Indy Digest: Sept. 23, 2024
The Associated Press headline is: “California governor signs law banning all plastic shopping bags at grocery stores.”
You may be thinking: Wait a second. Didn’t the state already ban at least some plastic grocery bags?
Yes, the state did … and the effort failed so spectacularly that it would be hilarious if not for the massive harm to the environment. As The New York Times explains:
A decade ago, California became the first U.S. state to ban single-use plastic bags, the flimsy sacks that regularly blew into waterways, littered streets and collected in landfills. The prohibition, in the nation’s most populous state, was considered a turning point in the effort to reduce plastic waste.
But the move backfired in a way that few supporters expected. Californians in 2021 actually tossed nearly 50 percent more plastic bags, by weight, than when the law first passed in 2014, according to data from CalRecycle, California’s recycling agency.
A loophole in the initial ban allowed retailers to provide thick-walled plastic bags and charge 10 cents a piece for them. Though technically reusable and recyclable, the heavier-duty sacks still ended up in many trash cans after a shopping trip.
Let’s revisit the second sentence of that second paragraph above: Californians in 2021 actually tossed nearly 50 percent more plastic bags, by weight, than when the law first passed in 2014, according to data from CalRecycle, California’s recycling agency.
As the cliche goes, you can’t make this stuff up. But, hey, at least some good came out of the mistake. The New York Times says: “Several other states enacted plastic bag bans in the past decade, and many tried to learn from California’s mistakes. Environmentalists in New York, which banned plastic bags at most store checkouts in 2020, successfully blocked a provision that would have allowed stores to provide thicker plastic bags. Plastic bag bans in both Rhode Island and Colorado went into effect at the beginning of this year, and both specified that any bags sold as reusable must have stitched handles, disqualifying the plastic bags that have predominated in California.”
Now, California has fixed the mistake—or, more accurately, will fix the mistake a bit down the line. Back to The Associated Press piece: “The new measure, approved by state legislators last month, bans all plastic shopping bags starting in 2026. Consumers who don’t bring their own bags will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag” for 10 cents each.
So, the plastics industry has 15 months to try to find another loophole. The clock is ticking ….
—Jimmy Boegle
From the Independent
Handling the Unhoused: Local Leaders Are Trying to Get on the Same Page Following the U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on Homeless Encampments
By Haleemon Anderson
September 23rd, 2024
Indio City Councilman Waymond Fermon: “We all have to be on the same page here in the valley. With our efforts to mitigate chronic homelessness and transiency, if other parts of the community are lax, (unhoused people) will pick up and just move.”
Compassion Through Music: The Concert for Autism Returns for Its 17th Year to Raise Funds for the Desert Autism Foundation
By Matt King
September 21st, 2024
Numerous local musicians will be donating their time and talent to raise funds for the Desert Autism Foundation across four events and venues, starting Friday, Sept. 27—and concluding on Oct. 19 with the main event.
Delighted Disgust: ‘The Substance’ Skewers Beauty Standards in Impressive—If Disgusting—Ways
By Bob Grimm
September 23rd, 2024
The body-horror aspect of The Substance feels like a throwback to the extreme horror films of the ’80s and early ’90s. This is the craziest movie to get a major theatrical release in years.
A Good Start: The First Episode of HBO’s ‘The Penguin’ Shows Promise
By Bob Grimm
September 23rd, 2024
An unrecognizable Colin Farrell, buried in amazing makeup, reprises the role of the title character, aka Oz Cobb, that he played in The Batman.
More News
• From a Los Angeles County Department of Public Health news release: “The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is alerting residents and health care providers about a doubling in mpox cases, with 52 cases reported in Los Angeles County in the last four weeks, compared to 24 during the previous four-week period. Approximately 70% of new cases in the past six months were individuals who were not vaccinated.” The Riverside County mpox data webpage shows a small number of recent cases, too. Just FYI!
• The New York Times looks at the continued trend of books bans across the United States: “States and local governments are banning books at rates far higher than before the pandemic, according to preliminary data released by two advocacy groups on Monday. Books have been challenged and removed from schools and libraries for decades, but around 2021, these instances began to skyrocket, fanned by a network of conservative groups and the spread on social media of lists of titles some considered objectionable. Free speech advocates who track this issue say that in the past year, newly implemented state legislation has been a significant driver of challenges. PEN America, a free speech group that gathers information on banning from school board meetings, school districts, local media reports and other sources, said that over 10,000 books were removed, at least temporarily, from public schools in the 2023-24 school year. That’s almost three times as many removals as during the school year before.” Ugh.
• The Legislature passed a law that, if signed by the governor, would water down the vehicle lemon law. Our partners at Calmatters report: “Californians for the past 54 years have relied on the state’s ‘lemon law’ to fight back against car makers that sell them defective vehicles. Now, critics say Californians’ ability to recoup their money after buying a clunker could become more difficult, due to a hastily passed bill that lobbyists representing U.S. auto manufacturers and powerful attorneys groups drafted in secret. … The bill seeks to address a massive uptick in lemon law lawsuits clogging the state’s court system, but it started out earlier in the session as a measure dealing with child support. Then on August 20, with less than two weeks left in the session, the bill was stripped through the secretive ‘gut-and-amend’ process. Its language was replaced with a 4,200-word bill that seeks to reform how lemon law disputes are resolved. The bill is so complicated its legislative analysis, which lawmakers should read to fully understand a measure’s consequences, was more than 10,000 words.” I repeat: Ugh.
• Sort-of related to the plastic-bags issue: The state is suing Exxon Mobil Corp. for lying about plastics and recycling. The Los Angeles Times reports: “The lawsuit, filed Monday in San Francisco Superior Court, accuses Exxon Mobil of falsely promoting plastics as universally recyclable when, in fact, the vast majority of these products cannot be reused. Decades of misleading marketing in newspaper advertisements, social media posts, television commercials and public statements caused consumers to buy and use more single-use plastic than they would have otherwise, (Attorney General Rob) Bonta alleged. The lawsuit seeks to compel the oil giant to ‘end its deceptive practices’ about plastics recycling, and asks the court to order Exxon Mobil to establish an abatement fund and pay financial penalties ‘for the harm inflicted by plastics pollution upon California’s communities and the environment.’”
• Speaking of large companies doing terrible things, here’s a story from CNBC: “The Federal Trade Commission on Friday sued three large U.S. health companies that negotiate insulin prices, arguing the drug middlemen use practices that boost their profits while ‘artificially’ inflating costs for patients. The suit targets the three biggest so-called pharmacy benefit managers, UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Rx, CVS Health’s Caremark and Cigna’s Express Scripts. All are owned by or connected to health insurers and collectively administer about 80% of the nation’s prescriptions, according to the FTC. … A UnitedHealth spokesperson said the suit ‘demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of how drug pricing works,’ noting that Optum RX has ‘aggressively and successfully’ negotiated with drug manufacturers.”
• You will soon be able to give yourself a flu vaccine. CBS News explains: “The Food and Drug Administration announced Friday it had broadened the approval of the FluMist nasal spray to become the first ‘self-administered’ influenza vaccine — though a delay in the change means the vaccine will not be available to ship to homes until next year’s flu season at the earliest. … The FluMist vaccine, manufactured by AstraZeneca, had previously been approved back in 2003 to be given by health care providers similar to other flu shots. Now the vaccine-maker has approval to sell FluMist to adults for use at home on themselves or to administer to their children. The FDA says patients will still need to get a prescription for the vaccine from a health care provider.”
• And finally … Salesforce recently hired comedian John Mulaney to perform at their huge Dreamforce conference. And it would be an understatement to say Mulaney did not go easy on either Salesforce or the audience. The San Francisco Standard reports: “‘Let me get this straight,’ John Mulaney said. ‘You’re hosting a “future of AI” event in a city that has failed humanity so miserably?’ Everyone inside the auditorium at the Moscone Center groaned. Any notion that the award-winning comedian would play the corporate gig safe (and clean) were thrown out the window Thursday, when Mulaney, closing the Dreamforce festivities, started roasting his host, Salesforce, and the audience sitting right in front of him. ‘You look like a group who looked at the self-checkout counters at CVS and thought, “This is the future,”’ Mulaney said.”
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