Redstate...
Green
Profiteers and Plastic Bags
Posted by Ben Howe
Wednesday, September 21st
Believe
it or not, there’s been a war
going on over plastic bags for some time now.
It seems that manufacturers of those reusable
bags you see near the
checkout line were none too pleased that so many people were continuing
to
choose plastic or paper bags as opposed to shelling out $20 bucks for
their
environmental solution.
So
the reusable bag company known as
ChicoBag did what any good environmental alarmist would do: they lied.
For
instance, they claimed that “a
reusable bag needs only to be used eleven times to have a lower
environmental
impact than using eleven disposable bags.”
They were close.
It was actually
393 times or roughly 7.5 years to replace reusing a plastic bag just
three
times.
But,
as always seems to be the case
with wild claims of healing mother earth, their exaggerations weren’t
just
limited to their alleged comparability to plastic bags.
This
company even went so far as to hide
the fact that reusable bags can actually have negative health effects
since,
unlike the evil plastic bags, reusable bags can become covered in
bacteria.
They
even created a bogus government
website to push their agenda:
ChicoBag
created a counterfeit EPA
website and knowingly shared falsified NOAA data with school children.
Finally,
plastic bag manufacturer
Hilex Poly had had enough and they sued.
Better yet they won and the victory has forced
the reusable bag
manufacturer to admit that they had been engaging in false advertising.
A
victory to be sure, but the battle
is not over. Via
the NY Times:
The
case, filed in U.S. District Court
of the District of South Carolina, comes as the plastic bag industry
battles
those pushing only reusable bags, said Sean Hecht, executive director
of UCLA’s
Environmental Law Center. In California, multiple cities and counties
have
banned the use of plastic bags by merchants
So
not surprisingly, California is one
of the first to actually start making laws based on this bogus science. If you think it will stop
at their borders,
think again. Not
only can a state as
large as California have influence over the ideas of other states, the
size of
their market can force nationwide companies to make company-wide
changes just
to comply with the desires of California.
Far
from total victory, this win is
merely a step in helping prevent the wannabe do-gooders in government
from
favoring one industry over another in the name of pseudo-science.
Plastic
bag makers want to stop any
additional curbs on the bags, Hecht said, and part of that is winning
support
from consumers. The case originally involved two other large bag
manufacturers,
Superbag Operating Ltd. and Advance Polybag Inc.; both have withdrawn
from the
case. Those companies last week hailed the settlement secured by Hilex
Poly.
In
order to prevent that worst case,
we conservatives will have to add this to your list of things that,
like it or
not, we’re going to have to be vocal about.
The government is looking for ways to control
every decision we make,
from light bulbs, to power providers,to guitars, to cars, and now to
our
grocery bags.
This
lawsuit is a step in the right
direction, but as we’ve seen, no amount of factual data or real science
will
deter the environmental whackos. As
a
result, companies like ChicoBag will reveal themselves as the new war
profiteers in this battle for personal choices.
Also,
don’t ever buy a ChicoBag.
Read
it at Redstate
|