Bag the bag ban (Opinion)

The NJ Senate is back at it in Trenton as I write this. Thursday will be another vote to pass a ban on plastic and paper bags being allowed in retail stores, restaurants, etc. The NJ Assembly failed to act last time around but this could be the year. Along with banning those practical bags would be a ban on styrofoam containers and a new rule that you can only get a plastic straw on request. That one was changed from an outright ban due to backlash from the disabled community.

Enough already!

New Jersey has so much more to worry about than this pathetic virtue signaling in a hollow measure that only accomplishes inconveniencing us all while achieving no impactful change to the planet. Other nations that literally dump plastics and garbage directly into the oceans are the true problem here.

If you want all the details here’s the latest version of the bill.

I’ve ranted against this before; how the do-gooders are focused on micro-plastics in our water while studies show the big picture has the overall environment being worse off with reusable totes. Between the manufacturing process, weight of shipping, etc., those reusable totes create a worse carbon footprint on Mother Earth than the plastic bags.

At a time when New Jersey is so unaffordable with a fiscal outlook so bleak many people are angling to move away, do we really want to prop the exit door open another inch with this cumbersome law? Polls show most people don’t want it. Yet townships are falling all over themselves to ban bags and the lawmakers in Trenton won’t rest until it’s a statewide law. Instead of worrying about the optics of doing the perceived “right” thing we should be concerned with doing the logical thing.

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