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BAN ON PLASTIC BAGS FROM SHOPS AND TAKE OUT FOOD JOINTS


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18 hours ago, ezpz said:

The new GR states that local businesses have until July to use up their stashes of disposable plastics because they soon will be banned from use.  While I heartily support environmental measures including reducing use of disposable plastics, I have the following questions:

Frequently buy roast chicken and have wondered what kind of container to bring to put  a very hot roast chicken in.  The typical hard plastic containers wouldn't work.  I've already asked the help to not use the styrofoam, only the plastic bags, but without those, what?  These new rules will be a severe culture shock for the many small businesses which feature take out food and beverages.  There is little alternative to take out containers other than to actually serve the food in place and use washable dishes.  But that is not feasible for a tiny take out stand.  I hope some genius will invent a truly biodegradable material to use for take out food.  Until then, what??

The damp veggies at Walmart and Soriana will not stay in a paper bag. I bought heirloom tomatoes at the Tuesday market and forgot to take my reused Walmart bag so he bagged them in paper. I made it 6 steps before the bottom gave out and a kilo of very expensive, beautiful tomatoes hit the floor. In Guad the famous fish taco Felix Pescado restaurant uses  thin plastic bags over rigid reused plastic plates and your food is actually on the outside of the plastic pag which they throw away so they do not wash any dishes. This probably evolved because they started as a food cart. I have NO single use bags from any store as I reuse all of them. You are supposed to carry a bag when walking your dog how many paper bags will it take and how many will you have to pickup the same mess along with the busted wet paper bag. This stupidity will force the poor who,  reuse every bag they get for trash or TP and  can't afford to buy bags to have to purchase them or just throw all the trash on the corner.  We already have dogs and possums that remove the trash from plastic bags (many of them single use) on the corner, that look is what we'll be left with with no plastic bags. Studies have found 80%+ of the plastic in the oceans originates in Asia. How are we going to make China stop this madness when we can't even persuade them to stop stealing technology. Jalisco's law will not make things better and will cost those least able to pay. This ban is the sort of thing you pass if you don't have the huevos to enforce litter laws. If you want to reply that the people responsible can't afford to pay fines then you sentence them to picking up trash along the roads. 

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48 minutes ago, MarkWebles said:

What they need to do is convince people that they really don't need the mountain of plastic shit that is available on every shelf of every Walmart on the continent.

Isn't just Walmart by a long shot.  Everything these days is packaged to death.  We are probably spending more money on the packaging than on the contents.

 

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Read this article as to how they installation of bidets is booming right now. Some start as low as $30 U.S., and just use the toilets water supply, others offer electric heating, electric pumping and blow dryers. Saves a fortune on TP apparently.

Tell me if you cannot access.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/can-toilet-attachments-make-bidets-mainstream-in-the-us/2019/05/06/93ce3894-6aad-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9473102c009f

ALso the London Marathon introduced a new energy drink which uses an edible seaweed based bag.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/04/29/london-marathons-method-reducing-plastic-bottles-edible-seaweed-pouches/?utm_term=.707fb3bb3ed2

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3 minutes ago, CHILLIN said:

Read this article as to how they installation of bidets is booming right now. Some start as low as $30 U.S., and just use the toilets water supply, others offer electric heating, electric pumping and blow dryers. Saves a fortune on TP apparently.

Tell me if you cannot access.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/can-toilet-attachments-make-bidets-mainstream-in-the-us/2019/05/06/93ce3894-6aad-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9473102c009f

Can not access it.

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sigh;

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May 8

Would you ditch toilet paper if it meant saving hundreds of dollars a year? For most Americans, it’s unimaginable. But some want to change the way Americans do their business, one bathroom at a time. They are the bidet evangelists.

“We have customers that tell us there was life before bidets and life after,” says Jason Ojalvo, chief executive of Tushy, which sells bidet attachments online. “We think that there is no reason that bidets should not be mainstream in America. It’s ridiculous; they are everywhere but here.”

Tushy’s target consumers, eco-conscious millennials, probably aren’t rushing out to install pricey plumbing fixtures in their apartments. The company’s bidet attachments are meant to appeal to renters and the cost-conscious. And its colorful, irreverent ads show a product that’s a far cry from the porcelain fixtures you’ll find in Europe and Asia. It’s a small, plastic box that connects to your toilet seat.

Tushy isn’t the only company on the bidet attachment bandwagon. Online retailers, such as Brondell and BidetKing, have seen 15 to 20 percent growth in sales over the past two years. Daniel Lalley, a spokesman for Brondell, says there was a mystique behind bidets for so long that he hopes this uptick in sales means the taboo has been broken for good.

[Is a bathtub a necessity or a luxury? For some, the answer could be changing.]

Other bidet evangelists are people who have simply been won over by the hygienic, environmental and financial benefits. We asked several what the big deal is. Here are a few reasons they believe bidets will change your life.

Hygiene

Imagine this: A bird poops on your arm. Would you wipe it dry or wash it?

“The bottom line is hygiene. You get cleaner using a bidet than using dry toilet paper alone. Think of it like taking a little bath after going number two,” says Shannon Lerda of Omaha, who started the website TheBidetExperts.com in 2017 to educate Americans on the benefits of investing in a bidet.

Here’s how most bidet attachments work: After you have done your business, you remain on the toilet. Pressurized water (from the same water supply your toilet uses) sprays on to the skin, removing waste. Some have a handheld hose, others spray broadly. Toilet paper can be used afterward for patting dry. Some bidets have blow-dryers, “if you want to feel extra pampered,” Lerda says.

“It can help prevent all sorts of medical conditions that are uncomfortable, embarrassing and frustrating,” says Mark Hyman, medical director at Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Functional Medicine.

Hyman says he regularly recommends the use of bidets to his patients, especially those with gastrointestinal issues such as constipation, bloating and irritable bowel syndrome. According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, one in 20 Americans suffer from hemorrhoids. Dry toilet paper can irritate the skin.

One part of the United States that has caught on to the bidet is Puerto Rico, where many people had stand-alone bidets before attachments came on the market.

“Middle- and upper-class families had bidets. It was a hygiene issue for women mostly,” says Luz Celenia Lopez, a longtime resident, describing menstruation, post-pregnancy symptoms and general cleanliness as major factors.

Eco-friendliness

Kathryn Kellogg’s husband introduced her to the bidet years ago, but she wasn’t sold on it right away. “It was interesting. It was not something that I had ever experienced before. But I was open to it because I wanted to reduce waste,” she said. “And I have to say the first time I tried it I was like, ‘This is the most brilliant thing in the entire world. Why isn’t this everywhere?’ I just think it makes so much more sense.”

When Kellogg, founder of the blog Going Zero Waste, incorporated bidets in her home, she noticed her family was using on average about a roll of toilet paper every two weeks — about a quarter of their previous usage.

“We are clear-cutting so many trees for these products that we don’t need to be using that much,” she says.

As for water and electricity usage, it can vary depending on the type of bidet. Dennis Baeza, a supervisor for BidetKing, says water usage with most bidet attachments is “very negligible.” Many simple attachments, such as Kellogg’s, don’t use electricity. Brondell’s high-end electric bidets, which have seat warmers and controlled-temperature features, take up as much energy as a blow dryer at its highest use, Lalley says.

Every time Kellogg moves from one home to another, she leaves her bidet attachment behind for the next owner. She hopes this might start a conversation about reducing waste and improving hygiene.

Cost

Stand-alone bidets in Europe can cost hundreds or thousands. Installation can be expensive, too; it needs to be done by a plumber. Bidet attachments can cost as little as $30 (or as much as $400) and require little time or skill to install. Simple non-electric attachments from Amazon can range between $25 and $45. Brondell sells various styles of bidets, such as a slim-style attachment for $39.95. (The company also caters to left-handed people with attachments between $49 to $69.)

Assuming a high usage of 20 minutes of washing per day, you can expect to see an extra addition of less than $2 in your water bill, Baeza says. A standard electric attachment from BidetKing will add an average of $45 to your electric bill annually.

The real cost savings, fans say, come one toilet paper roll at a time, as users limit or even stop their usage.

Yasmin Amer, a radio producer from Boston, has been gifting bidet attachments to her friends as housewarming gifts, for about $30 from Amazon. She says she is very comfortable talking about hygiene and what a bidet can do for someone — so her gifts don’t necessarily come as a surprise to her friends. Some friends are still hesitant to use them; others, she says, call them life-changing.

Recently, her husband added bidet attachments in the restrooms of his business. When Amer asked his employees what they thought, they said they were scared to try it.

“Next time I come back you’re going to tell me because it’s great and you’re gonna love it and you’re going to order one,” Yasmin recalled telling them.

“I just think it’s so strange that people are uncomfortable with the idea of water.”

 

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Sigh2

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April 29

As participants in the London Marathon entered mile 23 on Sunday, they were greeted by a new kind of refreshment: Golf ball-size pouches made from seaweed and filled with a sports drink.

The squishy pods — which look like tiny pillows and were handed out to thousands of passing runners — gave race organizers a chance to cut down on the flood of plastic waste that accompanies major sporting events.

Created by a London-based start-up called Skipping Rocks Lab, the seaweed pouches, known as Ooho, are edible and biodegradable, dissolving in about a month when discarded, according to the company. To access the ounce of liquid inside each pouch, runners merely have to bite into the pouch or place the entire pod inside their mouth and start chewing.

Video taken during the race showed runners doing exactly that, offering race organizers and company officials a mass experiment in the use of an alternative sustainable material.

“What we use is the building blocks of seaweed,” Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, a Skipping Rocks Lab founder, told CNN, referring to the pouches thin outer membrane. “We remove all the green stuff and the smelly stuff.”

“The marathon is a milestone. ... We are hoping we will demonstrate that it can be used at scale in the future,” Gonzalez added.

 

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IMO, living with 'less footprint' is a personal decision. One can always find a reason to use more stuff, more packaging, more this or that but, yes, it does take an effort to 'do better'.  We certainly did it most of our lives especially if one is a 'Senior'.  Where there is a will there is generally a way....

 

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Wet garbage?  Back in the "old days", every kitchen had a covered 'garbage pan', which was taken out to the compost yard a couple of times each day. It was the first daily chore for many children. Of course, the family pet was the first disposal method for much of the kitchen waste.

Even apartment dwellers can use the new composters, and then use the compost, or dispose of it without too much inconvenience.

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20 hours ago, Kyle said:

I guess you need to make some sacrifices to save the planet,. To bad!  Get your neighbors and take your recyclable to a drop off point.  Freeze all your veggie and meat scraps and put them in the trash they day of pick up.  They do make biodegradable bags, yes more expensive but it does help save the planet for future generations.  See it as an investment.   Think out side the box you have trapped yourself in and stop bitching.  If everyone thought like you changes would never happen,. See it as an opportunity to get creative!

Kyle, you're right.  Seeing news stories about whales found dead with mountains of plastic bags inside their stomachs, dead sea birds with beaks entangled in 6-pack plastic (so they starved to death) etc. is only a small portion of the huge environmental issue.

And this is NOT a "new" proposal / law.  For those who follow Mexican news it has been stated for some time that (1) the ban was coming into effect, and (2) when.  There are already  straws made from avocado seeds --- no idea if you eat them after using! 🤔 And you can be sure the legislators and manufacturers  in Mexico and all over the world where these bans are coming have their staff working on "replacement" products 24/7.

Meanwhile.... am I concerned about how we are going to dispose of used kitty litter and dog poop? You bet.  Under-the counter wet kitchen waste? That too. (No place for compost pile) But we WILL resolve in whatever way is needed and make adjustments.  Because we all know voluntary change won't work.... so everyone will have to swallow the hard pill and get on with  life.

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The kitty litter was not a problem 'in the old days'. There wasn't any!

Dog droppings were also not a problem, either. 

Dogs and cats were simply let out. They came home after they were done.  City folks had to 'curb their dogs'; take them to the curb, where the 'gutter' would wash away their waste.....eventually. Smart neighborhood dogs, in Mexico, curb themselves, as they like to lie on the sidewalks, where you may step over them without disturbing them.

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10 hours ago, Tiny said:

What they need to find a replacement for is the plastic bag and straw that the venders use to sell their drinks in.

It's called a styrofoam cup with a plastic lid...Hahahaha

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Chillin, yes I've read things where people from places where they wash after using the facilities find the idea of wiping to be gross and unhygenic. Which it is, really.

3 hours ago, CHILLIN said:

Imagine this: A bird poops on your arm. Would you wipe it dry or wash it?

 

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Virtually every fast food restaurant in the United States uses paper and cardboard only.  As for the paper bags, in the states the grocery stores use  a thicker more sturdy paper bag and there are not many problems with using them for vegetables including tomatos.    

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Wow.  Some good suggestions here but it seems many posters here are not aware of the Mexican household lifestyle.  Bidets???  To keep from using toilet paper???  Are you people all aware that you CANNOT even flush paper down the toilet in MX?  Few Mexicans or gringos in less expensive housing have the fancy water systems that allow for flushing toilet paper.  Do you think Mexicans can afford to install bidets in their houses???  Huh???  I've traveled all around MX, stayed in nice hotels, ate in nice restaurants, and they ALL have wastebaskets by the toilet for the used toilet paper, which has to be disposed of somehow.  My own house is like that.  Almost every house I've been in here has bathroom wastebaskets lined with plastic bags from the tiendas.   The only places where you know you can flush your toilet paper is when the DON'T have a wastebasket by the toilet, and that is very rare.

You can't put that kind of loose waste into a big garbage can.  The garbage workers handle all that stuff by hand without gloves!  I don't even use a garbage can to put in the street here.  I take out 4 small bags of trash per week.  Singles and couples don't generate enough garbage, hopefully, to need a big trash can!   The plastic bags are very convenient for small amounts of trash.  Empty garbage pails get stolen.  Please remember we are talking about MX here, not up north.

Also, if people had the space for a compost heap, don't you think we/they would already be doing that?  The recycling of kitchen waste is a great idea so we can contribute to a municipal compost heap.  In the mild climate of MX, there is much greater risk of vermin getting into your food scraps.  I've seen rats around town, you don't want to leave food scraps around!

MX has almost no sturdy paper bags to be found anywhere.   Remember the trees they come from?   If shops can no longer use plastic bags for customers, wouldn't it follow that you won't be able to buy them either?  That would be an extra expense for many financially struggling Mexicans.

So I'm still not seeing a solution to the garbage disposal issue which in MX, revolves around plastic bags.  I think this law was thought up by men who have never done a lick of housework or have never taken out the trash in MX.   Yes, let's move in the direction of using less plastic, but the plastic issue has to be connected to the trash disposal issue as it is in MX, not up north.

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Does anyone know the specifics of the Mexican law?  NY state passed a plastic bag ban that has the following exemptions.  Maybe there are similar exceptions in the Mexican law???  https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/2019/03/29/new-york-plastic-bag-ban-how-will-it-work-when-does-it-take-effect/3307293002/

 

Quote

 

Are there any exceptions?

Yes.

Under the state's ban, there are 11 instances where it's OK for a store to hand out a plastic bag, including when a bag holds:

  • uncooked meat, fish or poultry;
  • bulk items;
  • sliced or prepared foods;
  • a newspaper for delivery; or
  • prescription drugs.

There are also exemptions for bags sold in bulk, trash bags, food-storage bags, garment bags, prepackaged bags offered for sale and bags for carryout orders at restaurants and taverns.

What's the point of the ban?

Environmental organizations have long pushed a ban on plastic bags as a way to cut down on plastic pollution and encourage people to bring reusable bags when then shop.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo first backed a plastic-bag ban last year.

What about bags for cleaning up after your dog?

Sorry, dog owners — the plastic bag ban applies to you, too, if you use plastic shopping bags to pick up after your pooch.

If you don't have a stockpile of plastic bags handy, you'll have to rely on deli meat bags or carryout bags from restaurants or any of the other bags that are carved out from the ban.

Or, you'll have to buy plastic bags that are prepackaged or sold in bulk. Many retailers sell bags, some of them biodegradable, specifically designed for dog waste; those aren't affected by the ban.

 

 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, ezpz said:

Do you think Mexicans can afford to install bidets in their houses???  Huh??? 

They cost $40 U.S. and as the article says, they have become very popular in Puerto Rico, which has similar infrastructure problems as Mexico. Chain your garbage cans to a post, or paint them some gawd awful color. There are some very compact, vermin resistant composting systems, the government should be distributing them to lower income families, as well as mosquito proof rain collection barrels. What is wrong with cloth bags? They are very economical to make, especially if they accept advertising on them.

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11 minutes ago, ezpz said:

Also, if people had the space for a compost heap, don't you think we/they would already be doing that?

No, I don't. In my experience, most people, even those with ample property, do not compost. And no, it doesn't attract rodents if it is done correctly. I've been composting for 50 years- it's not just a matter of throwing a pile of kitchen scraps in a corner of the yard. And as I pointed out, composting units are available at Costco, perhaps other places, I haven't checked. These are critter-proof.

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I was thinking too, that these inexpensive bidets, which operate from a plumbing tee off your toilet, are suited to warmer climates. The tinacos and ajilbes are pretty warm. Many Mexicans use this temperature to shower with, no heaters.Then Versus our last place in Canada, water from a 600 foot deep artesian well, fed by glaciers - one spray of that up your wazoo would bring years to your eyes! I like these luxe ones.

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I have traveled  in  Asia where they have the original bidet.  A large bowl or can of water beside a porcelain whole in the floor which we called a french toilet.  After this I could understan dwhy,  when they cut off a thieves right hand they gave him the death penalty.  The left hand was unholy and they could not eat using it. If the infraction was small or they liked the guy they cut off his left hand.

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