Banning free plastic bags for groceries resulted in customer purchasing more plastic bags, study finds. Significantly, the behaviors spurred by the plastic bag rules continued after the rules were no longer in place. And some impacts were not beneficial to the environment.
Posted by Anen-o-me@reddit | Libertarian | View on Reddit | 19 comments
SKI_K2@reddit
I used to use plastic grocery bags to pick up my dog’s poop in our yard/on walks. Now that we switched to reusable shopping bags, we have to purchase rolls of plastic dog poop bags from Amazon. Go figure!
And yes, I understand there are recycled/compostable bags for dog poop available too. Even if I personally switched to those, we all know not EVERYONE would, so the unintended consequence of the plastic bag ban still exist.
EGarrett@reddit
I don't know what the compostable bags are made of, but there's no way I'm picking up dog poop with a paper bag.
Susbirder@reddit
That's the thing. The things they call "single use" are often being reused and repurposed for things like trash cans and poop cleanup. But the dedicated bags for trash and dogs are definitely single use, and they are less liable to biodegrade than the grocery bags.
Susbirder@reddit
My state (CT) phased in a plastic bag ban, and during that time, they mandated a 10 cent per bag surcharge. Guess what? Now that we're all forced to use crappy paper bags (unless we provide our own)...the 10 cent surcharge is still in place.
gonets34@reddit
I wish we could still use paper bags in NJ. They outlawed those when they outlawed plastic bags.
I get that plastic is bad for the environment but paper is a natural/compostable material. And you can always plant more trees. Now I have to use the reusable bags which get dirty and are still made of cloth/plastic/fiber and will eventually end up in a landfill anyway.
EGarrett@reddit
This is one of the reasons why I left New Jersey (that and too many damn snowstorms).
cluskillz@reddit
Those reusable cloth bags are very resource intensive to manufacture (compared to the thin plastic ones). I seem to recall a statistic that says you need to use the cloth bags a bit over a hundred times in order to offset the damage of the original manufacture compared to "single use" plastic bags (I guess if you reuse the plastic bags for other purposes, multiply that by the number of times you use the plastic bags). I'm guessing that on average, those bags don't get used that many times.
gonets34@reddit
I think you're right. I always reused the plastic bags too. And frankly I wouldn't even mind using paper but banning both paper and plastic is ridiculous
cluskillz@reddit
Yeah, we've always reused the plastic bags for lining wastebaskets or carrying items back and forth following its initial use. Thing about paper bags is that it's substantially heavier than plastic, so the emissions from shipping paper bags vs the plastic bags is far higher. It doesn't seem like that gets factored into the calculus for most environmentalists, either. I did bring this up once to a pro-ban person, and I got a hand-wave, saying that they think plastic litter is more important than emissions (in the back of my head, I was thinking, yeah, I'd bet money that you're one of those that claim the world is going to end due to climate change).
diderooy@reddit
Can't you bring your own reusable bags?
doitstuart@reddit
New Zealand banned plastic bags a couple of years ago and the plastic bag section at the supermarket doubled almost overnight.
I now buy bags for garbage, storage and other uses where once I would have reused the bags I got when I shopped. I'm definitely using more bags since the ban. When you start buying your own you buy a wide variety and use them for lots of things.
bduxbellorum@reddit
Plastic bags were only free because the petroleum product used to make them is a byproduct of crude oil refining that is more expensive to dispose of directly than to make into bags and let go into land fills. If bags aren’t free, the oil and gas industry has to literally pay to dispose of it. There is basically no point in banning bags. The byproducts still need to go somewhere. The net impact on the environment is either as crude sludge burned off or buried as waste, or finished into more inert grocery bags and then buried. Either way it becomes fossilized inactive carbon.
Advocating one way or another has basically 0 impact.
1320Fastback@reddit
When bags were free we would use them then throw them in the recycling bin.
When free bags disappeared we bought them and threw them in the recycling bin.
When COVID hit we used Walmart delivery which we still do and they get delivered in bags and we throw them in the recycling bin.
What is next I am throwing in the recycling bin too.
redeggplant01@reddit
Economics 101 - when government reduces supply [ prohibition ] then you stimulate demand
When government stimulates demand [ subsidies ] the you constrain supply
In both scenarios .... prices will rise for what is being prohibited or subsidized
OpinionStunning6236@reddit
Wouldn’t subsidies increase supply because there is more money being thrown at that industry?
Archanj0@reddit
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!?!1?
🤣
CBflipper@reddit
I actually read the article and instead of writing my own comment I’ll just copy and paste the top comment from the sub this was ripped from.
“Your headline is misrepresenting the data in the article and study a bit. They said that there was likely a net positive effect on reduction of plastic usage from banning plastic bags and the subsequent repeal of the policies. They also were not able to gather data on burlap or canvas bags, which are popular now instead of single use bags. Lastly, they said that plastic bag bans caused people to buy more trash bags, because they had been repurposing single use plastic bags for their trash.”
meezethadabber@reddit
Plastic bags to save the trees from paper bags. Now back to paper to save the planet from plastic.
usedkleenx@reddit
Came to say this. I'm old enough to remember using paper bags. Then the government told us we needed to use plastic bags to save the environment. The environmentalists went nuts and we switched to plastic. Now they're telling us that it took them 40 years to realize they'd fucked up and to save the environment, we need to go back to paper.