Boston Mayor Marty Walsh says his temporary suspension of the city’s ban on single-use plastic shopping bags is about “flexibility.” He’s lying.
It’s about “stupidity.” Boston’s anti-plastic-bag mandate was idiotic from the beginning, and now it’s being outed by the coronavirus crisis as the danger to public health it’s always been.
Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday also announced a temporary ban on reusable bags.
“From now on, reusable bags are prohibited and all regulations on plastic bag bans are lifted,” Baker said.
“During this challenging time, we understand the retail establishments our residents rely on — like grocery stores, pharmacies, and restaurants — need added flexibility to best serve their customers,” Walsh said in a statement. “We are adjusting Boston’s plastic bag ordinance to give establishments and residents the help they need during this time.”
Uh … no. What’s happened is that workers in grocery stores are complaining about the filthy, germ-infested reusable bags they’re being asked to stick their arms into on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis. As Drew Cline of the New Hampshire-based Josiah Bartlett Center told me, “Research clearly shows that poorly-handled reusable shopping bags are like little Ubers for dangerous microorganisms.”
Cline’s think tank released a report last week listing study after study showing that reusable bags are great ways to get a coronavirus party going at your local grocery store. In one study, Loma Linda University researchers sprayed reusable bags with a solution of a safe norovirus surrogate, then set volunteers loose to shop at a local market.
Researchers found the fake bugs on the hands of grocery clerks, on packaged food surfaces, on shopping carts — even on the customer self-checkout screens. And the available data shows coronavirus is even more likely to survive on surfaces than the usual viral suspects.
Using reusable shopping bags during the coronavirus pandemic is like leaving your liquor cabinet unlocked while your teenagers are “sheltering in place” at home. You’re just asking for trouble.
So why doesn’t Mayor Marty do what N.H. Gov. Chris Sununu did and ban the use of these disease-covered social-status sacks in public spaces?
Because like so many on the Left, science comes second. Politics comes first.
After all, if Mayor Marty were motivated by data, the plastic-bag ban would never have been imposed in the first place. As we’ve written in this space before, single-use plastic bags are better for the environment than the obnoxious cotton shopping bags woke women get from “fair-trade” vendors on the web.
Paper bags are a lot heavier and take a lot more CO2 to ship. Reusable bags require a lot more emissions to manufacture. One British study found that shoppers have to use a cotton bag 131 times before it had a smaller global warming impact than a lightweight plastic bag used only once. How many times does the average reusable bag actually get reused? Fewer than 15.
As New York Times science writer John Tierney wrote last month, “Single-use plastic bags aren’t the worst environmental choice at the supermarket — they’re the best. High-density polyethylene bags are a marvel of economic, engineering and environmental efficiency.”
And yet Mayor Marty is leaving the ban largely in place, and he can’t wait to bring it back. Why?
Because Boston’s liberal, $500K-condo crowd doesn’t care about the environment. They care about looking like they care about the environment. Plastic shopping bags? How gauche! Besides, they clash with the reusable coffee mug I got from an indigenous craftsman during an ecotourism trip to Guatemala!
Oh, forgot to mention: Starbucks and Dunkin’ aren’t taking those anymore, either.
The Left has long shown symptoms of skewed thinking — and it doesn’t look like they’re eager for a cure.
Michael Graham is a regular contributor to the Boston Herald. Follow him at IAmMGraham on Twitter.