Toronto bans plastic bags

[Just the Facts]

You don't generally say 'It's the voters' FAULT', unless you're upset at something and looking to place blame.
Does he also believe it's the voters' FAULT that he got elected as Mayor?

lol I suspect he does, yes. Actually he said it's the people's fault, not the voters fault. Minor point yet important....at least voters are bothering to vote, a lot of people don't even do that. Still, he's absolutely right in what he's saying, coucil feels they have carte blanche to do whatever they want, and they're right....they seem to keep doing whatever they want unopposed. That they can keep getting away with that, IS the people's fault. Ford is right again.

Came across this today:


Oregon public health investigators said they traced a norovirus outbreak to a reusable open grocery bag in a hotel bathroom, where a person had been ill.

Norovirus outbreak traced to reusable shopping bag - Disaster News Network


You can keep your own bag clean, what are you gonna do about others? Anecdotally....had a chat with a cashier who told me she once refused to put groceries into a woman's bag because it was so filthy. She refused to touch it. Of course, the bag was plunked onto the end of the conveyor belt on the packing area. God knows what it left behind. And what the next unsuspecting shopper picked up.

 

[Tonington]

Oregon public health investigators said they traced a norovirus outbreak to a reusable open grocery bag in a hotel bathroom, where a person had been ill.

Norovirus outbreak traced to reusable shopping bag - Disaster News Network


You can keep your own bag clean, what are you gonna do about others? Anecdotally....had a chat with a cashier who told me she once refused to put groceries into a woman's bag because it was so filthy. She refused to touch it. Of course, the bag was plunked onto the end of the conveyor belt on the packing area. God knows what it left behind. And what the next unsuspecting shopper picked up.

That's actually been posted in here already, in that other thread. The make of the bag wouldn't have mattered. Virus will stay viable on a reusable bag just as easilly as on a plastic disposable bag. One is no better a fomite than the other.

 

[Just the Facts]

Except the reusable bag is carried around, and most importantly, brought back into the grocery store where it comes into contact with our food supply, whereas the disposable bag is, well, disposed.

 

[Tonington]

Except the reusable bag is carried around, and most importantly, brought back into the grocery store where it comes into contact with our food supply, whereas the disposable bag is, well, disposed.

Yeah, obviously anything that touches food should be cleaned if it's meant for more than single use.... What I am saying is that a traveling girls soccer team that buys snacks at the store, and one of them then pukes in a room with the bag nearby, it won't matter the next day when those girls eat the food in the bag, whether it's reusable or not. There's virus all over the place regardless of what type of bag was used.

People still need to have good sense and clean the things. Again though, people who re-use those disposable bags for scooping dog poop, or in their kitchen waste bin are no less susceptible to getting ill from food-borne illnesses. 30 seconds of contact time with a 1:5 bleach solution will kill just about any microbe...asking a bit much these days I guess.

 

[DurkaDurka]

Ford doesn't exactly have a responsible comment on the matter. Can you imagine how difficult it is to carry a bucket of KFC from downtown to Etobicoke?

 

[Just the Facts]

30 seconds of contact time with a 1:5 bleach solution will kill just about any microbe...asking a bit much these days I guess.

Yup. I may end up using even more plastic as I lose confidence in the sterility of the grocery store environment. I'll have to bag every item in those little bags at the veggies section, then use latex gloves to take the items out of the bags at home, then take all the resulting plastic waste straight to the incinerator in the back yard, then bleach the kitchen.

I once saw a bit about about a Japanese guy that invented a machine that turns plastic back into oil. Unless that was a hoax, we should be seeing that type of thing more, I would think.

 

[Tonington]

Yup. I may end up using even more plastic as I lose confidence in the sterility of the grocery store environment.

Don't forget your HEPA filtered respirator. :lol:

 

[Just the Facts]

Don't forget your HEPA filtered respirator. :lol:

lol good point, I'm off to ebay right now!

Went to find the Japanese plastic to oil invention and turns out it's already an industry out there. So why all the fuss about plastic bags, just turn them into oil and tell the saudi's to take a hike.

Startup Converts Plastic To Oil, And Finds A Niche : NPR

Envion Oil Generator turns plastic waste into oil

Here's the original one I saw:

Man invents machine to convert plastic into oil - YouTube

 

[cheezy]

well, i can only speak from my own experience. what i see is that there are alot of people living right here in toronto that have terrible personal hygene. and while some of you may think i'm talking about foreigners, dont. i work in a sheetmetal shop. it is a common thing for me to be sitting on the "throne" and see people's feet come into the bathroom, pee in the urinal, and walk out w/o washing their hands. it is the sole reason i don't eat my lunch in the break room, nor do i shake hands with anybody there.
travel on the ttc for a while, especially in winter. it's a germ incubator. it is such because many people's hygene is...less than ideal. with that in mind, i find the idea of expecting people to wash/bleach their re-useable grocery bags quite ludicrous.

 

[Just the Facts]

with that in mind, i find the idea of expecting people to wash/bleach their re-useable grocery bags quite ludicrous.

Yup exactly it won't happen. Plus a lot of people will be storing their bags in their trunk, which itself is not hygenic, but also offers a nice warm humid environment most of the year....paradise for bacterial procreation.

 

[skookumchuck]

If you have a well developed immune system, as do most people who were not raised in a bubble as many modern kids are, you normally need to worry more about the huge loads of often new to us viruses and bacteria that are dumped on us every hour in various international airports.
I think that washing ones hands after urinating is overblown rhetoric, most people do it in a quick and unsatisfactory fashion mostly for show. Anyone has ever seen a tutorial on proper hand washing would just roll their eyes in most public bathrooms. In the real world there are many more dangerous situations that go unseen.
If your immune system is compromised your hooped regardless.

 

[Just the Facts]

Yeah and even if you wash your hands thoroughly it's all moot once you touch the door handle.

 

[MapleDog]

Yeah and even if you wash your hands thoroughly it's all moot once you touch the door handle.

I always wondered why they never installed the doors the other way,pull door to do in,push to go out,and you won't have to touch the door handle,luckily there is still some public washroom that have paper to dry the hands,take one to open door.

 

[Tonington]

less than ideal. with that in mind, i find the idea of expecting people to wash/bleach their re-useable grocery bags quite ludicrous.

Why? You won't eat in the lunch room because people piss and leave without washing, but you think it's ludicrous to wash something that was in contact with food? The risk of you getting ill is higher for the bags that touched the food.

I'm accustomed to spraying everything down with disinfectant, as I work in a level 3 biosafety lab. So we have spray bottles everywhere. Alcohol, sodium hypochlorite, and a product from Alda Pharmaceuticals called T36. It's very little effort to spray something down with the bleach and leave it for 30 seconds before wiping it down.

I once had a bad case of food poisoning. Campylobacter, you pretty much just want to die to stop the pain. An ounce of prevention...as the saying goes.

 

[TenPenny]

. it is the sole reason i don't eat my lunch in the break room,

I'm not sure what happens in your lunch room, but in ours, people don't piss on your food.

 

[Liberalman]

First the paper bag was replaced because everyone felt sorry for the trees now the plastic bag is banned because it was built to last.

This is why I will run for mayor of Toronto for a second time Vote for me Liberalman and lets bring back good city government.

 

[captain morgan]

First the paper bag was replaced because everyone felt sorry for the trees now the plastic bag is banned because it was built to last.

This is why I will run for mayor of Toronto for a second time Vote for me Liberalman and lets bring back good city government.

Will do.

Can I expect a brown paper bag with cash or will you be using a plastic one?

 

[taxslave]

I always wondered why they never installed the doors the other way,pull door to do in,push to go out,and you won't have to touch the door handle,luckily there is still some public washroom that have paper to dry the hands,take one to open door.

Safety feature. So people can get out in a panic.. Notice that ALL commercial buildings have doors that open out.

First the paper bag was replaced because everyone felt sorry for the trees now the plastic bag is banned because it was built to last.

This is why I will run for mayor of Toronto for a second time Vote for me Liberalman and lets bring back good city government.

Sorry but anyone that uses a picture of Turdo foe an avatar can't possibly know anything about good government.

 

[lone wolf]

Ford doesn't exactly have a responsible comment on the matter. Can you imagine how difficult it is to carry a bucket of KFC from downtown to Etobicoke?

KFC?... Geez, they'll sell just about anything from Blah-Blah's now, eh? ;-)

 

[Walter]

Litter The last city of Toronto audit of litter across the city, in 2006, found six plastic bags out of 4,341 items. That’s 0.14% by item. By weight, the percentage would be less.
Waste The 450 million plastic bags Mr. Smith mentions is a 2008 number. The city says the current number of bags is now estimated at about 215 million (the science of calculating this is something else). But even the 450 million-bag total, at about six grams per bag, works out to 2,600 tonnes. As a percentage of the city’s estimated 800,000 tonnes of waste, plastic bags would account for 0.3%. If all plastic bags were eliminated — an impossibility given their necessity as garbage-bin liners and other uses — Toronto’s waste stream would be essentially unchanged. Not a penny will be saved, and costs would likely go up under complications brought on by the ban.
Environment Numerous comprehensive studies by people who are as green or greener than Mr. Smith suggest plastic bags are better than the alternatives — whether paper or cloth. Plastic is less polluting and toxic than paper and cotton, according to a 2011 U.K. Environment Agency report. As for global warming, a cloth bag would have to be reused 327 times, and a paper bag nine times, to match the low warming impact of a high-density polyethylene bag that’s reused as a garbage-bin liner.
That’s science, official green science.

Posted in: FP Comment Tags: Environment, Junk Science Week 2012, polling