February 9, 2015

Bad Man Wants to Ban Bag Bans

<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/albinoflea/381232292/in/photolist-9D3M7z-9heeMw-7JLrzT-31ogP-EPeCv-aomUMi-4wSqXp-4uUe5J-a89854-77s6JN-a1tHG-kdY5J6-E1B66-fg4kii-b1Rfz-55xezB-97JEUc-8RnSYQ-6g4Eat-7RG64F-85bm2v-8j4r8t-4zEP4N-4w6ANB-8M4aXF-52wGRo-2PDEm-4BQjXh-7wQP9e-oVp4it-MjnDU-8qkTPY-cSYs2d-cSYrDJ-cSYrX3-aMH2A-bqpCJN-bDeQ9Z-6HqfT-67rYt8-zFV5y-47wW16-47wYv6-47wZuF-47B5fh-47wYQk-47wZXx-47B51m-47B4CG-47wYB6"> Steve Fernie</a>/Flickr


Columbia, Mo., is considering a ban on plastic shopping bags. This is good. Plastic bags are wasteful and bad for the environment and generally terrible. They create tons of nasty litter on city streets and can block up recycling facilities. So there’s really no reason why grocery stores and other retail outlets should hand out trillions of them for free. Tons of local, regional, and national governments around the world have already figured this out, and implemented bans.

But Missouri state Representative Dan Shaul, a Republican from the suburbs of St. Louis, disagrees. That’s why he wants to ban bag bans, with a bill going before committee in the state’s legislature this week.

From the St. Louis Riverfront Times:

Shaul, a sixteen-year member of the Missouri Grocers Association, is trying to stop bag bans outright. He says he doesn’t want to burden shoppers with an additional fee at the grocery store.

“If they choose to tax the bag, it’s going to hurt the people who need that the most: the consumer,” especially the poor, Shaul says. “My goal when I go to the grocery store with a $100 bill is to get $100 worth of groceries.”

But a ten-cents-per-bag fee for forgetting your reusable bag? “That adds up pretty quick.”

Here’s the thing, though: Ban bags are actually really good for local economies, because they reduce costs for retailers and cleanup costs for governments. California, which became the first US state to ban bags last fall, previously spent $25 million per year picking them up and landfilling them.

So instead of bag ban bans, a better bill would be a ban on bag ban bans.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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