Yeah, heck with the government, who needs 'em? We need trees, let's chop down those bothersome rainforests. Whales? Kill 'em all. Oil? It's going to run out, so let's destroy the earth and kill each other to get what's left. Screw the other guy. Screw our kids! That's right.

Phasing out plastic bags means that consumers will pay more for goods-it is as simple as that.

Gov't nannyism at its finest.

If people want to smoke in public places, they should be made to do with a plastic bag over their heads.

Who thinks this stuff up!! What a joke, i think Janesville has more to worry about besides plastic bags.

Passing laws is a knee jerk solution to any issue. At a time of budget concern do we really want the police writing tickets for plastic bags? Personally I prefer paper. We resuse them as holders for newspaper recycling. We never throw a paper bag away. I don't like plastic bags for that reason but it is arrogent to want a law to require my actions be extended to those who might feel differently. The "Made in China" tag on the canvass takes them out of the picture. They are nothing but another elitist feel good thing that sends jobs and pollution to other countries. Passing more laws serves no useful purpose.

hanna yes .

There is a poll here:
http://www.yurirashkin.com/

I don't like the leaky milk containers and raw meat in the reusable bags. Instead of not allowing the stores to use the plastic bags, why not require the stores that do give them to us to provide containers for us to bring them back so they can be recycled?

Those plastic bags are handy for trash bags, pet waste, and other things around the house. Which ever ones we don't use for that, they are taken back to the store for recycling.

I have the canvas bags but keep forgetting to bring them with me!!!

Plastic bags never biodegrade. They only break down into smaller and smaller plastic particles which eventually end up in the food chain. Water, eaten by animals that we eat, in the soil, etc. Wonder why cancers are so prevalent? Toxins in the environment. Plastic bags are not the biggest issue for sure. If you want to complain about the topics, then get your butt down to the courthouse and make your point.

ughhh. michigan was added to the medical marijuana list tues, number 13, so it really is at this point just a a matter of time. just my luck after preaching about the hypocrisy for years it will finally be legal and the plastic bags used to carry pot will be outlawed:)

I used to occasionally use my snowblower to clear off of a part of my back lawn when the snow got too deep for my dog to squat. Sometimes there were "dookies" mixed in the snow.
It sure was fun to sail frozen dog-logs over the neighbor's roof!
No plastic bags needed.

"Committee Chairman Tom McDonald says his colleagues on the City Council have informally discussed the matter." When was this discussed? Was it an open meeting? Or was it illegally done behind closed doors? I don't recall this being on an agenda.

...dog poo bags, that is...

I wonder if a ban will create a black market for plastic poo bags in Janesville.

HA HA HA Klik - That's horrible! :)
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Hanna - I have seen those too!! I wonder how well they really work...

hannah i started useing this 6 months ago it cuts down on my water bill. no what im sayen http://www.catgenie.com/?R=cf

hannah when i get done reading the Gazett Extra i shred it and the cats will use that but if i shred the Beloit Daily News they run away from what i have shredded .

thekid3477

wait klick...are you hitting the dog or the dookie on your terrace??;) the dookie ,but iv'e wrecked two mowers in three years .

In Germany you have to pay for a bag if you want one when you shop.

wait klick...are you hitting the dog or the dookie on your terrace??;)

My neighbor has a Great Dane who poops on my terrace and when i hit it with my lawnmower it make this thumping noise and slows down my mower . what should i do ?

I'm not against having laws passed for my safety, health or environmental issues but when I read they want to "clean up Janesville" and then get more specific with "it'll save the city money and time", it just makes me suspicious.

And I hope they take a closer look at what they intend to replace it with.
It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag.
In 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year alone.
Paper sacks generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.
It takes 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper. But recycling rates of either type of disposable bag are extremely low, with only 10 to 15% of paper bags and 1 to 3% of plastic bags being recycled, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Current research demonstrates that paper in today's landfills does not degrade or break down at a substantially faster rate than plastic does. In fact, nothing completely degrades in modern landfills because of the lack of water, light, oxygen and other important elements that are necessary for the degradation process to be completed. A paper bags takes up more space than a plastic bag in a landfill, but because paper is recycled at a higher rate, saving space in landfills is less of an issue.
source: reusablebags.com

How rediculous! How about thinking of something more important to have a discussion about! I ALWAYS reuse my plastic bags! Theres so many uses for them! Stinky baby diapers! Especially when you go to a friend/relatives home, dog poo, my small bathroom trash, and also my small camper trash cans, packing materials for glass!
Most of all, before we had our car we only had a truck, and it was so nice to just knot all the bags so that nothing would fly out of the back of the truck, dont get me wrong i like paper bags also but hauling groceries and christmas gifts into the house one or two at a time would suck, and what about those large items? are they going to make ginormous paper bags for things such as the guitar hero games, griddles.. etc..
Im sorry I cant see myself walking out of Walmart with a paper bag with 2 or 3 things in it... this is just silly!

Hannah - I do double-bag when I use them for litter, that helps protect from some of the holes so the bags can still be re-used. And also because I have 3 cats using 2 boxes, the bags get kinda heavy :)

I use plastic bags for when I scoop my litter boxes, and also to throw out food that might get smelly sooner than my big garbage bag, as to not use so many garbage bags.

I actually kinda like the plastic bags, I'm horrible. I *DO* however try to cut down on necessary bags, usually by refusing them if I only buy a few things or re-bagging my stuff if I can. Probably drives the cashiers nuts, but there's no reason to half-fill a bag when I have an entire cart-full of stuff.

If plastic bags are outlawed, only outlaws will have plastic bags!!!

Plastic bags can be made from Soy products as well as petroleum. So the idea that they are all made from oil is false. We should do what Sweden is considering, incinerators that are able to capture polution, and green house gases, and then turn that ugly trash into ELECTRICITY. Why throw all that energy into the ground to rot, when you can utlize it for energy we need now? I believe that we should look towards letting free enterprise solve problems, not goverment. I guess the latest vote shows the rest of the country is not in that mindset, but in four years we'll see where the new policies have left us.

Second that motion.

How about a ban on stupid committees???

Banning plastic bags definately trumps talking about ways to curb the local economic downturn (sarcasm). Maybe they should get their priorities straight.

This discussion is ridiculous.

Is that all they can talk about, I like plastic bags, I use them for other things like cleaning up after my dog when I walk her, Whats next a ban on plastic garbage bags.

I think the environment is important, but there are so many issues that need to be addressed right now and the use of paper or plastic seems big brotherish. I personally re-use my plastic bags as garbage bags. In addition, I use them to clean up dog poop. Actually, everyone I know recycles there plastic store bags. I don't recall ever meeting someone who throws them away. As a result, I think there is a perceived problem and not a real one here. If they ban plastic, I'll just have to go out an buy them, which doesn't do squat to save the environment, but does increase my spending. Since I'm laid off from my job, I'm not looking to add to my already mounting expenses.

This is a small first step and even though it isn't necessarily a trash problem for Janesville (either in terms of litter or dump space) it is a sustainability issue. Plastic bags come from oil. Most oil is imported. Oil is not a renewable resource. I don't think any of those facts is a surprise to anyone.
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Environmentally both paper and plastic in the long run have roughly equivalent (but different) impacts. This isn't news either. Stores prefer plastic slightly because of cost and storage/transport space, consumers prefer paper slightly (when they care). (My family uses paper bags to put out the recycling.) The difference between the two is slight.
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What is a clear win for consumers, retailers, AND the environment is reusable bags. Get some free whenever you can, pay the small nominal cost at Woodman's if you can't, and you'll immediately start helping the environment.

hannah: I would pick up the poo and deposit it on her front doorstep!

Let's ban plastic bags AND sheds !

If you only have 1 item at the store Paul then tell them you don't need a bag I tell them that all the time. I also reuse my plastic bags. They don't go into the trash unless they get to the point of no longer able to hold something, even then I still manage to wrap up a nasty diaper or something in it before disosing it. most of the time i use boxes or carry cloth bags and sometimes i just take back my plastic and use it, kids use them for their books when it rains ever try carrying your groceries in paper when its raining? What about when your walking your dog, do you pick up the pooh and put it in your pocket or a cloth bag to take home? There are more uses for reusing plastic then paper and plastic last longer then a paper one.

Since I use the plastic shopping bags for garbage pail liners, I'd have to buy plastic bags if they were banned. Problem solved, right?

I would like to see a ban on plastic shopping bags, but I think a vote should decide it. I try to find uses for the bags I do get, like kitty poo and such, and I've also noticed some stores have containers for dropping off your extra bags for recycling. If we could just include the bags in our curbside recycling, that would be a big plus also.
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Anything we can do to help make the environment better is ok in my book. Plus, cutting back on plastic bags cuts crude oil consumption.

It would be fine with me. I use the reuseable Woodman's bags whenever possible anyway.

Plastic bags is going to keep Janesville here in to the next century? Wow. How would have thunk it?

I will never look at a plastic bag the same way again. (sarcasm)

And the craziness of the left begins

Are we now going to open up more forests for harvesting in the U.S. while expanding paper mills for the increased production of paper? Or will we import more pulp or finished paper from the countries that harvest in endangered rain forests? I thought that environmentalists believe that logging is one of the world's greatest evils and that paper mills are some of the dirtiest industries there are. How long until some self-righteous government decides to band paper bags as well, for our own good? That brings to mind a quote from C.S. Lewis,
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

I have four kids so I shop for alot of food. I can carry more with plastic than I can with paper bags!

If plastic bags are outlawed, I will be shopping in another community!

Acutally Sentry in Janesville does offer a discount for using your own bag. I have been doing it for years, just make sure you remind the cashier!

Maybe, If littering laws were enforced we wouldn't be seeing plastic bags blowing down the streets.

How many of you paper bag experts have stopped to consider the amount of fossil fuel, water, and nasty chemicals invloved in turning a forest into paper bags?? Have you ever visited a paper mill? You can smell it before you get there.

Plastic bags are derived from Natural Gas, not oil, and most are derived from a resin pellet the size of a pea. Far more energy efficient and cost effective.

As for recycling, its not 100% recycled fiber in those bags, and the amount of energy required to recycle that bag again would dwarf that of just making another plastic bag.

As stated in other comments, we have yet to see all of the wildlife choking to death in Janesville on plastic bags... Let's see now, how does wildlife get along in a clear-cut forest?

We are Janesville, not Madison or San Fransisco. Let's not make life more regulated, complicated and expensive than it already is.

one more thing...

Ever followed the garbage man?
In what, 99.9% of cans you’ll find PLASTIC BAGS!
Going to ban them too?

Actions have consequences – especially when government officials make decisions.

Well the landfill here is being used by other cities and if they have a space issue quit allowing other cities from bringing their garbage here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18538484/

To make all the bags we use each year, it takes 14 million trees for paper and 12 million barrels of oil for plastic. The production of paper bags creates 70 percent more air pollution than plastic, but plastic bags create four times the solid waste — enough to fill the Empire State Building two and a half times. And they can last up to a thousand years.

Plastic, because it's cheaper to produce, is the overwhelming choice of grocery stores across the nation — the average family of four uses almost 1,500 of these a year. San Francisco is limiting consumers' freedom of choice, allowing only biodegradable plastic bags, which break down over months rather than hundreds of years.

This is the only matching luggage I have and why would the take it away lol? And why should people have to pay for bags if thay make it a law? The paper bags rip so easy and parking lots can be full of broken glass and crap. The city council has a lot of issues that need priority other than worrying about what we bring our groceries home in. Time for CHANGE on the council to! And I also use them for my dog. I also use them for small trash cans and I guess that is concidered recycling IMO. Will we next have the large trash bags ban and use paper for garbage to the curb?

this is from reason.org (which by the way is a libertarian magazine)

One hundred million new plastic grocery bags require the total energy equivalent of approximately 8300 barrels of oil for extraction of the raw materials, through manufacturing, transport, use and curbside collection of the bags. Of that, 30 percent is oil and 23 percent is natural gas actually used in the bag-the rest is fuel used along the way. That sounds like a lot until you consider that the same number of paper grocery bags use five times that much total energy. A paper grocery bag isn't just made out of trees. Manufacturing 100 million paper bags with one-third post-consumer recycled content requires petroleum energy inputs equivalent to approximately 15,100 barrels of oil plus additional inputs from other energy sources including hydroelectric power, nuclear energy and wood waste.

Making sound environmental choices is hard, especially when the product is "free," like bags at most grocery stores. When the cashier rings up a purchase and bags it in a paper bag, the consumer doesn't see that it took at least a gallon of water to produce that bag (more than 20 times the amount used to make a plastic bag), that it weighed 10 times more on the delivery truck and took up seven times as much space as a plastic bag in transit to the store, and will ultimately result in between tens and hundreds of times more greenhouse gas emissions than a plastic bag.

read all of it here: http://www.reason.org/commentaries/smith...

LIMITED GOVERNMENT FOLKS! PLEASE, LIMITED GOVERNMENT

paul lothary:
you cannot be serious - equating plastic bags to flag draped caskets returning from iraq?

as the state and the country lurch left, expect more and more nanny state laws.
helmet laws (even for bicycles), fines for seat belt violations, and on it will go.

seriously, doesn't the city council have more important things to accomplish than banning plastic bags?

I'm with Northman on this one. "One of the options favored by committee member David Peterson is a requirement that stores switch to paper bags. He says that will cost less time and money for the city."
Hey David Peterson- Please explain the quote. How do you come up with the time and money savings???!!! You've got our curiosity up.

Also being that bags are petroleum based, think about the global conflict created by the fight over petroleum resources. Our sons and daughters are in Iraq right now over it, and in harms way.

Using plastic bags is Un-American.

So when you get asked, "paper or plastic" at the store, think about a military transport full of flag-draped caskets as you make your choice.

I hate the plastic bags.

1.) They fill up our landfills because every store has to give you one, even if you have 1 (!) item. They don't get re-used like paper, for newspaper, etc.

2.) They don't 'carry' like a paper bag

3.) They don't biodegrade quickly like paper, and end up choking fish, birds and create other nuisances.

4.) The big one is that they are a PETROLEUM PRODUCT . Paper is completely recyclable and renewable, and creates jobs in our home state. It's a no-brainer! Paper is 'greener'.

Plastic is a petroleum product so I think moving away from it is a good idea, but banning plastic bags seems a bit extreme considering the small impact it would have. I like the idea of a campaign to encourage cloth bags and to give a discount to those who bring their own bags. Before I got cloth, I reused my paper bags until they ripped. I know some people reuse the plastic bags for dog doo and small garbage can liners. Maybe a general Reduce, Reuse, Recyle campaign would be more effective?
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I was hoping for more from this committee.

It sounds like there is a littering problem. That is already illegal. No more legislation required. Law enforcement, civil action or personal action will cure this.

Well, at least the poo picker-upper who drops their poo bag in my bushes on Milwaukee St. will have to find another kind. It's not appreciated. I go out to rake or mow and there are mabye 5 bags on my property. Please take them home.

Northman is right. I'm not seeing the bags blowing like tumbleweeds either. Paper bags are more expensive, and they cost trees, paper mill costs, etc.

One has to inject logic and facts before running off on what might be nothing more than a feel good "fix". Everyone seems to have more ideas to take our hard earned money from us. Is this a sample of the next four years? Should we should just hand our paycheck over to the government and go scrounge in the landfill for food, fuel and housing material? I hear they get some real nice cardboard in once in a while.

I like some other comments about either stores giving a discount for using cloth bags or charging for plastic bags.

I have a dog, and I pick up her poop. I've been using cloth bags while shopping for 6 months. I think I have enough plastic bags saved up to last for a few years to pick up her poop :)

If you’re going to “solve a problem”, first demonstrate you have a problem, then prove your solution will work. What exactly is the problem here? Are the streets filled with empty plastic bags, blowing around like tumbleweed? Not that I’ve seen. Does switching to paper help anything? From an environmental standpoint, you’d need to look at the total energy cost of creating and distributing plastic bags (much lighter and less bulky then paper, so much lower transportation costs), verses the impact of biodegradable paper bags and less landfill space. So, is there a problem? If so, does switching to paper bags solve it? And exactly how does switching to paper bags “cost less time and money for the city”?
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I think we need to get real serious about looking at the candidates next time we have a city council election.

ahem,,,I walk my dog,,,I pick up his Poo. Ok, ok, I have a little dog and I use a sandwich bag. But please don't say that people don't pick up the dog poo, I know plenty of people with big and small dogs who do. I even save my large plastic bags to give to people with large dogs.

They want to pass a law regarding plastic bags? What will people use to pick up the Dog dirt when they walk their pets? Oh, thats right they DON'T pick up after their dogs.

I AGREE WITH MENTOR...NOT TO SAY DOWN THE ROAD THIS COULD NOT BE LOOKED AT BUT WE DO HAVE MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES AT HAND. MAYBE WITH IDEAS LIKE THIS IS THE REASON THEIR ARE VACANICIES NOW ON THE SUSTAINABILITY COMMITTEE?

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't stores switch to plastic bags because they were cheaper than paper. I use paper one quite a bit because I use them for recycling of my newspaper and small boxes etc.

I can imagine the halls of politics ringing with the cries of the poor, the wails of the homeless, the tears of those without jobs, and the shouts of those without health care. I can see the roads crack and heave, the street lights fade to gray, the towers crumble and sway, and below us, the sewers rot to dust. I can see the lone Chairman of the Sustainable Janesville Committee looking out upon the city that once seemed so fair, clenching his fist and knowing that his first action must be the right one.

Two words come out. Cold and Clear amid the gathering storm.

Plastic Bags.

I suggest following what Whole Foods has been doing for some time... Give customers a "discount" if they bring their own bag(s). Nothing like a little extra money in your pocket to "encourage" consumers! And it's simple...no law (or enforcement) required!!!! WW

Just switch to the reusable grocery sacks already.