(Editor’s note: With the City of Pittsburgh’s ban on “single-use” plastic bags set to go into effect this coming Saturday, it is only apropos to rerun, with a few updates, the below At Large that first ran in April.)
The City of Pittsburgh’s delayed ban on single-use plastic bags by businesses within the city limits goes into effect this Saturday. Which means there are only five days for Pittsburghers to engage in an ornery act of civil disobedience.
The dubious ban — which has woefully little foundation in real science and a footerless foundation in “social justice” – was supposed to go into effect on April 14. But Mayor Ed Gainey delayed any enforcement until Oct. 14 to, supposedly, “ensure a successful rollout.”
Customers will either have to employ their own “reusable” bags (whose production is known for its more negative environmental impact, not to mention the spread of bacteria in repeated usages) or purchase paper bags from respective retailers for 10 cents a pop.
Though other jurisdictions have argued the ban is necessary to prevent plastic bags from overpopulating landfills, the specific goal of Pittsburgh’s new law reportedly is to reduce the amount of plastic in our rivers.
As the Post-Gazette reported last spring, the city planned to use the delay to “create a website where people can access information about the policy. The Department of Public Works will create a list of paper and reusable bag distributors to share with businesses.”
Additionally, since the original legislation did not include an enforcement mechanism, the city says it has created a “three-step sanctions framework” allowing inspectors to issue written warnings for initial violations and fines for continued infractions.
The city hired an “environmental enforcement manager” in June.
But this new law is problematic above and beyond its specious environmental origins.
First, these single-use plastic bags are anything but “single use,” as anyone with a dog or cat will attest. Such bags also are regularly used to line home trash baskets and even to carry items to a friend’s or relative’s house. They, in turn, undoubtedly reuse those bags, too. Others use such bags to store things, virtually anything.
Secondly, this law is not applied equally, both among the class that is targeted and among consumers. To wit, plastic bags used for such items as meats, fish and vegetables are exempt. Talk about truly single-use plastic bags, right?
Additionally, plastic bags sold specifically for garbage collection and pet waste are exempt. (How in the world are these not single-use plastic bags?) But, again, the kind of plastic bags this ordinance bans outright are regularly used for just that. That fact makes this law even more arbitrary and capricious.
Then there’s a carveout for welfare recipients; they would be exempt from the 10-cent-per-bag fee. Of course, somebody will pay for that – either retailers or, you can bet, eventually, taxpayers through some kind of subsidy.
This is what the public gets when hubris and ignorance marry idiocy.
Given that no one likely will have the intestinal fortitude to challenge this new law once it takes effect – Hint, hint — the only thing reasonable and thinking people can do is to fight such public policy hubris, ignorance and idiocy with a tactical counteroffensive.
Thus, for the next five days, City of Pittsburgh grocery shoppers should take every opportunity to stock up on plastic grocery bags. That means bagging your own groceries (That should not be a problem, given that a growing number of grocery stores act as if they’re being put out by bagging groceries for you.)
And when you bag those groceries, place only one item in each bag. (That should not be a problem, either, given that if, per chance, your groceries are bagged for you, you typically only get one item per bag.)
And, in pursuit of defeating legislative folly, double-, triple- or quadruple-bag those singular per-bag items. (After all, you want to make sure those single items don’t break through those “single-use” plastic bags.)
Thus, Pittsburgh grocery shoppers still can build up quite the home bank of plastic grocery bags in the days ahead. Just make sure that to save space, you store these bags flat and in boxes, OK?
Your efforts should yield a nice stash of “single-use” plastic bags to take to the grocery store with you and to bag your own groceries – over and over and over again.
It would be perfectly legal, for the new law only applies to “the use of only certain bags by retail establishments at the point of sale or for a delivery.”
And if the “single-use” plastic bag police seek to expand their already dubious authority and attempt to confiscate a shopper’s plastic bags, well, from your cold dead hands.
You may chortle here.
Of course, we offer this counterattack plan purely tongue-in-cheek. Or do we?
We as consumers should not be – and are not — powerless to take on this latest exercise in government intrusion and overregulation born of bumfuzzlery, buffoonery and buncombery .
Take a concrete stand, Pittsburghers. Do your part to neutralize this plastic nonsense.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
