All posts in the topic Plastic Grocery Bags in Minneapolis (Short link)
Summary
- There are 19 posts — by 13 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Connie Sullivan at Mar 18 19:22 UTC
Here is the lead from the front page of Friday's USA TODAY: "TIDE TURNS AGAINST USE OF PLASTIC BAGS Massachusetts is considering taxing them. Reno is talking about banning them. Plastic shopping bags are increasingly popular targets of governments looking for ways to help the environment. "It's a small, simple, modest act that makes people feel that they're actually contributing" to reducing litter, waste and dependence on foreign oil, says Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, sponsor of San Francisco's ban on petroleum-based plastic bags in big grocery stores. " Here is the rest of the story . . . http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080314/1a_bottomstrip14_dom.art.htm Does anyone know where we stand on this issue in Minneapolis? Bill Dooley / Kenny
It would be rather silly to ban them, when the city garbage collectors REQUIRE
them to be used!
The City requires that you put your garbage in plastic garbage bags before
putting it in the carts, and will leave you a nasty note if you don't do so.
And given the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" slogan, all mine are reused (generally
several times) before they go into the garbage. And in Minneapolis garbage,
they end up in the downtown garbage burner, where they are high-class fuel
(they're made from oil, after all), and produce a lot of energy.
What city trash collectors require use of plastic bags in what carts? Our
trash collectors require paper bags for recycling. Are you talking about
trash or recycling pickup?
Have list members found reusable containers about the size of a brown
paper bag that fit inside the recycling tubs? My household has more
stuff coming in - like newspapers, misc paper, large plastic jugs, for
example - than we bring in in brown paper bags. I'd really like some
permanent containers that would fit inside the tubs that I could sort
the recyclables into. Tied bundles work for newspapers and cardboard
but this still leaves lots of categories. If you've found something
that works that is ok with City pickup, would like to know about it.
Shawne FitzGerald
Let's make sure we're not confusing issues here. Bill's post refers to the use of plastic shopping bags like we see in grocery stores, convenience stores and other retailers. Tim talks about plastic bags for your trash. To clear up any confusion, it's for your trash, not your recycling. In the case of shopping bags, there are alternatives, such as paper or better yet, reusable shopping bags made from cloth or more durable plastics, such as nylon. I have not heard anything about efforts to ban these bags, but there is a bill in the State Legislature that would require retailers to provide opportunities to recycle them. My guess is this would amount to a ban for those who don't want to deal with the recycling requirements, but that goes beyond Minneapolis-specific, so I'm going to stop here. As for the plastic bags being required for your trash, that's a worker safety issue. Bagging your trash protects sanitation workers from things like broken glass, used syringes, that bottle of unknown whatever you found while cleaning out the garage, etc. Many of those items don't belong in your garbage in the first place, but since many people are unaware of proper disposal for household hazardous waste, the least we can do is not expose sanitation workers to that stuff. If you're not sure what to do with certain "unusual" items, you can often find an answer by visiting http://www.greenguardian.com/ Mark Snyder Windom Park
Greetings:
Trash Lady here....Thank you for a trashy topic!
Several places, including San Francisco in the States, and Ireland
across the Pond, have banned or significantly taxed plastic shopping
bags. In most cases where they've been banned, their contribution to
the litter stream and their extreme ugliness when flagging from tree
branches or shrubs has been a driving force. Waste of non-renewable
resources and widespread availability of reusable or renewable options
(cloth or net bags) have also been reasons for the taxing and bans. In
Minnesota, there is a bill in the State legislature to ban the use of
plastic bags for leaf and yard wastes collection, beginning January 1,
2009. This is the second time this bill has been introduced, and I am
told that it will most likely become law.
Minnesota and especially the Metro region have had plastic bag recycling
programs since 2003. Check out www.itsinthebagmn.org/ for more info
and locations to recycle plastic bags near you.
Yes, in Minneapolis we require that garbage placed in the carts be
bagged. You can use plastic or paper bags; your choice. We require
this for several reasons; Worker safety (Mark was VERY correct, vacuum
cleaner dust, cat litter, bleach and paint are ALL hazardous to your
garbage folks), Public Health and safety, and neighborhood livability.
With respect to public health and safety, anything that we can do to
keep squirrels, raccoons, crows and other vectors of disease from
rummaging through your garbage cart is a good thing. Bagging garbage
minimizes the escapable odors, and makes it harder for the beasties to
scatter your garbage up and down the alley. Neighborhood livability is
enhanced when fewer garbage carts are malodorous. Bagged garbage
doesn't leave as much garbage juice in your carts or on the alley where
it stinks up pretty fast.
With respect to recycling, yes, paper bags are preferred, but any rigid
container of 10 gallon size or less is also OK. I use containers that I
bought shrubs in. We've got the Red Recycling stickers for you to put
on your own containers, so that the garbage and recycling guys won't
think that you just want to trash them. E-mail me off-list with your
address and the number of stickers that you want me to mail out. We
need more recyclables...our tonnage was down a bit last year. The new
recycling calendars will be at your mailboxes soon; please take a minute
to look them over and as the local campaign says, "Re-Think Recycling!"
Warning: Brief Commercial Announcement: In Minneapolis we separate our
recyclables so that they can be marketed for reuse. I've been doing the
waste thing for 30 years, and I've never been able to sell garbage for
money. I am able to market recyclables, and Minneapolis cleared 1.4
million dollars (net processing and marketing) on our recyclables. To
give you scale, that is the equivalent of $1.40 per dwelling unit per
month on your City Solid Waste bill that you have saved by recycling!
Most of the suburbs that have gone to single or dual stream recycling
programs (one sort or two sorts) pay between $2.30 to $4.20/month for
those programs, and almost all of them had rate increases this year and
last year. In Minneapolis, you still receive a credit on your bill if
you recycle; the SW & R rates did not go up in 2008, and our recycling
revenue is a major reason why. There is a second reason to keep your
recyclables separated, and that is energy consumption. Once your stuff
is commingled, it takes person-power and lots of electrical power to
sort them back out. Air separation systems, vortexes, conveyor belts
and mega-magnets draw electrical power; the person-power is for the
stuff that needs to be hand-sorted. As I think about things that will
help Minneapolis be more sustainable, keeping separated stuff separated
and saving the energy to re-sort them is high on my list.
Thank you for the opening to talk trash! Let me know if more questions
arise.
Susan Young
Minneapolis Trash Lady, Graffiti Maven and Shopping Cart Diva
In
> Minnesota, there is a bill in the State legislature to
>ban the use of
> plastic bags for leaf and yard wastes collection,
>beginning January 1,
> 2009. This is the second time this bill has been
>introduced, and I am
> told that it will most likely become law.
>
Fascinating! Do we get to start burning leaves again?
Raking them into the street? Or will be forced to fill
our yards with compost bins to accomodate all the leaves?
Or burlap bags we have to pay a deposit on. We could cut
down all the trees so we don't have to worry about leaves.
My dad has a service come with a big truck and shredder
to suck up all the leaves in his yard now that he can't do
it himself anymore. Maybe that's the answer.
This should be fun to watch.
At 1:09 PM -0500 3/17/08, Young, Susan wrote: >With respect to recycling, yes, paper bags are preferred, but any rigid >container of 10 gallon size or less is also OK. I have called the city number 311 twice with questions about recycling and been told both times that paper bags for separated recycling items are *required.* Too, the city of Minneapolis web site says here <http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/solid-waste/recycling-separating.asp>: "All recycling must be placed in separate paper bags [...]" If in fact Minneapolis recyclers can separate their recycling into permanent containers of some sort and not use paper bags, those who answer the 311 line should be informed, and the relevant web pages should be re-written. Our family can't consider using cloth grocery bags or any similar reuseable resource, because we get more mail than you'd believe and so require a large number of paper bags, and this requirement is something I've become increasingly resentful of.
I think the legislative bill Trash Lady is referring to is HF0347/SF0264, which would require yard waste bags to be compostable, which I have to say kind of makes sense to me. Text can be found at https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H0347.0.html&session=ls85 It does appear to have a good amount of support among Minneapolis legislators. Since I manage my leaves primarily by shredding them with my mulching mower or using them as cover for my gardens, I don't really know what the local implications for this bill would be, but I suppose it would be an adjustment for some folks. Mark Snyder Windom Park
Kevin writes, of a no-plastic-leaf-bag law:
Fascinating! Do we get to start burning leaves again?
Raking them into the street? Or will be forced to fill
our yards with compost bins to accomodate all the leaves?
Me:
Our family - not through any threat of force - uses the large paper leaf bags
you get at a hardware store. The bags stay rigid and the top stays open better
(allowing for quicker loading), and they seem pretty impervious to rain in the
short term.
Yes, they cost more than plastic bags, but may well lower the environmental
costs, since they are ultimately compostable like the leaves they contain. I'm
sure this will commence Round 1,000,000 of the paper-versus-plastic debate, but
my bigger point is that there's a very workable alternative to plastic that
doesn't involve burning or burlap.
At 8:03 AM +1300 3/18/08, Mark Snyder wrote: >I think the legislative bill Trash Lady is referring to is >HF0347/SF0264, which would require yard waste bags to be >compostable, which I have to say kind of makes sense to me. > >Text can be found at >https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H0347.0.html&session=ls85 > I understand that there are yard waste bags that decompose because they're made of cornstarch. I have five ever-taller trees on my 40-foot wide lot, and would dearly love to not use plastic for the leaves. I imagine that cornstarch bags are pretty expensive, now that corn futures and actual prices are so high because of the ethanol boom. But, still, where can we get them in Minneapolis? Connie fills about 25 large leaf bags each fall, in Como Southeast Minneapolis
Mark Snyder wrote:
> In the case of shopping bags, there are alternatives, such as paper or better
yet, reusable shopping bags made from cloth or more durable plastics, such as
nylon. I have not heard anything about efforts to ban these bags, but there is
a bill in the State Legislature that would require retailers to provide
opportunities to recycle them. My guess is this would amount to a ban for those
who don't want to deal with the recycling requirements, but that goes beyond
Minneapolis-specific, so I'm going to stop here.
[TB] Lund's has a collection point for plastic bags, I _think_
Kowalski's does too. Although the cloth bags are a better option, I
know that I'm better at taking back plastic bags than doing anything
useful with the paper ones.
Why is it that Target doesn't have a collection point (downtown
anyway)? They certainly use more plastic bags than any grocery store.
Thank you all for the kick in the pants--I've been meaning to buy some reusable
grocery bags and you just motivated me to take action. I'm sorry for the lost
BTU Susan Young, but I can partially compensate by trickling political yard
signs into the trash.
I've tried corn starch bags and they worked effectively (if you're not bagging
sticks or other pokey things) but were indeed fairly expensive even before
ethanol boomed.
Regards,
Jason Stone
Diamond Lake
David and others who live closer to Powderhorn: I am a gardener with no trees in my yard. I am always scrounging bags of leaves - even stealing them out of alleys. I overfill a couple of city black compost bins each season and need some leaves to mix with the "green". I also have a large open bin for leaves and grass clippings - stuff I can use fresh or partially rotted for mulch on my garden beds. I beg for leaves - especially oak leaves for my yard can use the acidity. If someone near Powderhorn has too many leaves and wants a partnership, contact me at sean at tcq.net. You don't even have to bag the leaves - rake them onto an old sheet or shower curtain and we'll load them in my small pick-up truck so I can rake them down into garden beds or the bin. I want leaves not contaminated with pet droppings. I can use 6-10 cubic yards per year, maybe more. I've set up most of my garden so that the mulched areas drain into low spots in the yard (so keeping and filtering the nutrients from leaves in my garden, not the Mississippi River.) I'd be grateful for a neighbor nearby who would share un-needed leaves with me. It would be nice to start a system of P-to-P leaf sharing for like many gardeners, I am leery of free government compost. It's just too hard to know what bacterias, diseases, and mildews this might bring into the garden. I prefer to make my own compost. So I look for clean leaves, free of mildew and pet droppings. For all the folks out there with excess clean leaves, check with the gardeners on your block especially if you have oak leaves or pine needles (both acidic and needed in our native soil which is usually registers highly basic on the ph scale). You might find a gardener happy for your leaves and this might save you the drudgery of bagging them up. Sincerely, Shawne FitzGera;d David Brauer wrote: > Kevin writes, of a no-plastic-leaf-bag law: > > Fascinating! Do we get to start burning leaves again? > Raking them into the street? Or will be forced to fill > our yards with compost bins to accomodate all the leaves? > > Me: > > Our family - not through any threat of force - uses the large paper leaf bags you get at a hardware store. The bags stay rigid and the top stays open better (allowing for quicker loading), and they seem pretty impervious to rain in the short term. > > Yes, they cost more than plastic bags, but may well lower the environmental costs, since they are ultimately compostable like the leaves they contain. I'm sure this will commence Round 1,000,000 of the paper-versus-plastic debate, but my bigger point is that there's a very workable alternative to plastic that doesn't involve burning or burlap. > > > David Brauer > Kingfield, Minneapolis > Info about David Brauer: http://forums.e-democracy.org/contacts/brauerdavid > > This topic's messages may be viewed at: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3eTPfXdpenD8XSzVzJcyAj
On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:03:03 +1300 (NZDT), Mark Snyder wrote:
>I think the legislative bill Trash Lady is referring to is HF0347/SF0264,
which would require yard waste bags to be compostable, which I have to say kind
of makes sense to me.
Going to be interesting when it's applied to those people who bag the
leaves and stack them against their foundation wall for insulation for
the winter.
I opened my mailbox today to find the recycling brochure from Minneapolis
Solid Waste, or whatever it's called. It seems to me that the growing
requirements placed citizens will become ever more burdensome until at some
point more and more will just be ignored. Cost and time commitment to
follow all the rules to the letter are already over the top. Around our
house, I'd say we manage about 60-70% success rate. And I care to try at
least. I'd bet the majority of our residents don't give a rip at all. Some
would just as soon pay a little extra than put in any effort at all.
Sometimes the trash just needs to be hauled away, not everybody has truck to
haul stuff to Brooklyn Park or wherever, even if they had a desire to. Our
"powers that be" should keep that in mind.
There will be a diminishing return as the burden of "being green" increases.
Kevin Wynn, Dad
Minneapolis, MN
2005 Ural Tourist - "Tpehora"
I don't disagree that the powers that be should make it easy for folks to do
the right thing. Yet our experience seems to reflect a continuing high rate of
success. Our esteemed trash lady has elaborated a bit in the past on our
effectiveness as a city, and maybe she would resurrect some previous comments.
I'd also be interested to know where we need to do better.
Regards,
Jason Stone
On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:36:41 -0500, you wrote:
>I opened my mailbox today to find the recycling brochure from Minneapolis
>Solid Waste, or whatever it's called. It seems to me that the growing
>requirements placed citizens will become ever more burdensome until at some
>point more and more will just be ignored.
I don't actually see much different from last year's brochure. I think
the limit of 2 "electronic/metal" items may be new (I assume this is the
stuff that they pick up the day after recycling day, TVs and stoves and
the like), but that shouldn't seriously affect many people, if you've
got more, just do them next time.
In rural Wisconsin, my niece has to not only separate glass colors, but
wash cans and remove labels. We got it relatively easy.
>At 11:02 AM -0600 3/18/08, Dave Garland wrote:
>In rural Wisconsin, my niece has to not only separate glass colors, but
>wash cans and remove labels. We got it relatively easy.
>
I remember World War II, and what citizens were asked to do to save
material resources and to "recycle" everything from glass and tin
cans to bacon grease (there was no plastic at the time). The
solidified grease we took to supermarkets in old coffee cans, to be
used to make soap. We had to wash bottles and cans, and one of my
first chores at home, as a little girl, was helping to open the
bottoms of cleaned and empty cans, put lid and bottom inside the can,
and flatten the can so all the parts stayed together and there wasn't
much bulk. The stomp-the-can part really thrilled me. And I became
part of The War Effort at the age of four.
We can do this: I wash and remove all labels from cans and bottles
and even plastic milk jugs before I put them out. Maybe it was that
WWII training in "we're all in this together."
Connie
Como, in Southeast Mpls