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California's war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired

latimes.com

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Re: California's war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired

#41

Post by xnorswap »

gruez wrote: post #28
xnorswap wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is a popular contrarian take, but it doesn't seem to hold up to the evidence: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/31/governme... If California has a problem it isn't because bag bans don't work, it's because they've screwed up their implementation. And yes, supermarkets do still use a lot of unnecessary plastic in packaging, but that's another issue that can also be tackled, and I haven't s…

The OP was talking about "bag bans". Your linked article talks about a "bag charge". Those are totally different things. Bag bans force forgetful people to buy "reusable" bags that take more plastic to produce, and inevitably pile up an need to be disposed of. Bag charges don't have that issue, because you can continue to buy thin bags, just at a steep markup.

Taxes are almost always the best way to implement "bans", you get huge benefits:

1. People feel less aggrieved if they still can technically access something at a price. ( Less accusation of Government overreach. )

2. Economically nudging behaviour is extremely effective. People will do a surprisingly amount of work/effort to avoid even a small cost.

3. If people continue the behaviour you want to ban, you get a good revenue stream, and can escalate taxes ( e.g. Tobacco taxes )

4. It reduces the size of a black market emerging for the banned goods ( i.e. Don't make the mistakes of USA during Prohibition. )

That California didn't realise this and naively implemented a concrete ban is screwing up implementing a ban.

Re: California's war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired

#42

Post by gruez »

flaminHotSpeedo wrote: post #19

This doesn't pass the sniff test for me... The article claims that plastic bag waste went from 4.08 tons to 5.89 tons per 1000 people from 2014 to 2022, then attributes that to the new heavier bags. I don't have good numbers but as a terrible estimate let's say an old single use bag was 5 grams and a newer one is 30 grams. If plastic bag weight really went up almost 50% per capita, using that assumption that an indiv…

>I don't have good numbers but as a terrible estimate let's say an old single use bag was 5 grams and a newer one is 30 grams.

So, a factor of 6? Try a factor of 40[1] instead.

[1] 0.5 mil vs 20 mil https://1bagatatime.com/learn/what-is-a-mill/

Re: California's war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired

#43

Post by demondemidi »

I know it’s fun and easy to dunk on progressive states. But at least they are trying and not just throwing up their hands and going “oh well”. Now maybe they have C-students writing policy but I think “backfire” compared to the situation before is needlessly inflammatory. And I say that as an amateur internet troll.

Re: California's war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired

#44

Post by gruez »

AdamN wrote: post #11
TexanFeller wrote: post #4

Bag bans are one of the most perfect examples of how American environmentalists focus on all the wrong things and miss the forrest for the trees. The plastic bag in the grocery store contains multiple products packaged in 100x more volume of plastic than the plastic bag. It also contains a bunch of single serving aluminum cans. Banning plastic bags moves the needle the least and greatly annoys customers. It would be…

Environmentalists can also focus on environmental beauty - which is the primary rationale for reducing single-use plastic bags so they don't end up in trees and on the street. This is more of a hedonistic environmentalism but it's totally valid. We can also push for other big ticket items like better sewage control and highway runoff management at the same time.

>which is the primary rationale for reducing single-use plastic bags so they don't end up in trees and on the street.

Except that wasn't really an issue before the ban. Sure, I noticed a few bags laying on the street sometimes, but it's not like the streets were clogged with them[1]. In the same vein, I guess banning plastic straws does cause a non-zero amount of plastic straws from entering the environment, but it's not like it was a serious issue that warranted government intervention.

> This is more of a hedonistic environmentalism but it's totally valid

I agree with this statement, but probably not in the way you originally intended: it's a feel-good measure to make people think they're helping the environment.

[1] eg. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/955ff575a1da022b144dfffd34d0f...

Re: California's war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired

#45

Post by [deleted] »

flaminHotSpeedo wrote: post #19

This doesn't pass the sniff test for me... The article claims that plastic bag waste went from 4.08 tons to 5.89 tons per 1000 people from 2014 to 2022, then attributes that to the new heavier bags. I don't have good numbers but as a terrible estimate let's say an old single use bag was 5 grams and a newer one is 30 grams. If plastic bag weight really went up almost 50% per capita, using that assumption that an indiv…

[deleted]

Re: California's war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired

#46

Post by bluefirebrand »

lozenge wrote: post #32
xnorswap wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is a popular contrarian take, but it doesn't seem to hold up to the evidence: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/31/governme... If California has a problem it isn't because bag bans don't work, it's because they've screwed up their implementation. And yes, supermarkets do still use a lot of unnecessary plastic in packaging, but that's another issue that can also be tackled, and I haven't s…

That's a very selective statistic from a government department. How many "reusable" bags are sold every year? Each one weighs 50-100x more than the old bags and I guarantee they aren't used proportionally more times. The statistic given doesn't even cover most businesses. It only covers the major supermarkets - who only offer single use bags in online deliveries and make everybody else buy a much more expensive reusa…

> How many "reusable" bags are sold every year?

My question is how many "reusable" bags are being used once and then thrown out, effectively becoming massively wasteful single use bags?

My guess is a lot. Maybe not as many as single use plastic bags, but they must be even worse for the landfills, surely...

> who only offer single use bags in online deliveries

My mom gets online grocery deliveries from walmart and everything comes in "reusable" bags.

They never take them back or anything so every time she gets groceries they just accumulate.

It's to the point where she's using them as bin liners just like single use plastic because she needs to get rid of them just the same.

You could argue she should stop ordering from them, or there should be consequences for her. Maybe you're right.

Maybe people should have thought about other possible downstream consequences of banning single use plastic bags before enacting such a ban. I don't think "this could cause even more pollution in the long run" ever even crossed their dimwitted minds.

Too focused on the short term "we reduced single use plastics by 90%" KPI. Government policy by MBA.

Re: California's war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired

#48

Post by milliams »

lozenge wrote: post #32
xnorswap wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is a popular contrarian take, but it doesn't seem to hold up to the evidence: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/31/governme... If California has a problem it isn't because bag bans don't work, it's because they've screwed up their implementation. And yes, supermarkets do still use a lot of unnecessary plastic in packaging, but that's another issue that can also be tackled, and I haven't s…

That's a very selective statistic from a government department. How many "reusable" bags are sold every year? Each one weighs 50-100x more than the old bags and I guarantee they aren't used proportionally more times. The statistic given doesn't even cover most businesses. It only covers the major supermarkets - who only offer single use bags in online deliveries and make everybody else buy a much more expensive reusa…

> Each one weighs 50-100x more than the old bags and I guarantee they aren't used proportionally more times.

Previously I'd get a bag from the shop which would be used that one time. Now, the "bag for life" I own has been used for years already. That's easily more than "50-100x more".

Re: California's war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired

#49

Post by gruez »

bhickey wrote: post #40
acover wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aluminum cans contain about 73% recycled aluminum, in case anyone else was curious. I'm not sure why I thought it was 95%+ https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/aluminum-cans-recycled-t...

> I'm not sure why I thought it was 95%+ You may have been remembering numbers for the aluminum recycling rate in goods like cars. > On average, about 97% of the aluminum content in an end-of-life vehicle is recycled. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2022/whats-holding-back-alu...

Or that recycled aluminum takes 95% less energy than virgin aluminum.

https://international-aluminium.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/...

Re: California's war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired

#50

Post by cal85 »

flaminHotSpeedo wrote: post #19

This doesn't pass the sniff test for me... The article claims that plastic bag waste went from 4.08 tons to 5.89 tons per 1000 people from 2014 to 2022, then attributes that to the new heavier bags. I don't have good numbers but as a terrible estimate let's say an old single use bag was 5 grams and a newer one is 30 grams. If plastic bag weight really went up almost 50% per capita, using that assumption that an indiv…

I almost always have to buy bags. I tend to pick up groceries on a whim while already out and about so I don’t have bags with me. And even when I go out specifically for groceries, I usually forget to bring bags. I consider it a tax for being a disorganised and forgetful person. The idea that 1/5 people are like me doesn’t surprise me at all.

Also apparently 30g is the low end for the thicker bags - this site says they weigh 30-120g:

https://weightofallthings.com/how-much-does-a-plastic-bag-we...

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