Politicizing straws
- Thread starter td75
- Start date
Shop once per week and have been using the same two cardboard boxes for five years to bring the groceries home.
Estimate I prevented using six plastic bags per week for a total of 6,000 over the past five years.
Also wash the wife's plastic straw after each use. Have yet to tell her about this.
Drink my beer out of my favorite beer glass and recycle the aluminum cans for cash. Neighbors contribute their cans to my "retirement fund". Recycle operation sees me coming and allows me to use their commercial recycle high volume equipment. Tell my relatives about this, and they think I'm joking.
Gas stoves and straws.
We're really hitting the hard issues the last couple years.
We're really hitting the hard issues the last couple years.
If I ran a grocery store/chain I would just stop offering bags altogether. Only bag available are reusable ones for sale. And before anyone scoffs, think Aldi and Costco. Both are two of the fastest growing grocery chains and both high very high favoribility ratings from their customers. Neither offer plastic or paper bags(Aldi does sell paper bags).
I’d just crawl into the fetal position in the parking lot and wait for the sweet relief of death. ALDIs is one of the most horrible places I’ve ever been
You need to go mid day during the week. There and Target are MILF/Cougar Central.
Also nothing is worse that Costco on the weekend. Might as well just play Russian roulette at home. Same level of anxiety.
But did you know the straw was originally designed / invented for beer?
Because the beer was made in huge vats and you could drink directly from the vat, sunk into the dirt floor, with a super-long straw made from wood (or gold, if you were royalty).
~3000 BC
One added benefit is that you could stick your straw deeper into the vat and avoid consuming the collection of dead insects that were typically floating on top.
That used to be the attitude of smokers towards people who didn't smoke..
I really don't like straws. I'd rather just drink directly from the container. The problem now days is the make it difficult to recycle. There will be a few people who ruin every attempt to do something good. Personally, I know two places not too far from us that had recycling bins but of course people started dropping off their trash (mattresses, etc) and they just did away with them. If you get a trash collector to pick it up then you have to pay.
I buy paper straws at the grocery and they are just fine for anything but a smoothie.
Some people will
Politicize anything
And what always seemed obvious to me is that smoking policies shouldn't be left up to the smoker, the non-smoker, or the government trying to intervene between the two. It should be left up to property owners.
I always hated being in restaurants that had smoking. Bars too, although it was more expected there. I'm glad that doesn't happen much anymore. But it's really not the government's business.
They can say that it's about the health of other patrons or employees. But they're all presumably adult enough to make their own choice on that.
I'm pro-choice -- for straws (and lots of other things). I agree that it's ridiculous that straws have been politicized.
Hold on, wait a minute here.
When you say "plastic straws are terrible for the environment and paper straws are just fine for anything", what are you getting at? I get the you buy paper straws for yourself...which is fine, of course. But what is your position on other people buying (and selling) plastic ones?
capitalist here who believes you and I are free to buy or sell whatever is legal.
I wish people would move away from plastic straws (actually many things that are plastic and single use)
Politicizing straws is so ****ing dumb though.
but I thought my post was clear.
Not really. When people say something is bad for the environment, they often believe that sales should thus be restricted or outright prohibited (which, naturally, politicizes that thing).
Choosing to buy/sell X yourself or wishing that other people would buy/sell X is fine. But a line is crossed when that becomes advocacy for restricting others from buying/selling X.
I was just making sure.
Wait, now just hold on a minute...people are actually buying straws? At the store?
Cigarettes used to be in vending machines and over the counter with no age restrictions. In the 70s! Then we prohibited anyone under 18 from buying them, and anyone over 18 to read stark warning labels. For sound reasons.
Cocaine and heroin used to be legal, but then we prohibited EVERYONE from buying them. For sound reasons.
Lots of other examples. When there is a benefit, and costs-to-benefit analysis is sound, you implement restrictions.
Something being bad for the environment is not political, it is either a fact or incorrect.
No one would argue that plastic straws are not bad for the enviroment, so it is a fact.
Politicizing them (which has happened) was stupid.
My vote would be to get rid of them and we were on the right track, but as long as they are legal to sell, I am not going to try to stop anyone. Education is the best thing at this point. There are bigger issues out there.
The free market wiould determine smoking or non smoking in any establishment.
No brainer.
I'm on whichever side defends to the death plastic straws. Paper ones are terrible.
Yeah, when I switched from 220 to 221 it wasn't really worth it.I remember a few years ago when transformer efficiency standards were raised. To give you an idea how little they were raised, a dry-type 3φ 75 kVA transformer's efficiency went from 98.0% to 98.6%.
So...minimal increase, right? This nominal change increased the prices of transformers by as much as 20% -- and, of course, increased the amount of copper needed for the coils, weight, etc.
No restaurant owner was going to be first to ban even if they wanted to because they would lose business from smokers. The only way it was going to happen was for govt to step in.
The only choice non-smokers had was take the 2nd hand smoke or keep their rear at home 24/7.
Don’t be silly. Lots of restaurants already disallowed smoking when the bans became en vogue.
Must have been few and far between. Most had you walking through the smoking section in order to get to the non-smoking section. Like that made any sense.
HH has a point. There were a lot of restaurateurs who were scared to ban smoking. I know, because I worked for one, and knew others. My old boss hated smoking, with a passion. He offered a bonus to any employee who could quit for six months. But he didn't dare make his establishment non-smoking until we had no choice, because he was terrified of losing business. It's a small margin game, restaurants and bars. Can't afford to lose anyone.
It's awful hot in those months. Can we limit fighting to times when it is under 80 degrees?
TIA.
Nothing says modern America better than "Revolution, but only when it's convenient."
And I don't think the managers of a lot of restaurants were smart enough to realize they were also losing business by allowing smoking. I know we tried to always go to one where smoking wasn't allowed. There were a lot of restaurants around here that had already banned smoking but there were also a lot that hadn't. Smokers don't realize how it stinks.... it's like trying to eat in a fart hurricane. 🤣 Even now when we go for a walk in our neighborhood both my wife and I will say "someone is smoking or has just finished" because we can smell it,
The problem with a lot of things is that they try to push higher efficiency as saving the customer money and I don't think it does in a lot of cases. Sure, it saves on energy cost but you lose the savings when you have to repair the appliance. For example, the old furnaces were 80 to 85 percent efficient but they had a pilot light... not much to go wrong there. With the high efficient furnaces you have all sorts of sensors and gadgets and none are cheap. I've heard a control board for a furnace can cost up to $1000. I replaced the furnace draft inducer exhaust fan in our furnace about 3 years ago...over $300 for the part and then had to pay to have it installed.I remember a few years ago when transformer efficiency standards were raised. To give you an idea how little they were raised, a dry-type 3φ 75 kVA transformer's efficiency went from 98.0% to 98.6%.
So...minimal increase, right? This nominal change increased the prices of transformers by as much as 20% -- and, of course, increased the amount of copper needed for the coils, weight, etc.
Free market says otherwise.
Ban smoking, have decent food and people who don't want to smell like an ashtray choose you.
Once smokefree became the REQUIRED norm, we've all gotten used to it. These days when I'm near someone smoking I notice it immediately and get away. Back in the 80s it was just an inconvenience that you had to deal with every time you went out.
And so far I don't know of anyone who has died because they couldn't smoke while or immediately after eating.
