# Ban Single Use Plastic Bags?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 10, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357 "2009-06-10T17:38:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/21 "2009-06-10T20:18:19Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#):
>
> Well said. I think we should charge people $25 per post on the SDMB too. Think of all the good we could do with the money raised! Myself, I cannot think of any reason _ **not** _ to do this right away.
>
> If people don’t want to pay (although I don’t know why they wouldn’t, they must hate cute shelter puppies and kids with cancer and all the people we could help with this free money; I’m prepared to pay it, isn’t that enough?), they just don’t have to post. But it is WAY past time we move beyond the selfish convenience and sense of entitlement and take one for the team (so long as it’s my teammates taking it and not me!) by getting rid of free posting.
If free posts here were cluttering up our landfills and oceans and choking marine life and in other ways just stupid, destructive and pointless given available alternatives (in some PHYSICAL manner, I mean ;)) I would agree totally.
FTM, posting here is hardly a neccessity for me or anyone else, as opposed to having some method of carrying your groceries home.
Sarcasm is not only the lowest form of humor, it is the lowest form of debate.
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### Author:  [@brad\_d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brad_d)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/22 "2009-06-10T20:22:15Z")
> [@Tomczyk](#):
>
> I use reusable canvas bags when I shop. It really isn’t that hard. I think a tax on (or fee for) plastic bags could encourage the use of reusable bags.
The hard part for me is remembering to take them with me when I go to the store. My batting average in that department is well below .500 recently. :smack:
Like others, we keep the plastics and re-use them as disposable nasty-stuff-holders or small trash can liners. It’s actually a minor inconvenience to run out.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/23 "2009-06-10T20:27:05Z")
I’m in favor of discontinuing the practice of automatically sticking purchases in plastic bags. Of course some thin plastic bags will exist for various purposes. It’s the procedure that needs ot change.
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### Author:  [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/24 "2009-06-10T20:31:02Z")
> [@InterestedObserver](#):
>
> If free posts here were cluttering up our landfills and oceans and choking marine life and in other ways just stupid, destructive and pointless given available alternatives (in some PHYSICAL manner, I mean ;)) I would agree totally.
>
> FTM, posting here is hardly a neccessity for me or anyone else, as opposed to having some method of carrying your groceries home.
>
> Sarcasm is not only the lowest form of humor, it is the lowest form of debate.
Only because tut-tutting isn’t funny or informative at all.
There is a real harm; we could have used the posting fees to help other people in a coordinated manner.
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### Author:  [@RedRosesForMe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedRosesForMe)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/25 "2009-06-10T20:40:02Z")
I think banning them outright would be unnecessary and counterproductive. As many posters have said, they reuse them for nasty or messy jobs where you need a plastic bag. If they banned them, I’d have to go out and buy small trash can liners, which helps the environment not a whit.
I think discouraging their use when better alternatives exist (reusable cloth) through taxes is probably the best option. If someone has to pay a nickel for every bag they bring home, they’re probably going to be a bit more careful about what they do with it. Hopefully that would also encourage people to reuse them.
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### Author:  [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/26 "2009-06-10T20:41:32Z")
See, yes, I get that; I use them for stinky disposables (rotten or potentially rotten food, animal shit, assorted nasties)and they come in very handy. But fact is, they STILL end up sitting in a landfill for-frickin’-ever, just full of cat shit or rotten meat or whatever.
Ideally, all that stuff they are used to contain should be composted (not currently an option for me, living in an apartment with no compost pile or room for a worm bin and no refuse service here to handle it)
And I recycle those extras I don’t use (since even the few I get when I forget my bags or buy more than the ones I bring can hold add up fast).
But if we just went ahead and got rid of them altogether, we would adapt really fast and hardly notice. We might even start to demand alternatives (like composting on site or as part of garbage pick-up…hell, same thing has happened with recycling here, where you are very strongly encouraged to separate all paper/cardboard/plastic/glass/metal from “garbage”…it is second nature and no big deal)
Sometimes we need a kick in the ass to get out shit together. Human nature. And if it was reality that we HAD to bring our own bags to the store or be charged extra or not have any way to carry our stuff home, we would soon catch on.
Of COURSE it’s 'bad" to be producing and using plastic bags, made of OIL, once, twice, whatever, then having them end up as litter or landfill bulk! Do any of us ACTUALLY require proof of this fact? :rolleyes:
We need to grow up already and DEAL with the basic changes required to be responsible stewards of this planet and stop making messes for our kids and grandkids to clean up! :mad: And yet we still balk at something as simple and elementary as reusable bags. Jesus wept.
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### Author:  [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/27 "2009-06-10T20:42:40Z")
Having recently started using reusable bags, I also forget to grab them before going into the store and find myself making a trip back out to get them. On occasion, the stores I go to give me a five cent discount for using my own bags, which is kind of pitiful, if you ask me. Not much incentive, really. OTOH, if I had been charged five cents for every bag they provided me with, I’d have probably started bringing my own a long time ago.
And our TJ’s doesn’t give me money back. They enter my name and phone number into a monthly drawing for free groceries. I haven’t won yet. ☹
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### Author:  [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/28 "2009-06-10T20:45:39Z")
I guess I’m missing the point of the ban. If it’s just about liter then wouldn’t it be easier to fine littering? I buy my groceries on a daily basis and I’ve never had one that didn’t end up in a trashcan, either as garbage or as the garbage bag so where are they blowing from?
If the concern is wasting plastics then I guess something could be accomplished by charging for them but I think that the man hours the store would spend to count how many bags I’m using would be much higher then what I’m getting fined per bag.
I tried using the cloth bags but I never once remembered them so they became beach bags or for other stuff. I would pay at least 10 cents per bag without even thinking about changing my habits just for the convenience of not having to remember the bags and carry them around the store while I’m shopping.
I think the best solution would be a bio-degradable bag that is supplied by the store like the plastics ones currently are and a dollar surcharge on every grocery purchase. That way the cost is covered in general the bags would get paid for and if one managed to run away from its owner it would disappear in a couple of months.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/29 "2009-06-10T20:47:09Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#):
>
> I’m in favor of discontinuing the practice of automatically sticking purchases in plastic bags. Of course some thin plastic bags will exist for various purposes. It’s the procedure that needs ot change.
Aye. The immense majority of the cashiers at the newest supermarket in town are great: they know how to pack up bags, and if I say “I’ve got a trolley,” they don’t bag the stuff. But there’s two who always, no matter what I say, bag everything I haven’t been faster grabbing: it’s also the same two who can’t charge for a six-pack of milk cartons without breaking it apart…
I don’t think it makes sense to ban them altogether, but it makes sense to bring the notion up. People used to buy with reusable containers all the time; when I got to the US I was surprised that shopping trolleys seemed nonexistant until I realized most people drive to the supermarket (in Europe I walk there the immense majority of the time).
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### Author:  [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/30 "2009-06-10T20:50:28Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#):
>
> Only because tut-tutting isn’t funny or informative at all.
>
> There is a real harm; we could have used the posting fees to help other people in a coordinated manner.
“tut-tutting?” HUH? Maybe you see it that way and maybe for good reason. :rolleyes:
“coordinated manner”? For someone who sounds so opposed to having government/the people impose rules and regulations, it is interesting that your rationale is that there should be some “coordinated manner” of doing good by imposing fees on posting here vs imposing fees on consuming OTHER resources like plastic bags. Both are free-market regulations, though ONE is based on cost, both of production and disposal and one is based on whim.
Odd.
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### Author:  [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/31 "2009-06-10T21:08:13Z")
> [@InterestedObserver](#):
>
> “tut-tutting?” HUH? Maybe you see it that way and maybe for good reason. :rolleyes:
>
> “coordinated manner”? For someone who sounds so opposed to having government/the people impose rules and regulations, it is interesting that your rationale is that there should be some “coordinated manner” of doing good by imposing fees on posting here vs imposing fees on consuming OTHER resources like plastic bags. Both are free-market regulations, though ONE is based on cost, both of production and disposal and one is based on whim.
>
> Odd.
I don’t know why you think I’m some sort of dyed-in-the-wool free marketeer just because I don’t join in your cavalier calls for taxation on things you, personally, wouldn’t miss (but perhaps, if you considered it from other’s people perspective, it might be rather burdensome).
Oh wait, now I know why you think that.
Odd.
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### Author:  [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/32 "2009-06-10T21:10:13Z")
> [@InterestedObserver](#):
>
> Of COURSE it’s 'bad" to be producing and using plastic bags, made of OIL, once, twice, whatever, then having them end up as litter or landfill bulk! Do any of us ACTUALLY require proof of this fact? :rolleyes:
>
> .
Actually IIRC (which is always questionable), the stuff from oil used to make cheap plastics is the crap left over from processing oil for more useful stuff like fuels.
Which, if it is the case, is like being against leather (made from beef cows that would have been killed anyway) because it wastes cows, and not some higher moral principle.
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### Author:  [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/33 "2009-06-10T21:12:37Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> I didn’t see anything in the article in that explains what’s so bad about them except that they “choke marine life,” which we don’t have much of where I live. I want to see a demonstration showing exactly how they’re much more Evil than the alternatives before you talk about a ban.
My company did some advertising work for a waste management conference a few yeas ago (remember Toronto has been paying to ship its garbage to Michigan because we ran out of dump space). A good portion of the event was dedicated to implementing waste diversion programs and covered a lot of case studies on pilot programs and their successes. It was actually quite interesting, no matter dull it may sound.
It’s not about “choking wildlife”. Plastic bags are over-represented as far as waste goes. Particularly when examining the average lifespan of a plastic bag. For example, one plastic bag may have a useful life of about five minutes before it enters the waste stream. Basically, it moves my groceries from the shopping cart to my trunk, then my trunk to my kitchen. Total time in use, in my case, about 2 minutes. Then it enters the waste stream. I’d probably get 6 bags per grocery trip, that doesn’t include any other purchases I may make during the week.
Granted some are re-used as garbage bags, but basically the study (alas, I have no cite because although I attended the conference, I wasn’t an actual delegate, so I don’t have any of the conference materials, but I’ll see if I can find anything) really hammered home was the crazy amount of plastic bags that are manufactured to go almost straight to the dump. Like seriously, tons and tons. And they take a helluva long time to appreciably degrade.
In Toronto, the new bag surcharge aims to help divert excess plastic bag waste. It’s based on similar programs in other cities that have had noticeably positive results in reducing the amount of unnecessary volume in city dumps. A re-usable bag may last for years before it find it’s way to a dump, compared to the very short lifespan of a plastic grocery bag.
> [@brad\_d](#):
>
> Like others, we keep the plastics and re-use them as disposable nasty-stuff-holders or small trash can liners. It’s actually a minor inconvenience to run out.
In our household, we rarely use plastic bags. The city provides large bins for you to put on the curb every week. The garbage containers we use in the house for garbage and organics each have removable bucket, so we can just dump stuff directly into the big bins. Same with our small trash cans. We don’t actually _need_ plastic bags as liners to move our waste from the inside of the house to the big outdoor bins. We just dump them, give them a quick wipe, and Bob’s your uncle.
Oh, and I also often forget to bring my canvas bags to the store. :smack: I am getting better though.
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### Author:  [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/34 "2009-06-10T21:16:11Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#):
>
> I would pay at least 10 cents per bag without even thinking about changing my habits just for the convenience of not having to remember the bags and carry them around the store while I’m shopping.
Wow.
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### Author:  [@EmAnJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmAnJ)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/35 "2009-06-10T21:25:40Z")
For those of you that use plastic bags for dog poop, we recently switched to using biodegradable dog poop bags and they are great! We can get about 100 for $5 and I feel a bit less guilty about throwing a bag into the garbage.
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### Author:  [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/36 "2009-06-10T21:41:27Z")
> [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](#):
>
> Wow.
What? My average single trip is between 20 and 30 dollars which typically involve 1-2 bags so even at 10 cents I’m looking at a maximum of a 0.01% increase in my total purchase. Do you really think that is a significant impact? Honestly, stores could tack on that surcharge on everything thing I bought all year and it would be about $73 or about $6 a month. Even people on minimum wage would barely notice that increase.
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### Author:  [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/37 "2009-06-10T21:41:35Z")
> [@EmAnJ](#):
>
> For those of you that use plastic bags for dog poop, we recently switched to using biodegradable dog poop bags and they are great! We can get about 100 for $5 and I feel a bit less guilty about throwing a bag into the garbage.
Where do you get them? I’m using baggies and feeling guilty about it, but not guilty enough to stop.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/38 "2009-06-10T21:56:54Z")
It is most certainly a psychological failing, but I know that as a customer I would make it a point to avoid stores that charged for bags (the reason I never go to Aldi) and would definitely go to stores that gave me a ‘discount’ for bringing my own bags. Even if the dollar value worked out to the exact same thing, I’d take the supposed savings over the supposed extra charge any day.
So maybe this isn’t something that should be implemented at a consumer level, but instead at a behind-the-scenes store level already calculated into the prices of things.
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### Author:  [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/39 "2009-06-10T22:16:33Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#):
>
> I don’t know why you think I’m some sort of dyed-in-the-wool free marketeer just because I don’t join in your cavalier calls for taxation on things you, personally, wouldn’t miss (but perhaps, if you considered it from other’s people perspective, it might be rather burdensome).
>
> Oh wait, now I know why you think that.
>
> Odd.
Has nothing to do with “taxation” but with free market principles of cost of resources and disposal, which, I think, businesses and consumers both have a right to be concerned with and demand reforms regarding. Interesting that you would consider this a “tax” and not simply a “a passing on of the cost to the consumer”. It is in the best interests, in this case, of businesses, consumers, and the planet to eliminate this wasteful use of resources, both on the production end and the disposal end.
And I never SAID it wasn’t “rather burdensome” on MY end…admitted as such, but I am willing to do some things which might require a bit of effort on my part when I feel they are logical and helpful overall. Same reason I bother to recycle rather than just tossing it all out in the landfill or turn the water off when I am brushing. Both as easy as taking my own damn bags to the store. And no, I DON’T have much sympathy for anyone who can’t be bothered even that much. Let THEM pay for the bags they use and dispose of.
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### Author:  [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ban-single-use-plastic-bags/499357/40 "2009-06-10T22:19:39Z")
Without them, I would be unable to freeze breastmilk in amounts sufficient for day care. Until we get a year of maternity leave in the US, I’m using my plastic bags, thanks. I make up for it by using, and recycling, paper grocery bags instead of plastic.
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