LA Bag ban

What are the unidentified costs of banning disposable shopping bags? I’ve been speculating for months. In this video PERC Lone Mountain Fellow Jonathan Klick argues that the presence of harmful bacteria (in reusable grocery bags whose use is mandated after plastic bag bans are put in place) creates a health cost that has not been considered. (Hey…I know I’m just chopped liver but I considered it. a few months ago ‘What could go wrong- LA Set to Ban Paper and Plastic.’)

And here, and here, and here, and here…

Mr. Klick points out that about half the reusable bags of shoppers heading in for more groceries have some form of contamination, and that the human cost could be a doubling in the number of cases of food borne illness in humans and even death as a result.

McAllen Texas rests in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, right along the border with Mexico. And for now, at least, McAllen is not hopping on the plastic bag ban train to nowhere.

If you have not been following my recent (bizarre and persistent) interest in this annoy environmental stupidity, towns and cities all over the US are banning what are called “single use” plastic grocery bags (which my family re-uses for all kinds of things so single use is misleading). The Los Angels California bag ban was what caught my attention–and Lord knows if those moon-bats are on board with it something must be wrong; and there was, or actually is something very wrong. See “What could go wrong?“, ‘Reusable bags spread norovirus’, and “Reusable bags may be worse for the Environment.”

Unfortunately, most of the discussion about bag bans is one-sided. Or should I say left-sided.

The Human Cost of Plastic Bag Bans… (Updated – new link added)

A Spec of Common Sense in McAllen Texas