Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 87 posts

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

#71

Post by flaminHotSpeedo »

gruez wrote: post #65
flaminHotSpeedo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Thin plastic to thick plastic is 0.5 to 2.5. That's a factor of 5, I guessed 6, off by one. The factor of 40 you originally cited is based off the site's 20 mil figure for actual reusable bags. It's ok to misread, no need to play the victim when both your comments make it clear what happened

> Right. Thin plastic to thick plastic is 0.5 to 2.5. [...] >The factor of 40 you originally cited is based off the site's 20 mil figure for actual reusable bags. ??? At what point were we discussing thin vs thick bags? I thought the whole point of the conversation was talking about regular bags vs reusable bags? >It's ok to misread, no need to play the victim when both your comments make it clear what happened This…

Oh, my apologies, reading back over this thread I see where the disconnect is.

The bags in question in this article are thicker plastic bags that are branded as reusable. In the article's words:

> ... a section of the law [allows] grocery stores and large retailers to provide thicker, heavier-weight plastic bags ... These “reusable” bags are made from a material known as HDPE, which is thicker and heavier than the LDPE plastic bags of yore.

The bags in question here are the 2.5 mil bags, the 40 mil bags are what others are calling "bag for life" bags, e.g. the typical style of bag someone would buy elsewhere and proactively bring to the store with them

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

#72

Post by lurking15 »

xethos wrote: post #67
lurking15 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and have gone from being seen as a hippy weirdo to never being questioned you're still a hippy weirdo

Sure, but nobody calls them on it any more. Sounds like the Overton window shifted to people using less plastic too.

> Sounds like the Overton window shifted to people using less plastic too

wasn't the whole point of the article that people in fact use more now, also political self-segregation/echo chamber seems to be worse than ever so as much as people talk about overton window shifting it's mostly just partisans being blind to the people that don't share their opinions

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

#73

Post by cal85 »

flaminHotSpeedo wrote: post #58
cal85 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Based on a bit of extra research 30g is pretty middle of the road for the bags in question. 120g is for actually reusable bags, what folks are calling "bag for life"

I’m definitely talking about the actually reusable bags, which is often all that is available these days. It’s got more and more extreme over the last couple of years. The two supermarkets near me (Morrisons and Waitrose) only sell these stiff heavy duty bags that cost about £2. I’m sure they’re well over 100g. (I think Sainsbury’s and M&S do still have the slightly thick kind that are probably 30g.)

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

#74

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#75

Post by erik_seaberg »

milliams wrote: post #48
lozenge wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Reused for food? Is it dishwasher safe?

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

#76

Post by xethos »

lurking15 wrote: post #72
xethos wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but nobody calls them on it any more. Sounds like the Overton window shifted to people using less plastic too.

> Sounds like the Overton window shifted to people using less plastic too wasn't the whole point of the article that people in fact use more now, also political self-segregation/echo chamber seems to be worse than ever so as much as people talk about overton window shifting it's mostly just partisans being blind to the people that don't share their opinions

Following through the HDPE link in TFA, it leads to a seperate latimes article. Pulling from that:

> In 2010, volunteers with the California Coastal Cleanup removed 65,736 plastic bags of all kinds from the shoreline, water, watercraft and coastal recreational areas.

> Coastal Cleanup Day 2016 was held before the statewide ban was in effect, but between the 2010 and 2016 cleanups, dozens of cities and counties across California had enacted single-use plastic bag bans of their own, including Los Angeles. The effect was noticeable: In 2016, only 24,602 plastic bags were picked up.

I'll grant you that it flattened out after 2016 a good bit, but getting nearly 63% of the way there is at least approaching the 80/20 rule - indicating the statewide ban had a measurable impact and got people most amenable to the change to make the small sacrifice to bring their own bags

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

#77

Post by belorn »

stetrain wrote: post #66
belorn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the goal of less plastic in the ocean and landfills, the solution should not be to make a very narrow and specific form of plastic illegal while everything else is acceptable. Thick plastic and aluminum are both terrible at decomposing at the bottom of the ocean. Natural fibers however tend to dissolve quite well in water. Recycling and plastic waste initiatives seems like two completely different goals. Recycli…

I have never had trouble recycling aluminum cans when I live in a place with curbside recycling or in public with clearly marked recycling containers. Nobody even had to pay me to do it. I know littering will happen and deposits can help with that, but it also seems like the percentage of cans that get littered vs recycling would be small in a place with convenient recycling. I know that some will end up in landfills…

> is aluminum in the ocean an ecological problem in the way plastics are?

It depend a bit on how one want to measure it. Imagine walking in a forest and for every 10 step you see a can laying on the ground. Would that be a ecological problem? Cans and bottles are often home to a lot of insect and other small animals so there could be an argument that in terms of ecology it is beneficial.

The other side of the argument say that any such man made littering is harmful, and since they do not really decompose at a fast pace, its a problem that steadily increase each year. The only trash that realistically get removed from the ocean floor is by divers, generally as a hobby, which is only a tiny sliver of all trash that do end up in the ocean floor. The rest accumulate and do so at an increased rate.

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

#78

Post by lurking15 »

xethos wrote: post #76
lurking15 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds like the Overton window shifted to people using less plastic too wasn't the whole point of the article that people in fact use more now, also political self-segregation/echo chamber seems to be worse than ever so as much as people talk about overton window shifting it's mostly just partisans being blind to the people that don't share their opinions

Following through the HDPE link in TFA, it leads to a seperate latimes article. Pulling from that: > In 2010, volunteers with the California Coastal Cleanup removed 65,736 plastic bags of all kinds from the shoreline, water, watercraft and coastal recreational areas. > Coastal Cleanup Day 2016 was held before the statewide ban was in effect, but between the 2010 and 2016 cleanups, dozens of cities and counties across…

from the article

> According to a report by the consumer advocacy group CALPIRG, 157,385 tons of plastic bag waste was discarded in California the year the law was passed. By 2022, however, the tonnage of discarded plastic bags had skyrocketed to 231,072 — a 47% jump. Even accounting for an increase in population, the number rose from 4.08 tons per 1,000 people in 2014 to 5.89 tons per 1,000 people in 2022.

from you

> indicating the statewide ban had a measurable impact

So what I'm reading is that there's more plastic waste polluted after the law and lawmakers are claiming it's simply a matter of ineffective law. Sounds like a redux of No true Scotsman.

Why don't we instead blame legislators for their complete ineptitude that's been proven over and over? It's a matter of whack-a-mole, doomed to fail: make life easier for people instead of being a punitive, incompetent schoolmarm that only serves to inconvenience and infuriate people with much greater concerns in their lives. I can't tell you the number of times I've had to humiliatingly carry a small number of groceries in my arms to the car because I refuse to buy yet another reusable bag. Well jokes on you environmentalists, I'll have to drive to the grocery store again tomorrow and use more gasoline!

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

#79

Post by TexanFeller »

gruez wrote: post #49
bhickey wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/...

But still a heck of a lot more than the reused container that should be used instead. Focusing on recycling instead of reducing and reusing is a good way to let Coca Cola off the hook for continuing to sell single use beverage containers.

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

#80

Post by TexanFeller »

stetrain wrote: post #24
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…

Are single serving aluminum cans, if recycled, really worse than the alternatives? Plastic bottles or glass both have their own emissions and recycling issues.

They’re far worse than the alternative of using reusable containers. Single serving containers should be replaced with reusable containers filled from fountains in public places or from concentrate in something like a sodastream. Coca Coka would prefer we talk about the benefits of recycling so it doesn’t affect their business practices.
Post reply on HN