By Eric W. Schoen
New York’s unenforced plastic bag law. Congestion Pricing costs. Does anyone remember the Recycling rules? We will try to responsibly save the environment and economy this week. Let’s start with plastic bags.
I don’t know about where you live but in Yonkers plastic bags don’t grow on trees. They are not blown by the wind and getting caught on tree limbs either. Those in favor of banning single use plastic bags make this outrageous claim that they end up in trees. Send me an email (and pictures) if you are seeing plastic bags in trees in your neighborhood.
So New York bans single use plastic bags. In my world there is no such thing as a single use plastic bag. After I tote my groceries home in a plastic bag I use that bag for garbage. I leave the plastic bag filled with garbage outside my door in the morning for the maintenance man in my complex to pick up.
Yes, I could use one of those thick Glad or other brand bags to put out my garbage. But it seems to me that those thick, heavy, one use bags would do more to damage the environment than the flimsy plastic bags that I am reusing from the grocery store.
Now some folks use those flimsy grocery store bags to pick up after their dogs when the dogs are walked and nature calls. They are the perfect size and allow one to pick up the animal excrement and neatly dispose of it. Should you go out and buy a box of bags with the sole purpose of using them to clean up from your dog or other animal you walk such as a horse or turtle? Those bags you buy exclusively for cleaning up after Fido or Myrtle the Turtle or Mister Ed are truly single use plastic bags.
As you know, we are in the middle of a pandemic. Our homes are filled with bottles of Clorox, bleach wipes and other products to clean and sanitize and get rid of germs and all those other nasty little things that can make us sick. New York intelligently put off the plastic bag ban enforcement during the early days of the pandemic.
Do we really want bags from peoples homes that we didn’t know if they were properly sanitized to be brought into grocery stores? As we are schmearing our hands with Purell and other hand sanitizing chemicals pumped out of big plastic bottles. Cashiers loading groceries into these possibly germ filed bags?
Stores like Stop and Shop posted signs that their cashiers would not pack groceries into customer brought in reusable bags. Most cashiers I interact with (most times I use the self scanning grocery line) still refuse to put their hands inside of reusable shopping bags customers bring in. The current rule for cashiers isn’t keep 6 feet away, wear a mask, wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds and then put your hands in a reusable bag a customer who you don’t know brought in from home.
So last week, a newspaper called The City asked the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation how many fines have been issued since the ban on plastic bags took effect in October 2020. The answer was zero. 64 written warnings were given to stores, but no violations with fines were issued.
So last week I’m in 7-Eleven and the customer 6 feet in from of me is buying slices of pizza, hot dogs, other items from the rolling heat grill and the cashier refused to give him a bag to put the items in. What was he supposed to do? Juggle the items? These items he was purchasing do qualify for an exemption from the ban titled ‘unwrapped food.’ The pizza comes in half of a box with no top, the greasy roller items plucked off the grill and frankfurters (which he covered with mustard, ketchup, relish) are in a flimsy bag that is open. And they won’t give him a bag? Or he should bring a reusable bag from home to get covered with grease and used the next day to buy groceries in the supermarket?
This episode and many similar ones make no sense. Merchants don’t understand the law, common sense is not being used and the law makes no sense in our current climate. After the article appeared in The City about lack of enforcement, DEC announced that 12 violation notices were issued, 9 going to small businesses and 3 to corporate entities, including Gristedes.
Gristedes is a chain of grocery stores owned by John Catsimatidis, father of the head of the New York Republican Party and outspoken critic of the plastic bag ban. He also bought radio station WABC 770 AM in New York to keep it local like WVOX, 1460 on the AM dial, owned by WILLIAM O’SHAUGHNESSY on which you can hear this columnist. Could it be a coincidence that the New York Democratic Governor is issuing a violation and fine to the father of the head of the New York Republican Party’s father?
So I’m willing to compromise. Let stores use paper bags, sturdy ones with handles to allow customers to tote their food purchases. They are more environmentally friendly than plastic bags. No charge to the customer and the merchant doesn’t have to pay the state for using paper bags. Let’s do this at least until this pandemic is over. And encourage people to reuse their strong heavy paper bags. And none of this charging of 50 cents by some unscrupulous merchants for bags who give the consumer no other options. I’ve encountered the 50 cent bag offer way too many times. That’s simply highway robbery!
Let’s make merchants post signage at the register that states when plastic bags can legally be given out according to law. This way customers don’t have to juggle slices of pizza, frankfurters and other grill items in their hands.
Many people are carrying items out of the store with no bags in their shopping carts. I’ll bet you theft is occurring because of this. Again, merchants and customers lose with the customer paying more.
It’s time for a refresher course on recycling in New York. And some consistency. Sometimes you can just recycle cans and bottles in those blue garbage bins and sometimes it’s just newspapers and cardboard boxes and who knows what else?
Congestion pricing is back in the news. New York requested it under President Trump, and he sat on it during his tenure. President Biden paved the way for congestion pricing for vehicles to be back on the front burner again in New York. What this means is that if you go south of 60th Street you pay a toll because you are entering the area in New York City with the most congestion.
Just as we are encouraging workers and tourists to come back to the Manhattan we are going to hit them with another toll? Didn’t we read last week that Governor Cuomo doesn’t think the subways are safe? And how about the tolls New Yorkers already pay headed into Manhattan. And poor New Jersey folks with the Turnpike, Parkway and $16 George Washington Bridge tolls.
Tell your State Legislators that enough is enough with these tolls. And if they try to put the tolls in place, watch that they don’t go crazy high and that the toll you currently pay is deducted from what you will have to pay under congestion pricing. Let’s not make poor Yonkersites and Westchesterites pay $16 to go south of 60th Street in Manhattan like New Jersey makes residents and visitors pay to enter New York State!
Reach Eric Schoen at thistooisyonkers@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @ericyonkers. Listen to Eric Schoen and Dan Murphy on the Westchester Rising Radio Show Thursday’s from 10-11 a.m. On WVOX 1460 AM, go to WVOX.com and click the arrow to listen to the live stream or download the WVOX app from the App Store free of charge.
