June 5, 2025 • 31 mins
On the second hour with Michael Brown: I hope your answer is zero when asked "How many bags would you like to purchase?" Because I don't want to buy any. What a crock this is.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Those dimes are matting up to millions of dollars going
into programs that are such bull crap. I mean, let
me just tell you. Let me let me give you
the five things that I found that the money goes to.
We started out with the first one, but let me
just go through the and I'll describe each of them separately.
(00:22):
Waste reduction in diversion program that you could drive. You
could drive one hundred Mac trucks through that title, that
could include anything you wanted it to. The next one's
even worse. Administrative and enforcement costs. Enforcement, what's we got
(00:49):
bag cops somewhere, What's what's well, I'll explain in a minute.
You love this one, the community education and outreach. I
know you just got a little tingle in your heart,
didn't you, Because when I said community education and outreach,
(01:13):
that language is probably orgasmic to you. I know.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Just try to calm down.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Calm down, you guys have been you've been taking my
advice and go when you're Rocky Mountain Men's Clumbing, And
all I do is just say the words of community
education and outreach, and you just get this one providing
reusable bags. And then because those four bull crap things
(01:39):
weren't enough? How about this one? Support for sustainable practices support?
You know, every single one of those. All I could
think about is I read through them was consultants and NGOs.
So this is like our little USAID program, except for
(02:01):
it's for plastic bags.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Don't you feel much better about it?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Now? I hope you know. I'm not trying to make
a criminal out of anybody, and I'm not trying to
hurt King Soupers or Safeway or anybody else for that matter.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
But I hope you really will look.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
At the question the next time you're out of King Soupers,
and if it says how many bags would you like
to purchase? I hope your answer is zero, because I
don't want to purchase any And now that I know,
having done this very superficial research, I realize that what
(02:49):
a crock this is. So we went through the waste
reduction into version program. I said, you know, Denver uses
it to reduce plastic waste through the Reused Denver program,
which which is trying to get restaurants to change the
way they give you your takeout. Well, then let's get
to the second one, Administrative and enforcement costs. So cities
(03:11):
and counties cover their costs associated with implementing and enforcing
the bag fee program. Now, how do they enforce it?
Audits and education. Let's go to the audits first. Are
you telling me, well, actually, they are telling me that
(03:34):
a municipality or a county is either hiring someone or
they're taking someone who's already doing something else and saying
here we go. You know, it's kind of like a
rod and I hear we're going to fire ten people,
we're gonna lay off ten people, and we're going to
(03:54):
increase your responsibilities twentyfold. Yeah, so that's kind of what
counties are doing. I'm sure sure this's what cities are doing.
They're saying to people, Hey, we need you to go
audit the king soupers over at such and such location
and see what they're doing with their money. Now, the
funny thing is they're allowed to keep forty percent of
(04:16):
the money and then they can use that money for administry.
They they can cook the books anyway they want to
to show that they're using the money for administrative costs.
So the audit is a joke. Or how about retailer education.
This is where we get so ripped off by the government.
(04:38):
Retailer education. What's that, Oh, we're gonna put We're gonna
hire some of our cronies to put together a program,
and then we're gonna pay them, you know, thousands of dollars,
millions of dollars to go around the state educating retailers
about the bank fee program and about how bad plastics are.
I would challenge you to get rid of all the
(04:59):
plastics in your life right now. If I got rid
of all the plastics or the petroleum based products that
I use in this studio, I'd be out naked, naked
out here yelling, just yelling into the end of the sky.
I can't do any of this program without petroleum based
or plastic products, community education and outreach.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I know you just had an orgasm again, Settle down.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Those funds are used to educate residents and businesses about
the environmental impact of disposable bags and to promote reusable
bag use. So everywhere you see anything that you know
tries to get you to buy reusable bags, or you know,
there's a PSA of public service announcement somewhere, whatever it
might be, you're paying for that, or the people that
(05:45):
pay for bags or paying for that, then get this
one providing reusable bags. I told you months ago or
when however long ago it was that I ran to
Walmart and I didn't have I don't keep although I
(06:08):
do now, you know, because I you know, I gave
that speech in Chicago a few it's probably been a
month or so ago now, and you know, as part
of the swag they always give you. I actually kept
the bag because it's it's a nice bag University Chicago,
you know, the Institute for Politics, and it's a nice bag.
So I threw it in the back of the beamer,
just so that if I ever need, you know, a
(06:30):
usable bag when I you know, when Tammer calls and says.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Hey, can you stop it be kings, supers and good something.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Well, okay, I got a bag. I won't get caught
like I did at Walmart, where I didn't want to
just take the card out to the car and just
dump everything in the car. I wanted back, so I
bought some of the cheap Walmart bags, and I think
there were like ninety nine cents apiece or something, and
of course two of them fell apart by the time
(06:55):
I got home. Well, listen to this, some cities like
use the revenue to purchase and hand out reusable bags
to community members, particularly through nonprofits or agencies serving low
income residents. All right, well, I'm sorry that you are
(07:21):
a community member, a nonprofit or any agency serving low
income residents. I'm sorry that you're a low income Why
should you get a reusable bag and not you? And
why do you get a reusable bag and not you?
(07:43):
We're all paying for it, shouldn't we all benefit from it?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You see?
Speaker 1 (07:48):
This is all about what government preferring certain groups of
people over other groups of people and providing certain benefits
that we all pay for two other groups of people
that don't pay for those benefits. So imagine this. Call
me cold hearted, but I just this is the example
(08:11):
that came to my mind. You're on food stamps, so
you taxpayers are already paying for your groceries. Now those
of you that pay the bag fee are now paying
to give the people that are getting free food, You're
paying to give them free bags. Where does it end?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
You know?
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I think we ought to have I think we ought
to and I know I'm going to get there. I
know I'll get the text messages that says quit saying
things like this, because you're giving the idiots of the
pollop ber, all those Marxists out there, you're giving them ideas.
I think we ought to increase the gas tax by
a couple of pennies and then take those pennies so
(08:57):
that the people that are on food stamps that also
get free bags, they ought to get free uber rides,
or they ought to get their Instacart fee or their
you know, their uber uh, their uber eats fee or
whatever they use to get their groceries, or you know,
to pay for a cab or an uber, a lyft
or whatever, so they can go get their free groceries
with it and put their free groceries in their free bags,
(09:19):
and then we can pay for that because it's free.
The unsane this country is, we've we've literally lost our
freaking minds. Oh but let me make it better. Some
of the money goes to support for sustainable practices. Some
of the revenue is used to fund events, events, and
(09:48):
and and or initiatives that promote waste reduction, such as
a reusable container program at community events. So you're you're
paying for someone to hold an event to then pass
out reusable containers at that event, anybody, anybody's still in
(10:15):
the thing for the bag fee. Having got to the
part about the impact on the environment, yes, Now, the
retailers that retained forty percent four cents per bag, they
use that to or they're supposed to use it to
offset compliance costs, including employee training. I think that's where
(10:39):
they pay the pimple faced kid teenager that's working the
self checkout to hover over you like the Gestapo, to
make sure that you know you. I told you the
day that I went to King Supers and I put
my University of Chicago reusable bag in the shopping cart,
and then it wouldn't let me check out because the
(11:00):
overhead cameras spying on me detected something was still in
my cart, my reusable bag, and I couldn't check out
until the pimple faced kid came over. And you know,
you know, I had a As I told you, we
had a conversation. What do you mean a camera is
detecting something's in my cart? It's my bag, and I
(11:22):
have to wait for you to finish talking to your
other pimple faced teenage friend until you can come over
to clear it so I can go ahead and check out.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
How about I just do like everybody else and just walk.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Out with my groceries. My time's more valuable than that.
If a city or a county doesn't have a remittance
process by which they distribute the money, guess what, then
the businesses that are collecting the ten cent bag can
keep the entire ten cents as long as they use
(11:56):
it for recycling, composting, wasted version or reusable bag distribution.
So they can keep the ten cents. Now they might
get audited. A what do you think the chances are
then getting audited? I doubt at all. You know something
I thought about as if this program really did reduce
(12:23):
bag consumption, isn't that like taxing cigarettes, and so you
have declining revenues Because if you have declining use of
plastic bags, or then people start using reusable bags, and
you have a reduction in the use of even the
paper bags that you can pay for or just say
(12:45):
that you don't want to pay for them, your tax
revenue starts to drop off. Well, if your tax revenue
starts to drop off, and this isn't I know it's
a fee, but you know it's a tax, then the
more effective it is, the less money you're going to
get so you won't be able to do the programs,
and it just becomes this vicious cycle. Now, the fee,
(13:11):
just so you know, does not apply to customers that
are engaged or enrolled in federal or state food assistance
programs like SNAP or EBT. And there are some towns
that prioritize distributing reusable bags to those low ing come
communities because they want to quote ensure equitable access. This
(13:38):
country's got on full board communists, and bags are an
example of it. Now, I delved a little bit into
the enforcement because I wanted to find out what are
they really doing to enforce the bag fee. Well, the
best I can find out is summed up in this sentence.
(14:01):
I wrote, enforcement seems to be reactive, relying on the
retailer's self reporting. And then there are some places like
Pueblo that actually described their enforcement as an honor system.
So that probably leads to underreporting of the fees in
(14:25):
some areas or maybe in all areas, Because if it's
an honor system or the enforcement is solely reactive, does
that mean there's some Karen somewhere that saw me walk
out without paying for some bags, and so they scream
at the manager, or they call the Department of Revenue,
who says, well, I don't have anything to do with it.
(14:46):
You got to call the county commissioners, or you got
to call the city council. So they call the city
manager's office and they bitch about we saw somebody walking
out of Kings Soopers without paying force the black Oh
my god, there's a Karen on the phone. So they
got to send somebody out to go check to see
if the King Scoopers is really collecting the bag V
or not. Other people's lives, spying on one another. This
(15:08):
thing is a total joke. So the lack of any
centralized state collection process system at all I found makes
it difficult to provide any sort of reliable state wide figure.
(15:29):
And then when you look at different municipalities, the reports
have all sorts of variabilities. So the revenue's environmental focus
is you know, oh, it's that's what color radens want, right, Oh,
that's why we voted for it. But when you go
back and you see some of the discussions around the
original bill, there was House built twenty five ten fifty one,
(15:53):
which was killed last February. There are people who are
arguing that the fee burdens consume and the retailers without
sufficient sufficient transparency on the monies that are being collected
and how they're being allocated. Well, isn't that interesting because
this past session of the Colorado Pollup Bureau seem to
(16:15):
be hell bent on reducing transparency and accountability, which is
why House Built twenty five ten to fifty one was
probably killed. And then you got all these environmental advocates
like eco cycle who emphasize that reduce bag usage and
revenue declines.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Well, that's a sign of success.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
But when you don't have uniform remittence systems across cities
and counties, then you have no insight. You have inefficiency,
inefficiencies in the use of these moneies, and you certainly
have inconsistency in the use of the moneies. So where
(17:01):
does that leave us. What's been the effect? What's the
effect of the bag feet? Has it really done anything?
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Well?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Maybe it has, but is it meaningful? I went onto Amazon,
you can buy you know, a bazillion of them for
you know, nine ninety nine or something, and we and.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
We keep them in our front closet too.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, So let's go back to this whole thing was
designed to reduce waste. I can quantify the number of bags,
but I can't quantify whether or not it's really had
an overall impact, primarily because of guys like you and me.
(17:52):
They do exactly what I'm talking about. So trying to
quantify the effect the ten cent bag fee, the ten
cent bag tax, which remember is waste reduction, reusable bag distribution, education,
and retailer administrative costs. Because it's decentralized, you really can't
(18:15):
find much out you can get.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Well, let's go to Denver for example.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Denver reported an estimated reduction of five million disposable bags
annually since they started their bag feeback in twenty twenty one,
and then they claim further reductions following the plastic bag
ban in twenty twenty four. Boulder Boulder claim says they
(18:46):
saw a seventy percent reduction in plastic bag use immediately
after the twenty thirteen bag fee ordinance they passed, but
they also point out that the trend is leveled off statewide.
An estimated four point six million single use plastic bags
were used daily before the fee. And then you take
(19:09):
the best example. Fort Collins reported it an eighty five
percent reduction indisposable bag use after local fees. Now, I
can't verify the veracity of those stats. That's just what
you can find online. But there's zero comprehensive statewide data
(19:29):
but Eco Cycle, But remember eco Cycle is an environmental
advocacy group. They suggest that there have been significant declines
in disposable bag use, but they don't quantify it. They
do say that, look, if you look at the remittance fees,
the fees that are paid in for example, you know,
(19:53):
Denver and Grand Junction, those fees have dropped down. I'm
going to avoid the numbers right now, but the fact
that the number, the dollar amount has dropped, they say
that indicates that fewer bags are used. And they claim
that fewer bags are used because we're shifting to usable options.
(20:17):
But I don't know that you can make that claim
because there's no statewide baseline, there's no post fee waste
reduction data to quantify the total impact, and trying to
attribute their you know, the reduction in the dollar amount
(20:38):
collected is tricky because obvious consumer consumer behavior is going
to change, and it's going to change as people make
choices about what they're going to do. Are they going
to go buy bags, because we're going to get to
a point in a minute that if if you're buying
(21:01):
reusable bags, your carbon footprint may actually be greater than
you just using the plastic bags that were at one
time available at the grocery store. In fact, let's let's
let's let's skip. I want to skip. I got stuff
(21:21):
here about No, I do want to talk about this
for a minute. The retailer costs, So, as I said,
retailers get to keep forty percent of the bag fee
to cover their compliance costs. Using Denver's twenty twenty four
collection of about seven hundred thousand dollars, that means Denver
retained almost half a million dollars now statewide, if all
(21:46):
cities and counties collected somewhere between five and ten million
dollars annually, and that's a rough estimate based on Denver, Aurora,
and Pueblo, So taking you know, some of the greatest
and the smallest, that means that retailers could be retaining
somewhere between three and a half and six and a
half million dollars. Now, if you're a small retailer and
(22:10):
you collect less than twenty dollars per quarter, you can
keep one hundred percent of your fees, so that just
goes to your bottom line. And considering that there's very
little audit, you could which probably accounts for a lot
of the text messages that I'm getting that say hey
in my community in ads or Kayawa or some of
(22:33):
these other small communities, you can still get plastic bags
at the store, and in fact some of the stores
just use plastic bags. Well that's because the whole compliance
issue and audit is a total joke. This is all
based on remember the honor system.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Well, if you're a.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Small retailer, you know, out on the eastern plane somewhere,
or way down in the you know, far out on
the western slope, you don't give a rat.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
That's about this.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
You're going to do what your customers want, and you're
going to do And in fact, you may still be
trying to get rid of all the bags you had
an inventory, or you may have a contract to provide
certain amount of bags.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
So go back to eco cycle for a minute.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
They claim that the retailers save money by purchasing fewer
disposable bags and that offsets their compliance costs.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
But wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
You take a retailer like King Soupers, they know in
order to provide the kind of I mean, imagine King
Soupers not providing any bags. How long would you continue
going to King Soupers if you walk in because you know,
your spouse, your partner, or you yourself on your way
(23:55):
home from work realize, oh, I got to pick up
and you realize you got to pick up twelve thirteen,
fourteen things, not a lot. You're not doing serious grocery shopping,
but there's a dozen things you gotta pick up. And
you go to the checkout, self checkout or regular checkout,
I don't care, and there are zero bags at all,
which means you got to push. You gotta take the car.
(24:16):
That these are first world problems. You gotta take the
car all the way out to the to your car,
and then you just throw everything in your trunk or
in your back seat, and then you know, when you
try to get back on the highway, you know, some
idiot that's driving in the left lane is gonna slam
on their brakes and you're gonna slam on your brakes
and everything's going to go flying.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
And if you'd had a bag do it and had
a problem I think it's just.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
This whole thing is another I'd get a story I
eventually want to get to about how North Korea controls
the flow of information. Well, what's really different between North
Korea controlling the flow of information and the marks the
communists in the Colorado Pollup Bureau trying to control how
you get your groceries home. I mean, they may be
(25:07):
two entirely separate things, but the concept is exactly the same.
Control your behavior, you know what, Leave me the e falone.
I'll do what I want to do. But if if
(25:28):
you claim that there are fewer bags in the landfill,
then you can claim that, oh, it's been effective. But
does fewer bags in the landfill really accomplish the goal
of plastic waste reduction, which is a component of trying
(25:54):
to get to net zero, trying to reduce carbon emissions,
because I would argue that it does not. The lack
of evidence, statewide, inconsistent enforcement, there's really no precise quantification
that I can give you, but some available evidence suggests
to FEE advances environmental goals. In fact, when you look
(26:18):
at some of the articles that I looked at, that's
their claim, Oh, this is advancing our environmental goals, particularly
when it comes to waste reduction. If you check municipal
websites like Denver gov dot org or Boulder, Colorado dot
gov or ecocycle dot org, they'll claim, oh, all of
(26:38):
this reduction is all helping the environment. Is it really
doing that? Because when you get to the idea that,
h what are the carbon emissions? Maybe it's not there.
That's next. Have you ever thought about the carbon foot
(27:00):
of a plastic bag versus the carbon foot print of
a paper bag? Based on the EPA and the Danish
Environmental Protection Agency from a twenty eighteen study. Let's talk
about production producing. Well, first of all, let's just see
go to raw materials, which is basically hdpes, which is
(27:24):
a petroleum based component that is a half to seven
tenths of a kilogram of CO two of plastic. The
manufacturing process extrusion molding is one to one and a
half kilograms of CO two, So the total four and
(27:48):
eight gram bag is zero point zero zero eight kilograms
times one point five to two point two kilograms a
CO two comes out to twelve hundreds or between twelve
hundreds and seventeen hundreds of CO two per bag. Now,
(28:09):
that's just production. Then you get to the transportation of
the bag, because that you know, someone produces the bags
in Poughkeepsie and then they have to distribute it out
to all the warehouses. Minimal because most HDPE bags are
produced domestically. Assume zero point zero zero one kilograms of
CO two per bag, and then base that on one
(28:32):
hundred kilometers of transport. You get zero point one kilograms
of CO two per ton per kilometer. It's love CO
two when you're trying to get to that zero and
then use. Now, really, when you think about just the
use of the bag, that's negligible emissions because there's really
(28:55):
no energy used except for yourself in actually carrying the bag.
But then you get to the end of the life bag. Now,
we always at least double, if not triple used our
our plastic bags. But let's just assume single use. A
(29:16):
landfill accounted for seventy percent of the end of life
of most plastic bags. An HDPE degrades slowly and it
releases methane about zero point zero zero two kilograms of
CO two. Recycling is interesting because recycling is actually almost
(29:41):
double that of just a landfill. Twenty percent of bags
were recycled and because it's so energy intensive, but it
does offset obviously virgin plastic. But it's approximately zero point
zero zero one kilograms of CO two. Now, remember the
landfill is zero point zero zero two kilograms of CO two,
(30:04):
so it's actually higher for recycling. Incineration is off the charts,
which is counted for about ten percent. Zero point zero
zero eight kilograms times three point zero kilograms of CO two.
For the incineration you get up to zero point zero
two four kilograms of CO two. So the way that
(30:27):
average point zero zero two times zero point seven plus
point zero zero one times zero point two plus point
zero two four times point one, you get an average
of point zero zero three kilograms of CO two. So
(30:49):
the total carbon footprint production, transport, everything comes out to
point zero one six two, approximately point zero two one
six kilograms of CO two per bag.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
The average point.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Zero one nine kilograms of CO two, So remember that
number point zero one nine kilograms of CO two per
plastic bag. Now, before we get to the next story
after the break, I want to give you the carbon
footprint of a paper bag. Remember zero point zero one
(31:33):
nine kilograms of CO two were plastic
Those dimes are matting up to millions of dollars going
into programs that are such bull crap. I mean, let
me just tell you. Let me let me give you
the five things that I found that the money goes to.
We started out with the first one, but let me
just go through the and I'll describe each of them separately.
(00:22):
Waste reduction in diversion program that you could drive. You
could drive one hundred Mac trucks through that title, that
could include anything you wanted it to. The next one's
even worse. Administrative and enforcement costs. Enforcement, what's we got
(00:49):
bag cops somewhere, What's what's well, I'll explain in a minute.
You love this one, the community education and outreach. I
know you just got a little tingle in your heart,
didn't you, Because when I said community education and outreach,
(01:13):
that language is probably orgasmic to you. I know.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Just try to calm down.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Calm down, you guys have been you've been taking my
advice and go when you're Rocky Mountain Men's Clumbing, And
all I do is just say the words of community
education and outreach, and you just get this one providing
reusable bags. And then because those four bull crap things
(01:39):
weren't enough? How about this one? Support for sustainable practices support?
You know, every single one of those. All I could
think about is I read through them was consultants and NGOs.
So this is like our little USAID program, except for
(02:01):
it's for plastic bags.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Don't you feel much better about it?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Now? I hope you know. I'm not trying to make
a criminal out of anybody, and I'm not trying to
hurt King Soupers or Safeway or anybody else for that matter.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
But I hope you really will look.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
At the question the next time you're out of King Soupers,
and if it says how many bags would you like
to purchase? I hope your answer is zero, because I
don't want to purchase any And now that I know,
having done this very superficial research, I realize that what
(02:49):
a crock this is. So we went through the waste
reduction into version program. I said, you know, Denver uses
it to reduce plastic waste through the Reused Denver program,
which which is trying to get restaurants to change the
way they give you your takeout. Well, then let's get
to the second one, Administrative and enforcement costs. So cities
(03:11):
and counties cover their costs associated with implementing and enforcing
the bag fee program. Now, how do they enforce it?
Audits and education. Let's go to the audits first. Are
you telling me, well, actually, they are telling me that
(03:34):
a municipality or a county is either hiring someone or
they're taking someone who's already doing something else and saying
here we go. You know, it's kind of like a
rod and I hear we're going to fire ten people,
we're gonna lay off ten people, and we're going to
(03:54):
increase your responsibilities twentyfold. Yeah, so that's kind of what
counties are doing. I'm sure sure this's what cities are doing.
They're saying to people, Hey, we need you to go
audit the king soupers over at such and such location
and see what they're doing with their money. Now, the
funny thing is they're allowed to keep forty percent of
(04:16):
the money and then they can use that money for administry.
They they can cook the books anyway they want to
to show that they're using the money for administrative costs.
So the audit is a joke. Or how about retailer education.
This is where we get so ripped off by the government.
(04:38):
Retailer education. What's that, Oh, we're gonna put We're gonna
hire some of our cronies to put together a program,
and then we're gonna pay them, you know, thousands of dollars,
millions of dollars to go around the state educating retailers
about the bank fee program and about how bad plastics are.
I would challenge you to get rid of all the
(04:59):
plastics in your life right now. If I got rid
of all the plastics or the petroleum based products that
I use in this studio, I'd be out naked, naked
out here yelling, just yelling into the end of the sky.
I can't do any of this program without petroleum based
or plastic products, community education and outreach.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I know you just had an orgasm again, Settle down.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Those funds are used to educate residents and businesses about
the environmental impact of disposable bags and to promote reusable
bag use. So everywhere you see anything that you know
tries to get you to buy reusable bags, or you know,
there's a PSA of public service announcement somewhere, whatever it
might be, you're paying for that, or the people that
(05:45):
pay for bags or paying for that, then get this
one providing reusable bags. I told you months ago or
when however long ago it was that I ran to
Walmart and I didn't have I don't keep although I
(06:08):
do now, you know, because I you know, I gave
that speech in Chicago a few it's probably been a
month or so ago now, and you know, as part
of the swag they always give you. I actually kept
the bag because it's it's a nice bag University Chicago,
you know, the Institute for Politics, and it's a nice bag.
So I threw it in the back of the beamer,
just so that if I ever need, you know, a
(06:30):
usable bag when I you know, when Tammer calls and says.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Hey, can you stop it be kings, supers and good something.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Well, okay, I got a bag. I won't get caught
like I did at Walmart, where I didn't want to
just take the card out to the car and just
dump everything in the car. I wanted back, so I
bought some of the cheap Walmart bags, and I think
there were like ninety nine cents apiece or something, and
of course two of them fell apart by the time
(06:55):
I got home. Well, listen to this, some cities like
use the revenue to purchase and hand out reusable bags
to community members, particularly through nonprofits or agencies serving low
income residents. All right, well, I'm sorry that you are
(07:21):
a community member, a nonprofit or any agency serving low
income residents. I'm sorry that you're a low income Why
should you get a reusable bag and not you? And
why do you get a reusable bag and not you?
(07:43):
We're all paying for it, shouldn't we all benefit from it?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You see?
Speaker 1 (07:48):
This is all about what government preferring certain groups of
people over other groups of people and providing certain benefits
that we all pay for two other groups of people
that don't pay for those benefits. So imagine this. Call
me cold hearted, but I just this is the example
(08:11):
that came to my mind. You're on food stamps, so
you taxpayers are already paying for your groceries. Now those
of you that pay the bag fee are now paying
to give the people that are getting free food, You're
paying to give them free bags. Where does it end?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
You know?
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I think we ought to have I think we ought
to and I know I'm going to get there. I
know I'll get the text messages that says quit saying
things like this, because you're giving the idiots of the
pollop ber, all those Marxists out there, you're giving them ideas.
I think we ought to increase the gas tax by
a couple of pennies and then take those pennies so
(08:57):
that the people that are on food stamps that also
get free bags, they ought to get free uber rides,
or they ought to get their Instacart fee or their
you know, their uber uh, their uber eats fee or
whatever they use to get their groceries, or you know,
to pay for a cab or an uber, a lyft
or whatever, so they can go get their free groceries
with it and put their free groceries in their free bags,
(09:19):
and then we can pay for that because it's free.
The unsane this country is, we've we've literally lost our
freaking minds. Oh but let me make it better. Some
of the money goes to support for sustainable practices. Some
of the revenue is used to fund events, events, and
(09:48):
and and or initiatives that promote waste reduction, such as
a reusable container program at community events. So you're you're
paying for someone to hold an event to then pass
out reusable containers at that event, anybody, anybody's still in
(10:15):
the thing for the bag fee. Having got to the
part about the impact on the environment, yes, Now, the
retailers that retained forty percent four cents per bag, they
use that to or they're supposed to use it to
offset compliance costs, including employee training. I think that's where
(10:39):
they pay the pimple faced kid teenager that's working the
self checkout to hover over you like the Gestapo, to
make sure that you know you. I told you the
day that I went to King Supers and I put
my University of Chicago reusable bag in the shopping cart,
and then it wouldn't let me check out because the
(11:00):
overhead cameras spying on me detected something was still in
my cart, my reusable bag, and I couldn't check out
until the pimple faced kid came over. And you know,
you know, I had a As I told you, we
had a conversation. What do you mean a camera is
detecting something's in my cart? It's my bag, and I
(11:22):
have to wait for you to finish talking to your
other pimple faced teenage friend until you can come over
to clear it so I can go ahead and check out.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
How about I just do like everybody else and just walk.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Out with my groceries. My time's more valuable than that.
If a city or a county doesn't have a remittance
process by which they distribute the money, guess what, then
the businesses that are collecting the ten cent bag can
keep the entire ten cents as long as they use
(11:56):
it for recycling, composting, wasted version or reusable bag distribution.
So they can keep the ten cents. Now they might
get audited. A what do you think the chances are
then getting audited? I doubt at all. You know something
I thought about as if this program really did reduce
(12:23):
bag consumption, isn't that like taxing cigarettes, and so you
have declining revenues Because if you have declining use of
plastic bags, or then people start using reusable bags, and
you have a reduction in the use of even the
paper bags that you can pay for or just say
(12:45):
that you don't want to pay for them, your tax
revenue starts to drop off. Well, if your tax revenue
starts to drop off, and this isn't I know it's
a fee, but you know it's a tax, then the
more effective it is, the less money you're going to
get so you won't be able to do the programs,
and it just becomes this vicious cycle. Now, the fee,
(13:11):
just so you know, does not apply to customers that
are engaged or enrolled in federal or state food assistance
programs like SNAP or EBT. And there are some towns
that prioritize distributing reusable bags to those low ing come
communities because they want to quote ensure equitable access. This
(13:38):
country's got on full board communists, and bags are an
example of it. Now, I delved a little bit into
the enforcement because I wanted to find out what are
they really doing to enforce the bag fee. Well, the
best I can find out is summed up in this sentence.
(14:01):
I wrote, enforcement seems to be reactive, relying on the
retailer's self reporting. And then there are some places like
Pueblo that actually described their enforcement as an honor system.
So that probably leads to underreporting of the fees in
(14:25):
some areas or maybe in all areas, Because if it's
an honor system or the enforcement is solely reactive, does
that mean there's some Karen somewhere that saw me walk
out without paying for some bags, and so they scream
at the manager, or they call the Department of Revenue,
who says, well, I don't have anything to do with it.
(14:46):
You got to call the county commissioners, or you got
to call the city council. So they call the city
manager's office and they bitch about we saw somebody walking
out of Kings Soopers without paying force the black Oh
my god, there's a Karen on the phone. So they
got to send somebody out to go check to see
if the King Scoopers is really collecting the bag V
or not. Other people's lives, spying on one another. This
(15:08):
thing is a total joke. So the lack of any
centralized state collection process system at all I found makes
it difficult to provide any sort of reliable state wide figure.
(15:29):
And then when you look at different municipalities, the reports
have all sorts of variabilities. So the revenue's environmental focus
is you know, oh, it's that's what color radens want, right, Oh,
that's why we voted for it. But when you go
back and you see some of the discussions around the
original bill, there was House built twenty five ten fifty one,
(15:53):
which was killed last February. There are people who are
arguing that the fee burdens consume and the retailers without
sufficient sufficient transparency on the monies that are being collected
and how they're being allocated. Well, isn't that interesting because
this past session of the Colorado Pollup Bureau seem to
(16:15):
be hell bent on reducing transparency and accountability, which is
why House Built twenty five ten to fifty one was
probably killed. And then you got all these environmental advocates
like eco cycle who emphasize that reduce bag usage and
revenue declines.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Well, that's a sign of success.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
But when you don't have uniform remittence systems across cities
and counties, then you have no insight. You have inefficiency,
inefficiencies in the use of these moneies, and you certainly
have inconsistency in the use of the moneies. So where
(17:01):
does that leave us. What's been the effect? What's the
effect of the bag feet? Has it really done anything?
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Well?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Maybe it has, but is it meaningful? I went onto Amazon,
you can buy you know, a bazillion of them for
you know, nine ninety nine or something, and we and.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
We keep them in our front closet too.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, So let's go back to this whole thing was
designed to reduce waste. I can quantify the number of bags,
but I can't quantify whether or not it's really had
an overall impact, primarily because of guys like you and me.
(17:52):
They do exactly what I'm talking about. So trying to
quantify the effect the ten cent bag fee, the ten
cent bag tax, which remember is waste reduction, reusable bag distribution, education,
and retailer administrative costs. Because it's decentralized, you really can't
(18:15):
find much out you can get.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Well, let's go to Denver for example.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Denver reported an estimated reduction of five million disposable bags
annually since they started their bag feeback in twenty twenty one,
and then they claim further reductions following the plastic bag
ban in twenty twenty four. Boulder Boulder claim says they
(18:46):
saw a seventy percent reduction in plastic bag use immediately
after the twenty thirteen bag fee ordinance they passed, but
they also point out that the trend is leveled off statewide.
An estimated four point six million single use plastic bags
were used daily before the fee. And then you take
(19:09):
the best example. Fort Collins reported it an eighty five
percent reduction indisposable bag use after local fees. Now, I
can't verify the veracity of those stats. That's just what
you can find online. But there's zero comprehensive statewide data
(19:29):
but Eco Cycle, But remember eco Cycle is an environmental
advocacy group. They suggest that there have been significant declines
in disposable bag use, but they don't quantify it. They
do say that, look, if you look at the remittance fees,
the fees that are paid in for example, you know,
(19:53):
Denver and Grand Junction, those fees have dropped down. I'm
going to avoid the numbers right now, but the fact
that the number, the dollar amount has dropped, they say
that indicates that fewer bags are used. And they claim
that fewer bags are used because we're shifting to usable options.
(20:17):
But I don't know that you can make that claim
because there's no statewide baseline, there's no post fee waste
reduction data to quantify the total impact, and trying to
attribute their you know, the reduction in the dollar amount
(20:38):
collected is tricky because obvious consumer consumer behavior is going
to change, and it's going to change as people make
choices about what they're going to do. Are they going
to go buy bags, because we're going to get to
a point in a minute that if if you're buying
(21:01):
reusable bags, your carbon footprint may actually be greater than
you just using the plastic bags that were at one
time available at the grocery store. In fact, let's let's
let's let's skip. I want to skip. I got stuff
(21:21):
here about No, I do want to talk about this
for a minute. The retailer costs, So, as I said,
retailers get to keep forty percent of the bag fee
to cover their compliance costs. Using Denver's twenty twenty four
collection of about seven hundred thousand dollars, that means Denver
retained almost half a million dollars now statewide, if all
(21:46):
cities and counties collected somewhere between five and ten million
dollars annually, and that's a rough estimate based on Denver, Aurora,
and Pueblo, So taking you know, some of the greatest
and the smallest, that means that retailers could be retaining
somewhere between three and a half and six and a
half million dollars. Now, if you're a small retailer and
(22:10):
you collect less than twenty dollars per quarter, you can
keep one hundred percent of your fees, so that just
goes to your bottom line. And considering that there's very
little audit, you could which probably accounts for a lot
of the text messages that I'm getting that say hey
in my community in ads or Kayawa or some of
(22:33):
these other small communities, you can still get plastic bags
at the store, and in fact some of the stores
just use plastic bags. Well that's because the whole compliance
issue and audit is a total joke. This is all
based on remember the honor system.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Well, if you're a.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Small retailer, you know, out on the eastern plane somewhere,
or way down in the you know, far out on
the western slope, you don't give a rat.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
That's about this.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
You're going to do what your customers want, and you're
going to do And in fact, you may still be
trying to get rid of all the bags you had
an inventory, or you may have a contract to provide
certain amount of bags.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
So go back to eco cycle for a minute.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
They claim that the retailers save money by purchasing fewer
disposable bags and that offsets their compliance costs.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
But wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
You take a retailer like King Soupers, they know in
order to provide the kind of I mean, imagine King
Soupers not providing any bags. How long would you continue
going to King Soupers if you walk in because you know,
your spouse, your partner, or you yourself on your way
(23:55):
home from work realize, oh, I got to pick up
and you realize you got to pick up twelve thirteen,
fourteen things, not a lot. You're not doing serious grocery shopping,
but there's a dozen things you gotta pick up. And
you go to the checkout, self checkout or regular checkout,
I don't care, and there are zero bags at all,
which means you got to push. You gotta take the car.
(24:16):
That these are first world problems. You gotta take the
car all the way out to the to your car,
and then you just throw everything in your trunk or
in your back seat, and then you know, when you
try to get back on the highway, you know, some
idiot that's driving in the left lane is gonna slam
on their brakes and you're gonna slam on your brakes
and everything's going to go flying.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
And if you'd had a bag do it and had
a problem I think it's just.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
This whole thing is another I'd get a story I
eventually want to get to about how North Korea controls
the flow of information. Well, what's really different between North
Korea controlling the flow of information and the marks the
communists in the Colorado Pollup Bureau trying to control how
you get your groceries home. I mean, they may be
(25:07):
two entirely separate things, but the concept is exactly the same.
Control your behavior, you know what, Leave me the e falone.
I'll do what I want to do. But if if
(25:28):
you claim that there are fewer bags in the landfill,
then you can claim that, oh, it's been effective. But
does fewer bags in the landfill really accomplish the goal
of plastic waste reduction, which is a component of trying
(25:54):
to get to net zero, trying to reduce carbon emissions,
because I would argue that it does not. The lack
of evidence, statewide, inconsistent enforcement, there's really no precise quantification
that I can give you, but some available evidence suggests
to FEE advances environmental goals. In fact, when you look
(26:18):
at some of the articles that I looked at, that's
their claim, Oh, this is advancing our environmental goals, particularly
when it comes to waste reduction. If you check municipal
websites like Denver gov dot org or Boulder, Colorado dot
gov or ecocycle dot org, they'll claim, oh, all of
(26:38):
this reduction is all helping the environment. Is it really
doing that? Because when you get to the idea that,
h what are the carbon emissions? Maybe it's not there.
That's next. Have you ever thought about the carbon foot
(27:00):
of a plastic bag versus the carbon foot print of
a paper bag? Based on the EPA and the Danish
Environmental Protection Agency from a twenty eighteen study. Let's talk
about production producing. Well, first of all, let's just see
go to raw materials, which is basically hdpes, which is
(27:24):
a petroleum based component that is a half to seven
tenths of a kilogram of CO two of plastic. The
manufacturing process extrusion molding is one to one and a
half kilograms of CO two, So the total four and
(27:48):
eight gram bag is zero point zero zero eight kilograms
times one point five to two point two kilograms a
CO two comes out to twelve hundreds or between twelve
hundreds and seventeen hundreds of CO two per bag. Now,
(28:09):
that's just production. Then you get to the transportation of
the bag, because that you know, someone produces the bags
in Poughkeepsie and then they have to distribute it out
to all the warehouses. Minimal because most HDPE bags are
produced domestically. Assume zero point zero zero one kilograms of
CO two per bag, and then base that on one
(28:32):
hundred kilometers of transport. You get zero point one kilograms
of CO two per ton per kilometer. It's love CO
two when you're trying to get to that zero and
then use. Now, really, when you think about just the
use of the bag, that's negligible emissions because there's really
(28:55):
no energy used except for yourself in actually carrying the bag.
But then you get to the end of the life bag. Now,
we always at least double, if not triple used our
our plastic bags. But let's just assume single use. A
(29:16):
landfill accounted for seventy percent of the end of life
of most plastic bags. An HDPE degrades slowly and it
releases methane about zero point zero zero two kilograms of
CO two. Recycling is interesting because recycling is actually almost
(29:41):
double that of just a landfill. Twenty percent of bags
were recycled and because it's so energy intensive, but it
does offset obviously virgin plastic. But it's approximately zero point
zero zero one kilograms of CO two. Now, remember the
landfill is zero point zero zero two kilograms of CO two,
(30:04):
so it's actually higher for recycling. Incineration is off the charts,
which is counted for about ten percent. Zero point zero
zero eight kilograms times three point zero kilograms of CO two.
For the incineration you get up to zero point zero
two four kilograms of CO two. So the way that
(30:27):
average point zero zero two times zero point seven plus
point zero zero one times zero point two plus point
zero two four times point one, you get an average
of point zero zero three kilograms of CO two. So
(30:49):
the total carbon footprint production, transport, everything comes out to
point zero one six two, approximately point zero two one
six kilograms of CO two per bag.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
The average point.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Zero one nine kilograms of CO two, So remember that
number point zero one nine kilograms of CO two per
plastic bag. Now, before we get to the next story
after the break, I want to give you the carbon
footprint of a paper bag. Remember zero point zero one
(31:33):
nine kilograms of CO two were plastic
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