Sharks in the water

Congratulations.   In a few weeks, Thurston County will become the only county of Washington’s 39 counties, to ban plastic bags.

In addition, of the 200 and some cities in the state, only seven, most of them small, have adopted a plastic bag ban.  The exception of course is Seattle.

The countywide ban on plastic bags is helped by staff at the Thurston County Solid Waste office who have embraced the concept with ravishing delight.   They were helped in their efforts by a handful of Evergreen students glorious in their ignorance.

The ban will go into effect as soon as Thurston County Commissioners put it to approval by the major city councils in the county.

But, once the ban goes into effect, there will be another insignificant but powerful effort to ban food waste products.

That’s right – – food waste.

That’s what happened in Seattle once the plastic bag ban went into effect there.   Environmentalists went after food waste.    It’s now illegal in Seattle to throw out food.  All food must be separated from recyclable  products and regular garbage.   All food waste in Seattle must be composted.   Some garbage workers have refused to pick up a garbage can if it had food waste in it.

I know this is coming.   The recent publication from Thurston County Solid Waste had a full page on food composting and the evils of food waste.

I think about sharks in the water.  Once they’ve tasted blood they continue to circle in expectation of drawing more blood.

As long as county staff see their roles from serving the public to protecting the public from its own ignorance, it’s bound to happen.

The plastic bag ban was forced upon the cities by just a small group.

But, not all efforts to ban plastic products have succeeded.  It wasn’t too many years ago when plastic disposal diapers were the coming danger.   Remember – – they took up so much room in the land fills that we were running out of room to dump more garbage.  The main stream media jumped on the issue and it looked like plastic disposable diapers were going to be banned.

Then – – 40 million American moms jumped into the fray.   They wanted their plastic diapers – – and cities and states listened to them. Isn’t it great now,  that moms can buy plastic disposable diapers but they can’t carry them out of the store in a plastic bag.

Only a concerted effort on the part of Thurston County citizens can stop the sharks from tasting more blood.

You create big government – – by eating a piece of  individual freedoms a little at a time.