Plastic bag ban struck down

[Deej 76,800]

I had to get a bigger dog so I could use those 25 cent, red HEB bags for picking up dog shit. 

[Bozo_Casanova 26,472]

You don't seem to read good. The ordinance itself declares its intent. 
 

Evidently you didn’t read at all, I take the City’s view that the ordinance is “source reduction” under the act, not “management”, because at the moment of regulation the bags have not become solid waste yet.
This decision, unanimous though it may be, creates a far more expansive definition of solid waste management than the common reading of the statute.

[Alien Octopus 516]

19 hours ago, HenryJames said:

This. You can load 'em up, and the grocery store doesn't give you 10 plastic bags when 1-2 reusable bags will do.

It takes 70000 uses of thise bags to equal the amount wnergy expended to make them. You will never reach that number from a cost basis, Ever. Independent studies from the Canadian govt and a few others in Northern Europe have shown this. Bans on olastic bags are for lefies to feel better about sticking it to the evil oil companies and nothing else.

[Armybrat 40,850]

I have yet to see a reusable canvas bag stuck on a fence flapping in the wind

[EastTexan 662]

21 hours ago, The Dog said:

They need to ban both plastic and paper bags. Both bad for the environment. In fact, so are grocery stores. People should farm and hunt. 

And city folks need to go back to the old metal trash cans. The ones everybody had before plastic trash bags were invented.

 Also, everybody needs a hog to feed their slop to.

[phdhorn 6,224]

13 minutes ago, EastTexan said:

And city folks need to go back to the old metal trash cans. The ones everybody had before plastic trash bags were invented.

Yeah, I can see the headlines now:  Oscar The Grouch Moves Into Plastic Bag, Asphyxiates.

[Hellraiser97 181]

43 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

I have yet to see a reusable canvas bag stuck on a fence flapping in the wind

I've found quite a few of them on the greenbelt I walk my dog on, but that's about it.  I do think people are being more responsible in disposing of them, but again, the net effect is not positive from what I have read.

[Hellraiser97 181]

9 hours ago, zork said:

These are great for shopping at ALDI or Sams since neither provides bags and the nearly always warm temperatures can affect your grocery item freshness.(wilting lettuce, melting ice cream, etc, etc)

https://www.samsclub.com/sams/shopper-tote-insulated-2-pk/prod21045351.ip?&source=ifpla&CAWELAID=730010300001935708&pid=_CSE_Google_PLA_1013571787&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=260269102078&wl4=pla-297455083836&wl5=9027195&wl6=&wl7=&wl9=pla&wl10=1247713&wl11=online&wl12={productid}&wl13=&wl15=53139724443&wl17=1o1&veh=sem&kclid=0f9637fa-cc82-4e66-bc33-659e1ccceb88

 

We keep 2 or 3 in each vehicle and other bags inside them for boxed goods and the like.

We have one Coscto one like that plus a smaller HEB one.  They are excellent.  I usually put the frozen/cold stuff in them while I shop to keep them cold.  That said, I'm not bringing in the Costco one when I just need one or two things, and I'm not sticking a cooked rotisserie chicken in them either.

[Thetexashammer 1,062]

2 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Evidently you didn’t read at all, I take the City’s view that the ordinance is “source reduction” under the act, not “management”, because at the moment of regulation the bags have not become solid waste yet.
This decision, unanimous though it may be, creates a far more expansive definition of solid waste management than the common reading of the statute.

OMG, I totally forgot how you are smarter than everyone else. I just read the statute and observed the plain language, silly me.

I understand your attempt to split the infinitesimally small hair, and like the Court unanimously said, it's bullshit.

It's a stupid state law, obviously. But the State has total control over waste management policies. End of story.

[Homercles 10,206]

In cedar park we weren’t affected by the ban but used reusable bags anyways. What sucks is we use Curbside a lot and they’re always pre-bagged in disposable ones so I never get to use them anymore.

[Bozo_Casanova 26,472]

OMG, I totally forgot how you are smarter than everyone else. I just read the statute and observed the plain language, silly me.

I understand your attempt to split the infinitesimally small hair, and like the Court unanimously said, it's bullshit.

It's a stupid state law, obviously. But the State has total control over waste management policies. End of story.

They certainly do now, but this decision interprets the statute in a new way that is very different from the interpretation of the statute by most municipalities prior to yesterday.

 

And for the record, I do happen to know a great deal about this particular topic as a former appointee in this area, in the same way that you are an expert on medicine and sucking.

[Deej 76,800]

8 hours ago, Armybrat said:

I have yet to see a reusable canvas bag stuck on a fence flapping in the wind

I turned a chain link fence into a privacy fence with them.

[Thetexashammer 1,062]

8 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

They certainly do now, but this decision interprets the statute in a new way that is very different from the interpretation of the statute by most municipalities prior to yesterday.

 

And for the record, I do happen to know a great deal about this particular topic as a former appointee in this area, in the same way that you are an expert on medicine and sucking.

I'm the guy that thinks that when the public gets worked up about trash, and then the city council gets worked up about said item of trash, and the statue itself in plain language says its intent is to deal with trash, I'm the guy who thinks it's about trash. You're the other guy.

Edited June 24, 2018 by Thetexashammer

[RD3 64]

This doesn't prevent HEB from charging for bags. It's not like it makes grocery stores provide free bags.  I shop at the Bee Cave HEB which has the free bags.  If they were to say tomorrow that they were stopping that and you need to provide your own bags, I wouldn't stop going there.  And our previous HEB was in Circle C and I was around when they made that change so for a couple of years I had to keep reusable ones in my trunk.  It was a pain a few times on short stops but it wasn't a deal breaker.

[SDG 3,319]

Got a ton of the reusable shopping bags during my time in Austin. I live in Scottsdale now and still bring them to the grocery store every time I go. They are convenient, so helping the environment is a bonus.  

[Armybrat 40,850]

14 hours ago, Deej said:

I turned a chain link fence into a privacy fence with them.

West Lake Hills Walmart nearby?

[XYZ 2,154]

On 6/23/2018 at 7:20 AM, Alien Octopus said:

It takes 70000 uses of thise bags to equal the amount wnergy expended to make them. 

Why are you posting this? Plastic bag ban is about trash management, not about energy consumption.

[Deej 76,800]

West Lake Hills Walmart nearby?

Rundberg HEB.

[Armybrat 40,850]

Ah, cast off hooker bags.

[Judge Roybeanbag 11,819]

We got one of those new compost containers last week.   Our trash pickup is Monday morning, and the damn thing sat out there for 4 days before they picked it up.  My wife called the city twice to ask about it, I told her before the second call to tell them never mind, we shredded the container and put it in our recycle bin.  

[Celery Man 20,962]

10 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

We got one of those new compost containers last week.   Our trash pickup is Monday morning, and the damn thing sat out there for 4 days before they picked it up.  My wife called the city twice to ask about it, I told her before the second call to tell them never mind, we shredded the container and put it in our recycle bin.  

To clarify, they dropped off the compost container, you then put it out on Monday with your trash, and they didn't pick it up until Friday?

 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11,819]

Correct.  Thursday actually, but by that point it had ants in it and smelled pretty ripe.  Plus our kind neighbors put beer cans and a Wendy’s sack in it which had to be removed. 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11,819]

Bottom line it was typical city of Austin boneheaded stuff.   Distribute a feel-good measure and then don’t have the means to back it up.

[Celery Man 20,962]

Ok yeah that sucks.  We're not far from you if I'm remembering right, and they picked ours up on time.

[Judge Roybeanbag 11,819]

78748.  Within hollering distance of Moontower and the Whataburger on Slaughter. 

[XYZ 2,154]

Wait, so you shredded the green thing and put it in the blue thing?

[Judge Roybeanbag 11,819]

I didn’t but I told her to tell them I did.   Blow their fucking minds.  

[XYZ 2,154]

10 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

I didn’t but I told her to tell them I did.   Blow their fucking minds.  

Haha, that’s pretty good.

[Hellraiser97 181]

Why are you posting this? Plastic bag ban is about trash management, not about energy consumption.

And an inordinate amount of the reusable bags are ending up in land fills long before their time and take a heel of a lot longer to break down. If trash managment was the main issue they just would have switched to something biodegradable

I do not like OU

[Celery Man 20,962]

45 minutes ago, Hellraiser97 said:

And an inordinate amount of the reusable bags are ending up in land fills long before their time and take a heel of a lot longer to break down. If trash managment was the main issue they just would have switched to something biodegradable

I do not like OU
 

do you have any information on if the inordinate amount of reusable bags ending up in landfills is better or worse than the inordinate amount of non reusable bags ending up in landfills, the ocean, barbed wire fences, etc?

it may be that the reason that they simply went to "reusable" rather than specifying specifically what type of bags grocery stores are required to provide has something to do with overreach.

[Orange&White 5,528]

This was taken from a commentary piece in a Chicago article, but it is referencing an actual study, so take it for what it's worth.

Quote

There’s little doubt that targeted bans can mitigate these kinds of effects by cutting down on the use of reusable bags in the first place. In Austin, for example, a post-ban survey found that single-use plastic bags accounted for only 0.03 percent of the total litter collected in the city in 2015. Assuming the pre-ban rate was closer to the 0.12 percent in nearby Fort Worth, that marks a roughly 75 percent reduction of single-use plastic bags in Austin’s landfills.

But, as the Austin assessment pointedly notes, reducing the use of a product that’s harmful to the environment is no guarantee of a positive environmental outcome. Among the main environmental benefits of Austin’s ban was supposed to be a reduction in the amount of energy and raw materials used to manufacture the bags. To that end, the city encouraged residents to instead use reusable bags. Those bags have larger carbon footprints, due to the greater energy required to produce their stronger plastics, but the city figured the overall impact would be lower, as consumers got acquainted with the new, more durable product.

What the city didn’t foresee is that residents would start treating reusable bags like single-use bags. The volume of reusable plastic bags now turning up at the city’s recycling centers has become “nearly equivalent to the amount of all of the single-use bags removed from the recycling stream as a result of the ordinance implemented in 2013,” according to the assessment. And those lightly used bags are landfill-bound, because recycling isn’t any more cost-effective for reusable plastic bags than for the single-use variety.

 

[Fudge Nuggets 19,195]

I just gather all my plastic bags and burn them.  Problem solved.

[TwiceHorn 31,488]

On 6/23/2018 at 12:21 PM, Bozo_Casanova said:

They certainly do now, but this decision interprets the statute in a new way that is very different from the interpretation of the statute by most municipalities prior to yesterday.

 

And for the record, I do happen to know a great deal about this particular topic as a former appointee in this area, in the same way that you are an expert on medicine and sucking.

Respectfully, I think the city governments were reading the statute with their end goal in mind.

Quote

(1)  prohibit or restrict, for solid waste management purposes, the sale or use of a container or package in a manner not authorized by state law;

The bolded has to modify "prohibit or restrict" rather than anything else in the clause.  And "sale or use" of container or package has to mean the "pre-trash" package or container.  How many trash packages or containers are sold or used in their discarded state or condition?

Granted, I had not attempted to interpret this statute prior to reading the opinion, so I am tainted, but it immediately struck me that Laredo's interpretation was strained.  I have no real interest either way on this issue, I just like to read opinions to evaluate whether I think there was "librul" or "conservatard" bias either way, as someone somewhere is sure to be screaming.

I'm certainly willing to consider an alternate interpretation, but at this point I can't say the Court got it wrong.

Edited June 25, 2018 by TwiceHorn

[Bozo_Casanova 26,472]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Respectfully, I think the city governments were reading the statute with their end goal in mind.

Oh absolutely

[Rimbo 25,944]

On 6/22/2018 at 5:39 PM, Hellraiser97 said:

If I get unlazy, I'll dig it up the article I read about it, but essentially it goes like this:

 

1) You have to use those 'reusable' bags like you buy at HEB something like 250 times before the environmental impact of them is a net positive over the disposable ones.  It's like the Christmas tree real vs fake debate.  You need to use the fake one for 30 years before you're helping the environment.  People just aren't doing that.  You run to HEB and forget your bags or leave them in the car.  You tear them or just get them nasty and toss them out, well before the break even number.  I bet we've purchased 50 of them in the three years we've lived here, maybe more.

 

 

I'll debate this point by restating what I brought up earlier: If you get the nylon bags like the ones on Amazon I linked to, they are thin, washable, light and easily carried, and we've had a set that we've used since the 1990s because they simply will not die.

That said, I like the "charge 25¢/bag" strategy that California wrought.

[Samson's Wig 3,192]

On 6/22/2018 at 11:17 AM, crash_davis said:

 re austin, i think the habit is formed.  i'll continue to bring my own bags.  sure is nice not having plastic bags littering the streets.  will be interesting to see the shitheads who start using plastic bags.  my guess is the poors and fat old white people.

4

Please don't forget those who are willfully indifferent to pet political causes.  Everyone always forgets those folks.

[Samson's Wig 3,192]

7 hours ago, Orange^White said:

This was taken from a commentary piece in a Chicago article, but it is referencing an actual study, so take it for what it's worth.

There’s little doubt that targeted bans can mitigate these kinds of effects by cutting down on the use of reusable bags in the first place. In Austin, for example, a post-ban survey found that single-use plastic bags accounted for only 0.03 percent of the total litter collected in the city in 2015. Assuming the pre-ban rate was closer to the 0.12 percent in nearby Fort Worth, that marks a roughly 75 percent reduction of single-use plastic bags in Austin’s landfills.

But, as the Austin assessment pointedly notes, reducing the use of a product that’s harmful to the environment is no guarantee of a positive environmental outcome. Among the main environmental benefits of Austin’s ban was supposed to be a reduction in the amount of energy and raw materials used to manufacture the bags. To that end, the city encouraged residents to instead use reusable bags. Those bags have larger carbon footprints, due to the greater energy required to produce their stronger plastics, but the city figured the overall impact would be lower, as consumers got acquainted with the new, more durable product.

What the city didn’t foresee is that residents would start treating reusable bags like single-use bags. The volume of reusable plastic bags now turning up at the city’s recycling centers has become “nearly equivalent to the amount of all of the single-use bags removed from the recycling stream as a result of the ordinance implemented in 2013,” according to the assessment. And those lightly used bags are landfill-bound, because recycling isn’t any more cost-effective for reusable plastic bags than for the single-use variety.

1

Road to hell and all that.

The fact that this question is even being litigated is a bit silly.  Let the citizens vote.  If people in Austin or wherever want to ban plastic bags, whether it's just because it makes them feel good or because it actually benefits the environment, then let 'em vote for it and do it.  At the individual level, no one has any right to package their goods in a free shitty plastic bag.  The law was interpreted correctly by the SCOTX, but holy hell who gives a shit?  Neither side of this one has a solid leg to stand on when it comes to principled stances.  It may be the worst case of politics getting in the way of reality we've seen, which is saying something.   

There are plenty of meaningful things worthy of one's indignancy out there.  But plastic bags, or the banning thereof, really shouldn't be on that list. 

[Hellraiser97 181]

I'll debate this point by restating what I brought up earlier: If you get the nylon bags like the ones on Amazon I linked to, they are thin, washable, light and easily carried, and we've had a set that we've used since the 1990s because they simply will not die.
That said, I like the "charge 25¢/bag" strategy that California wrought.

If they were requiring nylon bags to be sold you might have a point. Besides overtime would probably just throw those away too

I do not like OU

[AUS-97HORN 11,781]

bumping this super old thread because  this article  came out from Canada (who it looks like are in the process of banning all single use plastic countrywide next year) talking about the massive unintended environmental impact choosing "reuseable" bags can have on the Canadian environment.

 

Like plastic, paper bags are single use

The problem with something like a paper bag alternative, however, is that it's also single use, and its production leaves a carbon footprint that is greater than that of the manufacturing of disposable plastic grocery bags, experts say.

The process of producing paper bags includes the environmental impact on forests and land use, as well as the use of machinery to cut down trees. The pulping process inside pulp and paper mills also produces pollution, and since paper bags are thicker than the disposable plastic bags, they require more energy to manufacture.

In 2011, a research paper produced by the Northern Ireland Assembly found that it "takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag," the BBC reported.

"Paper does have an environmental footprint, and then even making millions of paper bags and transporting them costs more in terms of transportation costs and greenhouse gases than it would for the equivalent number of plastic bags," Walker said.

Rebecca Taylor, an assistant professor at the University of Sydney School of Economics in Australia, conducted a study looking into the ban on plastic grocery bags in California.

[my add:  So it turns out single use plastic bags are naturally repurposed by users almost half the time ] Her research found that the ban reduced plastic carryout bag usage by 18.1 million kilograms per year. However, the ban also led to an increase in the use of paper bags, rising by 652 million additional paper bags, weighing 37.5 million kilograms a year — more than double the weight of the banned plastic bags.

While plastic grocery bags are considered single use, many customers actually reuse them for garbage disposal in their homes, dog poop cleanup and storage receptacles, Taylor said.

A 2017 study conducted by Recyc-Québec, a Quebec recycling group, found that the reuse for such bags was more than 77 per cent. The study also found that because the conventional plastic grocery bag is thin and light, its production generates the least environment impact, compared with other disposable bags, including paper bags.

 

a 2011 study by the British government found that a cotton tote bag would have to be used 131 times before it was better for the environment than the single use of a plastic grocery bag.

Reusable bags are potential bacteria carriers

And Ryan Sinclair, an associate professor at Loma Linda University School of Public Health in California, found in studies that reusable grocery bags have the potential of carrying bacteria and viruses, including norovirus and coronavirus.

"So it potentially could bring things from your private residence into the store, and then it potentially could bring things from the store back to your home," Sinclair told CBC News.

While the clothes you wear may also have that potential, reusable bags touch surfaces in grocery stores that lots of other people touch, including carts and, more importantly, the checkout counter, he said.

"That's where any kind of public health hazard would kind of amplify, because that's places where everybody touches," Sinclair said. "People spread out throughout all the different aisles but then all come back to one place, which is the checkout counter."

Another problem with these reusable bags is that few people wash them, he said.

"If you're going to use them, you should definitely wash them," Sinclair said. 

That means people should probably avoid polypropylene bags and get cotton, burlap or nylon bags, and wash them at a higher temperature and use some kind of disinfectant, he said.

[luke duke 6,413]

Righties are in favor of the Constitution, but not those who abuse it by overreaching.

Like the Emoluments Clause?

[Armybrat 40,850]

Especially with those RINO turds like the Orange Guy who wouldn’t turn down a 2fer1 coupon from Tim Horton’s.

[Viper 12,109]

recently listened to a skeptoid episode that I think was using some of the same studies pasted here. I have to say, when I think about it, it doesn't make much sense to ban using plastic grocery bags, but allow the grocery to sell ziploc bags, trash bags, etc. Those products have much more plastic in them and are substitutes for the grocery bags in many of the reuse cases. This is why even when plastic grocery bag use goes down, total plastic in landfills usually doesn't.

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4711

Quote

All around the world, bans on plastic carryout bags are being passed faster than you can keep track, especially in western countries like the United States where environmental sentiment is most prolific. The idea behind the bans is simple and self-evident: a reduction in waste and litter, and a corresponding reduction in associated environmental impacts like greenhouse gases. At first glance, it seems like a perfectly rational step. Shoppers will turn to lower-impact options like reusable bags or easily-recyclable paper bags. The environment will benefit. Or will it? For it turns out that, from end-to-end, virtually every single belief that informs these bans is based on misinformation; and as a result, bans on plastic carryout bags do more harm than good. Most people have heard this claim, and many have dismissed it as pro-industry propaganda. Today we're going to look at the underlying data and uncover the real facts.

It's always difficult to do an episode like this, because we're pitting data-driven policy against the honest impulses of well-intentioned environmentalists; the fact is that some policy that sounds good turns out to be driven more by emotion or ideology than by science. High-profile public issues like ocean trash and global warming are emotionally charged (rightfully so), and many of us support policies which appear to be obvious remedies. But the fact is that banning plastic carryout bags hurts the causes it intends to help.

Let me start by addressing the default feedback I'm going to get from this episode, which is that I'm shilling for the disposable plastic industry. The data I'm going to present today shows that manufacturers of disposable plastic benefit from bans on carryout bags, counterintuitive though that may sound. Carryout bags are their least profitable products — often given away for free at checkout — and as the flimsiest things they make, have the smallest environmental impact. Banning such bags shifts the manufacturers' sales to more profitable products with worse environmental impact. So by presenting arguments against plastic bag bans, I'd be about the worst shill the manufacturers could ask for.

I've assembled what I think are the three most pervasive myths about plastic carryout bags that prompt virtuous people to advocate for bans. Let's have a look each of these three.

Myth #1: Plastic carryout bags contribute to ocean plastics

I'm tackling this one first because it's the most easily dismissed. We covered this in excruciating detail in Skeptoid #665, Ocean Plastics: Facts and Falsehoods. The short version of the answer is that although plastic bags do indeed represent their expected proportion of plastic trash in the oceans, that plastic comes from China and several other East Asian and other developing nations where up to 76% of trash is mismanaged, i.e., ends up as litter. In the United States, only 2% is mismanaged, representing about one half of 1% of what's in the ocean. Our plastic bags represent about 1% of that. Thus, any changes to consumer behavior in the United States have no discernible impact on the amount of plastic in the ocean; the basic reason being that the United States is already among the world's leaders in responsible waste management. For all the gritty details and data, I don't need to repeat myself here, go listen to that episode.

Myth #2: Bans decrease the amount of disposable plastic leaving the supermarket

This is the biggest surprise for many people: banning carryout bags doesn't reduce the number of plastic bags people bring home like you'd think. Here's why.

Somewhere between a fifth and a third of carryout bags end up getting reused, either for picking up dog poop or lining small waste baskets around the house. And why not, they're free and most people have plenty of them in the kitchen cabinet. But in places where they've been banned, people still have a need for small plastic trash bags. So they suddenly find themselves having to buy them when they didn't before. Research published in 2019 in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management analyzed what's happened in municipalities where carryout bag bans have been put in place, and the results are surprising. Sales of plastic trash bags skyrocketed alarmingly. Sales of the big sizes remained even, but sales of 8-gallon bags shot up by 64%, and sales of small 4-gallon bags more than doubled, rising by 120%! For those of you of a more liberal bent who might hope that your plastic bag ban will strike a blow to the faceless, soulless corporations who manufacturer plastic bags, think again. Bans have multiplied their sales and their profits.

But it's not just the number of bags. The free carryout bags that were banned were extremely flimsy, and the plastic trash bags people bought to replace them are substantially heavier, containing much more plastic material. In all, in the municipalities studied, 40 million pounds of plastic was saved, and 12 million new pounds of plastic was sold to replace it.

Now it's important to note that this "myth" is actually true — bans do succeed in reducing the total amount of plastic leaving the stores. But don't be fooled. The ultimate goal is to minimize environmental impact, not to reduce the number of pounds of plastic sold — and those are two different targets. We want to know the net environmental impact. And it's this next myth that puts us way, way over the top.

Myth #3: Plastic bags are worse for the environment than other options

I'm going to go with carbon footprint here to measure the net environmental impact — though we'll talk about landfills and eyesores soon. Carbon footprint is the ultimate driver of environmental impact today.

People have four common choices of carryout bags. First, the single-use cheap plastic bags that are the subject of the bans. Second, paper bags. Third, durable reusable plastic bags (either polyethylene or polypropylene); and fourth, reusable cotton bags. For each of these products, we look at the carbon footprint over the entire product life cycle: from the sourcing of its material, to its manufacture, through transportation and logistics, through its use phase (taking into consideration how many times it's used, how many groceries it transports), and finally through its end of life which may end up in recycling, in landfill, or even in incineration. This is a lot of data, but it is all tracked by various industry stakeholders. If you want all the details, see the references at the bottom of this page. For the purposes of this podcast, I'm just going to give you the final numbers, and these numbers already take into account that a minority of disposable carryout bags are reused at home as trash bags. These numbers come from a 2011 study by the UK Environment Agency.

It should come as no surprise that the humble single-use plastic carryout bag has by far the lowest carbon footprint, the basic reason being that there's simply so little material there. Plus, it's plastic, which has a low melting temperature; it requires less energy to manufacture and recycle than most other materials. So, right off the bat, the target of the bag bans is actually the product that best meets the objectives of true environmentalists.

The second best alternative is paper bags, with 4 times the carbon footprint of the single-use plastics. A lot of this has to do with the amount of water used to make and recycle paper, and it takes a lot of carbon-emitting energy to purify and reclaim fresh water. However, if you reuse your paper grocery bag 4 times before recycling it, its net environmental impact is comparable to that of the single-use plastic. (You are all taking your paper grocery bag back to the supermarket and reusing it 4 times, aren't you? No? Then if you're environmentally minded, you should be asking for plastic at checkout.)

The next is the durable reusable plastic bag, the type increasingly being offered by supermarkets as an alternative, often for some low price like 10 cents. These are quite a bit heavier, and have 14 times the carbon footprint; meaning you need to use it 14 times to match the efficiency of the single-use. This surprising difference is mainly because there's a lot more plastic in the durable reusable bag; it weighs 108-136 grams, compared to only 3.5 grams for the single-use bag.

Worse still are cotton bags; growing cotton involves tractors and seeds and irrigation and a whole other level of impact. You'd need to reuse a cotton grocery bag 173 times to match the carbon footprint of bringing home a single-use plastic instead on each of those trips. It's noteworthy that a 2018 study by the Danish government, which compared organic cotton bags to single-use plastics, found the environmental impact 20,000 times worse. The irony is that if you ask many environmentally-focused consumers what type of bag they'd most like to use instead of single-use plastics, many of them might well answer organic cotton. This is the difference between data-driven policy, and emotion or ideology-driven policy.

So what's so bad about single-use plastics?

Universally acknowledged as the biggest downside of unmanaged plastic waste is the fact that it does not biodegrade. Plastic trash is definitely an eyesore, and that's bad for everyone. But let's also consider it from an ecological perspective, not just an aesthetic one. If we have to shovel plastic bags into landfills, that's actually not the world's most terrible thing to do with plastic. Of course the preference is always to recycle it, but the market doesn't always support that: there has to be a buyer for the recovered material, or else it's not worth the cost (both monetary and carbon) to recycle. So it goes into landfills. Plastic in landfills does not release greenhouse gases. The carbon in it remains sequestered; and if we have petrochemical materials like plastic already in our environment, having its carbon sequestered is far from a terrible thing. Obviously it would be best if that plastic had never been manufactured in the first place; but the reality is that it has, so we're better off deciding what to do with it than wishing we didn't have to.

What should we do, if banning them is so much worse?

Economists have a pretty good answer for this. Keep the single-use bags available as always. Charge a small fee for them, as this drives people to start using the durable plastic alternatives. People who want to keep a few of the single-use bags around for household use will have as many as they want, and they won't need to buy so many more of the heavier, higher-impact trash bags. Stop offering the cotton reusable alternatives. And, of course, continue working toward plastics based on lower-impact petrochemical alternatives.

Let this following piece of irony not be lost on a single listener: It is rabid insanity to allow plastic bag manufacturers to sell plastic trash bags in supermarkets — and even to allow the markets themselves to sell their own store brands — but not allow bags to be sold individually at checkout!

And so the final conclusion on the subject of plastic bag bans is that the best solution — supported by climate science, ecology, economic theory, and proven by experimentation — is to continue to allow lightweight single-use bags to be provided for a fee by retail merchants, and to encourage shoppers to reuse durable reusable plastic bags.

breaking out the conclusion for those tldr; people

What should we do, if banning them is so much worse?

Economists have a pretty good answer for this. Keep the single-use bags available as always. Charge a small fee for them, as this drives people to start using the durable plastic alternatives. People who want to keep a few of the single-use bags around for household use will have as many as they want, and they won't need to buy so many more of the heavier, higher-impact trash bags. Stop offering the cotton reusable alternatives. And, of course, continue working toward plastics based on lower-impact petrochemical alternatives.

Let this following piece of irony not be lost on a single listener: It is rabid insanity to allow plastic bag manufacturers to sell plastic trash bags in supermarkets — and even to allow the markets themselves to sell their own store brands — but not allow bags to be sold individually at checkout!

And so the final conclusion on the subject of plastic bag bans is that the best solution — supported by climate science, ecology, economic theory, and proven by experimentation — is to continue to allow lightweight single-use bags to be provided for a fee by retail merchants, and to encourage shoppers to reuse durable reusable plastic bags.

Edited October 14, 2020 by Viper

[freyguy 4,277]

I'm laughing...

[BabaYaga 15,299]

Plastic bags.  The solution to the earlier problem of paper bags that were going to cause the worlds forests to be utterly razed.  Next  we're going to find out that toads are not the best solution to cane beetles.....

[Texas_Rocks 346]

We only shop at grocery stores not effected by the plastic bag ban. When done with the bags we drive them into town and dispose of them under freeway overpasses because we’re responsible human beings and prefer to go with the flow.

[elfenix 34,266]

every choice you make is bad which is why no human has made it to the good place since 1563.

[Fudge Nuggets 19,195]

19 hours ago, Viper said:

recently listened to a skeptoid episode that I think was using some of the same studies pasted here. I have to say, when I think about it, it doesn't make much sense to ban using plastic grocery bags, but allow the grocery to sell ziploc bags, trash bags, etc. Those products have much more plastic in them and are substitutes for the grocery bags in many of the reuse cases. This is why even when plastic grocery bag use goes down, total plastic in landfills usually doesn't.

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4711

breaking out the conclusion for those tldr; people

What should we do, if banning them is so much worse?

Economists have a pretty good answer for this. Keep the single-use bags available as always. Charge a small fee for them, as this drives people to start using the durable plastic alternatives. People who want to keep a few of the single-use bags around for household use will have as many as they want, and they won't need to buy so many more of the heavier, higher-impact trash bags. Stop offering the cotton reusable alternatives. And, of course, continue working toward plastics based on lower-impact petrochemical alternatives.

Let this following piece of irony not be lost on a single listener: It is rabid insanity to allow plastic bag manufacturers to sell plastic trash bags in supermarkets — and even to allow the markets themselves to sell their own store brands — but not allow bags to be sold individually at checkout!

And so the final conclusion on the subject of plastic bag bans is that the best solution — supported by climate science, ecology, economic theory, and proven by experimentation — is to continue to allow lightweight single-use bags to be provided for a fee by retail merchants, and to encourage shoppers to reuse durable reusable plastic bags.

Buy a box of trash bags and put your shit in one of them - problem solved.  Do I have to figure out everything around here?

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4,976]

That's the responsible thing to do when dispersed camping, but I have a toilet at home.

Edited October 15, 2020 by NotActuallyALonghorn