two main purposes. One is to take away your choice to use a plastic bag to carry home items that you’ve purchased in a store. But more importantly, this bylaw is about making the proponents feel good about themselves.
Just listen to them and they’ll tell you what noble, virtuous people they are.
“The purpose of this bylaw is to limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, preserve the oceans, protect wildlife, and reduce the amount of trash that ends up on the streets and in landfills by using recyclable, reusable, or compostable bags instead of thin-film single-use plastic checkout bags.”
The implication, of course, is that if you oppose banning plastic bags you are against preserving the oceans, opposed to protecting wildlife and in favor of more trash on the streets. How do you live with yourself?
As virtuous as the bag banners see themselves, they view plastic bag users as quite the opposite. In the PC hierarchy, the only group lower than plastic bag users are smokers (except for marijuana smokers, who are nature’s noblemen).
I don’t litter. I am responsible for literally zero percent of any plastic bag litter that you may see. Make that less than zero, because when I do see a loose bag blowing around, I pick it up and dispose of it properly. So why must I be denied a simple modern convenience just because a tiny minority of people are slobs?
And just for the record, none of the plastic bags disposed of in Wakefield trash go into landfills, because Wakefield’s rubbish goes to a facility in Haverhill where it is incinerated.
Those who want to ban plastic bags tend to be the same people who were behind the move to ban one of the greatest American inventions ever: Thomas Edison’s incandescent lightbulb. If people decide that CFL and LED bulbs are a better choice than incandescent bulbs they will buy them. Same with plastic bags. Lots of people already go to the supermarket with their green cloth bags believing that they’re saving the planet. If that is a choice that more and more people come to see as preferable, then plastic bags will disappear naturally and organically.
I conducted a modest survey yesterday. I stood outside of Farmland and watched the first 10 people leaving the store. Every single one of them had their purchases in plastic bags. I could have watched 100 customers exit the store and the result would have been the same. People want plastic bags. But a small group of local people want to tell Farmland that they can’t give their customers what they want. That’s why stores provide them for free. Their customers want them.
It’s called the free market, but those who would impose artificial restrictions on ordinary, everyday products like light bulbs and plastic bags don’t care much for free market systems – or business in general. Just look at the penalties the proposed bylaw would impose on any bourgeois capitalist who dared to continue offering plastic bags to his customers.
“The penalty for such violation shall be a written warning for the first offense, a fine of $25 for a second offense and a fine of $50 for the third and any subsequent offense.”
How business-friendly.
If I were faced with a choice of two stores from which to buy a few groceries on my way home, and one offered plastic bags and one didn’t, I’d choose the one with the plastic bags. Every time. And a lot of other people would too.
I would never dream of telling the shopper with the grey ponytail in the supermarket checkout line that he can’t have his reusable cloth bags. That’s his choice, his preference. And as silly and pointless as I think it is, I respect that choice. Yet, somehow I must be denied my choice, my preference.
The bag banners think you’re not smart enough to make the “right” choice. They see themselves as the enlightened ones who must enact laws to force the ignorant masses to do the right thing.
The fact is that plastic bags make up a tiny percentage of the waste stream. They require less energy to produce and transport than paper bags. Also, the proposed bylaw illogically targets only one type of plastic bag, deeming other kinds of plastic bags perfectly acceptable.
“Thin-film plastic bags used to contain dry cleaning, newspapers, produce, meat, bulk foods, wet items and other similar merchandise, typically without handles, are still permissible.”
Gee, thanks. Is it OK if I use a shopping cart?
The great majority of people favor having a choice to use plastic bags. The minority knows this and that’s why they want to ban them. If everybody agreed with them, there would be no reason to impose a ban.
You may not care much about the $87 million town budget, but if you’re one of the great majority who like having the choice to use plastic bags — or if you just hate being told what to do by a group of know-it-alls — I strongly urge you to attend Town Meeting, which opens on May 1.
If you stay home and let a tyrannical minority stack the meeting and push this ban through, I don’t want to hear you complain when you can’t get a shopping bag in Wakefield.
