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Comment by adamio | Hacker News Reader

There's claims the plastic ban bag in San Diego led to a Hepatitis outbreak https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2017/sep/08/stringers-pl...

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This is a separate problem caused by not providing homeless people access to toilets. Seems obvious that the solution is more public restrooms not more plastic bags.

> Seems obvious that the solution is more public restrooms

While I agree, it's like saying wrt plastic bags in the ocean, "Seems obvious that the solution is less littering" or "Seems obvious the solution is biodegradable bags" etc, etc. It is just so much easier for people to change laws and affect everyone than target the specific problem.

In agree. Enact a laws to provide sufficient puplic restrooms and support for homeless people while also enacting changes to reduce plastic bag usage. My issue is with the implication that reducing plastic bags caused this. Not helping venerable people caused this, the need for plastic bags is a side effect.

Few typos due to using my phone: venerable should be vulnerable.

Two economists have claimed that the ban in San Francisco led to an increase in food-borne diseases. The proposed mechanism is that people don't wash their reusable bags, and dangerous bacteria gets onto them. It isn't clear to me how strong the evidence for this is.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/02/16/is-sa...

This is true, it's very unsanitary if you put unpackaged goods in there or get leaks.

Lots of stores also don't ask and give you a bag at whatever the locale's imposed fee is which they keep it, so there is an incentive to do this.

At the end of the day, the externality should not be captured by the store, but should be refunded back to the user with even distribution.

I’ve seen this also and have not seen any evidence to the contrary. Considering how damning this study is to plastic bag bans, I’m guessing this means there aren’t any studies that rebut these findings.

So we need studies now to tell you to occasionally clean the bags you put raw meat into?

That’s one way to interpret the results. Alternatively, the study shows that in the normal course of human behavior, plastic bag bans may have nontrivial negative health impacts.

Also, it shows that in considering the carbon footprint of reusable bags, we should factor in regular (not occasional) cleaning.

Considering that a reusable bag needs to be reused many (hundreds, if memory serves) of times before reaching carbon neutrality versus single use plastic bags, this is not necessarily a trivial impact.

Carbon neutrality is not the only metric by which we create these regulations. Nor should it be. Single-use bags introduce many externalities that are captured and controlled by imposing a minimal cost.

No one said it is the only metric. But it is a relevant one.

Very informative piece. Key excerpts:

"Homeless people learned long ago that pooping in plastic-bag-lined containers meant you could wrap the session up and dispose of all the stuff without touching it, he said in a long email. So when it got harder to get the bags after the ban went into effect late last year, it became harder to find the bags and people who were able to keep things clean had to work a lot harder."

"Hepatitis A is spread by contact with feces or blood of an infected person. It can be trace amounts and it can be months old"

Well, other developed countries don't have so many homeless people, so that should be less of a problem there.

> other developed countries don't have so many homeless people

Not true.

Here are per-night homeless statistics from UN:

China has 2.6 million Russia has 5 million Ukraine 1 million Germany 860,000 US has 554,000 ...

But more profoundely, by homeless ratio, the US is not even close.

Germany, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Canada, the UK, Australia, Sweden, Luxembourg, Croatia, Bosnia, Russia, Peru France, Austria, the Netherlands, China and Greece -- ALL have higher homeless ratios than the United States. The US is in 33rd place for overall worldwide homelessness as a percentage of the population.

The US seems to have a higher rate of people sleeping rough than any other country outside of, possibly, Sri Lanka.

Can you please link to "per-night homeless statistics from UN" source that you mentioned? I can't not find it through a little googling.

5 million figure for Russia for example appears on wikipedia [1] where it is cited from IB Times[2]. IB Times[2] cites Homeless World Cup[3] as the source. Homeless World Cup[3] cites the original IB Times[2] article as the source for the 5 million number! This was the first number I investigated and it already seems super suspect.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_... [2] http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/homeless-day-2014-new-york-manila-a... [3] https://homelessworldcup.org/homelessness-statistics/

If that's true, it would still be a lot less plastic if we gave free access to the homeless population.

Or just access to toilets. It's not like they want to poop in bags.

They have that.

They choose the plastic bags because the toilets are in disarray.

Or just access to well maintained public toilets.

Perhaps the homeless could be given jobs cleaning the toilets?

Fort Worth and Albuquerque give them jobs to clean up streets. In Fort Worth, they pay $10 per hour and provide housing. This would be similar - and a good idea, I think.

Would you personally pay this, or is it only a good idea if it’s someone else’s money?

I would happily contribute through taxes.

If you’re happy to contribute already, why bother with all that admin?

“I would love to spare some change, but my hands are tied until the corresponding bill passes the senate.”

As maym86 said, I'd be happy to contribute to the pool of resources that would allow something like this to be sustainable. Would you not?

>The city pays for it. The shelter runs it.

"It is a win-win," said Presbyterian Night Shelter CEO Toby Owen. "We want a clean neighborhood that speaks hope, that speaks dignity to our homeless guests. And it also provides income for these individuals so they can move out and be successful without living in a homeless shelter."

Last year, Clean Slate put 40 homeless people to work, Owen said. Approximately 3,856 tons of trash was collected by Clean Slate workers. And they don't just clean up trash on the street -- they also work as janitors for businesses.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Fort-Worth-Pays-Homeless-P...

There's a difference between paying a $10 hourly wage and contributing to a pool of resources.

I'm guessing my own contribution would be far less than $10 per hour if this were tax financed.

If you and I can agree to each pay $5/h, maybe let's start there and find other people who also want to pay? Wouldn't that be better?

Kind of an a-la-carte approach to civic responsibilities? I can envision ways in which it'd work, and people would feel better about it (in general) than they do taxes. It seems like something like this would work best at a local level, which would obviously apply to the particular example we're discussing. In theory, I'd be on board with it, as long as federal programs/taxes remained. If you found a way to implement it on a larger scale, I'd be surprised/impressed.

But why should it be surprising? So many people advocate for change just like you do; what mechanism could keep the idealism from being realizable?

They really don't. Trying to find a toilet you can use in downtown San Diego even as a regular looking person is a struggle and you will probably end up having to buy something. Businesses won't let you use their facilities if you look dirty or homeless, and there aren't any city owned bathrooms at least that I've seen in the 2 years I've been here so far.

Likewise in San Francisco. I like to take very long all-day or late night walks and bathrooms are very hard to come by. Sure as long as it’s daytime and I look presentable I can usually find a cafe/store that will let me use the bathroom, but after 9pm if I don’t happen to be near a hotel it’s often impossible for me to find a restroom. Many restaurants and convenience stores will say the bathroom is broken (even when it’s clearly not). Also it’s common to find places that physically block access to the restroom with boxes or whatever. Long story short, I’ve had to get used to peeing outside in shadows since it’s rarely possible to find bathrooms. I’m not sure what I’d do if I was female or needed to take a crap.

You're probably not looking in the right spots.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/hepatitis-crisis/sd...

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