Plastic Archives - Granite Grok

Server restaurant waiter original Image Unsplash

KLAR: Connecticut Ban on Styrofoam Packaging Frustrates Struggling Restaurants

April 7, 2026 John Klar

A pending Connecticut bill that would ban Styrofoam take-out packaging and impose numerous other mandates on restaurants in the Constitution State illustrates the classic metaphor of roads to Hell being paved with good intentions. Some restaurants perceive that Connecticut’s constitution is being crumpled up and burned in the legislature’s drive to stop Styrofoam from being … Read more

Data Point – The Next Time Your Enviro-“Friend” Tells You That the US Is Biggest “Ocean Plastic” Polluter…

February 24, 2023 Skip

…tell’em “Up Yours” like I used to tell the Treehugger denizens that were always screaming how badly we Americans were polluting the oceans and killing all the fish, whales, and corals.

Data Point: Of the Top 25 Greenhouse Gas Emitting Cities, China Has the Top 23

September 8, 2021 Skip

There’s been an awful lot of hand-wringing about CO2 emissions and Americans have been made to think that we are the most awful at emitting it.

As Predicted Face Masks Are the New Scourge of Our Oceans

January 3, 2021 Steve MacDonald

Disposable facemasks are the new planet-destroying, ocean wildlife wrecking, human influence peddling, world-ending scourge. OceansAsia estimates that 1.5 billion of the 52 billion made in 2020 to fool people into feeling safe ended up in the ocean.

Banning Plastic Bag Bans

March 26, 2020 Steve MacDonald

America and New Hampshire are confronting the pandemic. Citizens, businesses, and governments are doing all they can to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Some useless measures instituted in less turbulent times need to be recognized for what they are.

“Moderate” Democrat Joe Biden Would End Drilling for Oil In America

March 16, 2020 Steve MacDonald

The moderate contender and presumptive nominee for the Democrat party is taking the dependency rhetoric out a whole new door. He’d like very much to end the oil industry.

NH Democrat’s Regulations on Plastics and Styrene Are Worse Than Doing Nothing

May 7, 2023March 13, 2020 Steve MacDonald

The Democrat mantra is, hey, let’s force you to behave the way we demand and then claim it will make the world better. What if it actually made things worse? What if the regulatory demands they want for plastics actually exacerbate the problem they claim they will fix?

Pacific Ocean Plastic Garbage Patch Kids Come Back (Essentially) Empty Handed

February 10, 2020 Steve MacDonald

Is there “plastic in the ocean? Yes. Is it the ecological catastrophe advertised? Nothing ever is, so please learn this and live it. Every single emotional plea or legislative exercise from the left is to solve one and only one problem. You having more control over how your money is spent than the government.

New Research From MIT and Woods Hole: Nature Breaks Down Plastics in the Ocean

October 21, 2019 Steve MacDonald

You’ve heard the story. Convenience plastics must be banned in America (and New Hampshire) to save our oceans. That’s two lies in one. First, most of the plastic that makes it into the ocean comes from Asia. Second, a new study proves that once there, nature will break it down.

California Bans Tiny Shampoo Bottles in Hotels – Creating a Bigger Problem Than They “Solve?”

October 12, 2019 Steve MacDonald

If you have a majority of Democrats in charge of something, they are looking to California for inspiration. The left coast is Moonbat Mecca, and this latest attempt at regulation is classic leftist-idiocy.

Hey Democrats! What’s the Plan for the 6000 Things we Make from Oil Besides Gasoline?

October 2, 2019 Steve MacDonald

Part of the problem with Democrats, and there are plenty of them, is that their obsession with keeping oil in the ground is not just impractical; it is impossible.

Proposed Plastic Bans – When the ‘Solution’ is Worse Than the “Problem”

May 7, 2023September 16, 2019 Steve MacDonald

Democrats virtue signal about everything. And very little, if anything, they promise, does what they say. Banning plastic is a good example. The claim is that this will be better for the environment. What they don’t tell you is that the alternatives to plastic are worse.

Portsmouth Readies All Out Ban of Plastic Straws, Plastic Bags, and Foam Containers

January 18, 2025March 18, 2019 Steve MacDonald

With the New Hampshire Democrat-lead Legislature’s war on plastic well-underway, (straws here, bags here) the People Republic of Portsmouth is warming up their war on convenience. Plastic bag bans are a frequent flyer in Portsmouth but these were illegal efforts. With new permissions looming from State Democrats, Portsmouth is getting ready to ban plastic bags, straws, and foam … Read more

The Assault Plastics Bill

January 6, 2019 Ian Underwood

No, I’m not talking about ‘plastic guns’. I’m talking about HB102, which would add ‘the distribution of single-use plastics to consumers’ to the list of things towns can regulate. The idea is to let towns ban the use of plastic bags in grocery stores, or plastic drinking straws in restaurants. But ‘single-use’ covers a lot of ground. … Read more

“Spend Your Money On Feel Good Policies That Make No Real Difference”

September 26, 2018July 17, 2018 Steve MacDonald

Would it surprise you to hear that banning plastic drinking straws will accomplish nothing? How about this; that 500 million straws a day “fact” everyone is repeating came from a 9-year old kids’ school project. Or, that U.S. straws in the waste stream are a sliver of a fraction of 1% of all the plastic waste the ends up in the ocean.

Out-Of State Group Behind Portsmouth Bag Ban Will Keep Pushing Their Agenda

March 18, 2019April 5, 2017 Steve MacDonald

Monday we reported on an attempt by elements in the City of Portsmouth to advance another plastic bag ban. Yesterday, the Portsmouth City Council postponed a vote on the ban pending review by the City Manager.

It is unclear what the city manager can do. There is no legislative support or enabling legislation. Correspondent Kimberly Haas from the Union Leader adds that the city reached out to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and the Waste Management Division but could not get anyone to take a favorable position. The State attorney general’s office is not biting either.

No one is prepared to give Portsmouth a leg to stand on, but out-of-State interests won’t let that stop them.

What could go wrong? LA Set to Ban Paper and Plastic

September 26, 2018April 17, 2012 Steve MacDonald

Democrats don’t think things through. (Progressive Republicans are no different, to be fair.) They enact policies in response to the echo chamber of voices in their ideologically isolationist heads, all the things Edmund Burke warned us against centuries ago. The result is almost always bureaucratic nonsense, another small loss of freedom, massive expense with little or no gain, followed by a parade of newer and more expensive (and intrusive) policies to “correct” the first.

The progressive Darth Vader might say of such people, “The urge to meddle is strong with this one.”

So what could go wrong if the Los Angeles City Council decided to ban all paper and plastic bags from Supermarket checkouts?