And how does putting plastic bags in landfills address concerns about what the bags do to soil and water as they degrade over the next many, many years?
If we went back in time by several decades, and I questioned why someone was dumping used motor oil in the ground, we now know that it wouldn’t be a satisfactory answer to say, “Don’t worry, I’m making sure the motor oil doesn’t pollute because I’m dumping it in the ground rather than in the storm drain.” Why is that same answer acceptable for plastic bags?
The same way it’s addressed by all the other garbage bags of significantly heavier grade. Landfills aren’t set up by throwing darts at a map. They’re set up to mitigate damage to the environment. Throwing a tax on this doesn’t change anything other than another way to raise taxes. This is what people don’t get. A new tax is inserted under the “it’s only a couple of dollars” flag. An extra tax on phone use here, a bag tax there. It adds up.
Yes, I’m denying this reduces litter. At best a higher thickness bag is substituted and is then introduced into the environment at the same rate per volume if you’re lucky.
No it’s pretty clear this reduces litter. Your point is perhaps that it’s environmentally a wash because the same amount of plastic reaches the landfill but i am skeptical. People using canvas bags for groceries don’t automatically buy more trash bags to make up for it.
Seattle banned plastic bags a few years ago, and Olympia banned them last year. I work at a grocery store in Tacoma where they’re still allowed.
I used to be fairly ambivalent about the whole deal, but I saw an exhibit at the Pacific Science Center awhile ago that changed my mind - a big pile of garbage that was found inside the stomach of a gray whale that beached and died in the area a few years ago. Among the mix of old clothes, blankets, and Capri Sun bags were a rather large number of plastic grocery bags - a surprising number of which had our store’s logo on them.
That made me feel pretty guilty on a personal level, and I support the laws now (even though I invariably end up leaving my reusable bags at home whenever I need to go shopping).
Ok, I’ve provided cites for the impact of bag taxes on previous pages. Why don’t you come up with a cite showing no decrease in litter as a result of bag taxes?
What is this “higher thickness bag” of which you speak and who is it that’s introducing it into the environment at the rate you claim? It makes no sense and certainly hasn’t been my experience. Are you talking about purchased garbage bags? The small ones – the kitchen-catcher type things that line indoor garbage containers – can be (and in some cases must be) biodegradable. Even if they’re not, they are used in far smaller quantities than the estimated 1200 plastic bags per capita per year consumed in the US. Back in the day, when I was getting my groceries in plastic bags and using them for household garbage, the number of incoming bags far, far exceeded what I needed for garbage. There was always a huge surplus to dispose of.
The other type of purchased bag is the big green garbage bag. Those are just not necessary and, in many jurisdictions, have to be specially stickered and their use very limited, because you’re expected to use the city-provided garbage bins. And those bins will be filled with the little kitchen-catcher liner bags which, as said, will often be biodegradable. Also, many areas reduce garbage volume by separately collecting kitchen waste in separate containers, which is stuff is then composted, and if that stuff is bagged, biodegradable compostable bags are mandatory – and this greatly reduces landfill usage.
So where in all this do you see a problem?
I used to forget my reusable bags, too. The key here is just habit, where going grocery shopping without a bag or two in your hand just feels like there’s something missing. Also, I have enough of them now that there are always a few extra ones in the car, so I can survive even my scatter-brained disorganization!
Where I live in CA, plastic bags are banned, and the stores have to charge you (I think it’s 25c) for paper bags. The law the OP is talking about does not ban plastic bags but charges a 10c fee for either plastic of paper.
Everyone here seems to be talking only about plastic bags, but I’m not getting the mandatory charge for paper bags. Again, where I live, people are incentivized to reduce ALL trash since we pay a great deal for garbage vs recyclables. And I think most people recycle paper bags (I use them to hold recyclables), so I’m just not getting the charge for paper bags.
I don’t really get it, either. I suppose it’s to reflect the fact that paper has an environmental cost, too (carbon footprint) and to encourage reusable bags.
Well, the old saying is that everything that happens, happens in CA first, so maybe it’s a trend. Where I live plastic bag bans and/or taxes have been regionally inconsistent, but the net result is widespread use of reusable bags even when plastic bags are available and even free, which is a good example of socially-driven behavioral change regardless of actual law. Meanwhile the province-wide liquor operation long ago replaced plastic bags (which were extra thick for obvious reasons) with paper bags for which there is (so far) no charge. But I imagine there eventually will be. Won’t affect me as I’ve been using handy reusable winery-style bottle bags for years!
I say, unless something is particularly environmentally harmful, charge people for GARBAGE, period. Cherry picking a point-of-use-fee for one given item, like paper shopping bags, makes it look like environmentalists just don’t like shopping bags, per se, which makes them look like extremists on the issue.
Unless the heavier duty grocery bags are launched into space they represent the same density amount of trash/recyclable material they are suppose to offset.
As for those who use them again as trash bags, I don’t know what you think people would do without them. If I didn’t have these to use as trash bags then any trash bag I buy will be of a heavier grade which would make the offset a negative.
Well paper bags biodegrade pretty slowly if they’re dumped in a landfill (like everything else), and take up greater volume than an equivalent carrying capacity of plastic bags in the meantime. However, I’m not aware of what proportion of paper bags get separated out for recycling nowadays.
As for the OP, I’m fine with it. Here in China pretty much all shops charge for plastic bags and it’s always been that way.
Shops are entitled to charge whatever they want for anything; they could charge you $1 to walk into their air-conditioned environment if they wanted. There’s no inherent “right” to anything. And charging for bags seems to be a net good; it encourages people to bring their own bags, and use of plastic bags goes down.
(And obviously the argument that this does nothing to reduce all the other packaging we throw away is the “perfect solution fallacy”).
Lucky for you you can shop often enough that you only need a couple bags. I would need eight per trip (assuming they are paper bag sized, not plastic bag sized), as we buy for the month or so. And the only ones I have seen are $2 a bag and still remarkably fragile, to the point I’d be surprised if they survived more than a few trips. (Especially those handles–barely attached.)
What I find strange is that, even with people like us who get a lot of bags, the cost is still pretty low compared to anything else. For use, that means that, even though Aldi’s charges for bags, we still always get them anyways. You guys (i.e. people in cities, especially the ones big enough to do this sort of thing) are generally much more affluent. Why the hell does it make you get fewer bags?
You’d be surprised how much you can get in to those canvas bags. And they make them in all sizes. I only shop once a month and I can get away with 3 usually. Shopping for a single person of course. But still a fairly full cart.
The bags are surprisingly strong too. I’m surprised you haven’t come across any for free. I got one at a baseball game, and a super big, sturdy one from my insurance agent.
Pfft. Ridiculous. I used my grocery bags as dog feces bags. I switched to thinner smaller bags specifically meant for dog poop. Your assumptions about everybody else’s bag use is silly.
This is just silly. Reusable bags are far more sturdy that the disposable plastic ones (like 15X more) and last forever. I have a half-dozen in my trunk and I never paid for one. They give them away everywhere.
I was so pissed at this starting in CA, I keep a full size Hefty ziploc in my car and whip that out at the register with only three items. When they stare I say, “Hey, I got some leaves to pick up too!”
Seriously, it’s a ram in the ass to pay for the crappy paper bags that rip by gripping them. Since this started, my free trash bags are out of the budget, so I buy the Hefty bags, use a new one at the store then use it for trash. More expensive though.
They’re banned in the ACT, the flimsy single use ones that is. My main shop at Woolies just did away with them, they have 15c sturdier plastic ones, and 99c sort of nylony woven ones which last for years.
The IGA up the road still used single use ones, but they were approved biodegradable jobbies.
