Banning Plastic Bags & Weather Impacts
Banning Plastic Bags & Weather Impacts plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.
The northwest has been enjoying some relatively nice weather over the last few weeks unlike our neighbors in most of the rest of the U.S. where winter storms have been hammering residents and crops. Yet another weather system is expected over the Midwest. USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey looks at the impact.
RIPPEY: This week we’ve got another fairly substantial winter storm and it’s coming with another cold outbreak that just is not quite as strong, neither the storm nor the cold outbreak.
Oregon is a state that likes their green legislation and if a new bill is passed the question will be paper, plastic or bring your own bag? Passage of SB536 could lead other states to draft similar laws. . The bill would prohibit single-use plastic checkout bags at all retail stores. Retailers would have to charge 5 cents apiece for recycled paper bags, but be able to keep the money. That will drive up costs for retailers, who pay less than a penny apiece for plastic bags and 5 cents or more for paper bags. The grocer and general merchandise retailer Fred Meyer has already stopped handing out plastic bags at 10 stores around Portland to jump-start the transition
Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.
It was inevitable, anti-animal agriculture initiatives being proposed in most states due to the success of California’s Proposition 2, which focused on caged chickens. Washington is the newest target for such an initiative that would require all egg producers to meet HSUS standards for confined animal production. Trouble is the HSUS’s well masked approved standard actuality calls for the complete elimination of all animal agriculture. In the mean time, they will continue to take legislative “bites” out of the animal ag industry, bite by crippling bite, until such time as they feel they’ve dealt enough damaging blows with restrictive initiatives aimed at animal agriculture to make it worthwhile for them to move in for the kill. If you’re under the impression that this isn’t your concern or fight because you’re not an egg producer, farmer, or rancher, guess again. When the dust settles non-vegan and vegan alike will find themselves paying a high price for complacency towards such initiatives, beginning, but not ending with, their grocery bill. Don’t consider this someone else’s problem, it will most assuredly be everyone’s problem.
Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
