It was a decade ago when California became the first state in the nation to ban single-use plastic bags, ushering in a wave of anti-plastic legislation from coast to coast.
But in the years after California seemingly kicked its plastic grocery sack habit, material recovery facilities and environmental activists noticed a peculiar trend: Plastic bag waste by weight was increasing to unprecedented levels.
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.
The problem, it turns out, was a section of the law that allowed grocery stores and large retailers to provide thicker, heavier-weight plastic bags to customers for the price of a dime.
Fair points. But look also at downstream uses for plastics that they’re banning. Many people reuse them as storage, litter box liners, trash bin liners, art materials…. All uses that would still need to be filled. Of course, banning them creates a market for replacement plastic products or boosts sales of existing products, so more money for capitalists, I guess.
As for open food in markets, I for one, having so far lived through a pandemic, can’t wait for a return to the days when sniffling, sneezing germ factories spewed mucus and worse all over the produce day in and day out.
Maybe, but I had already stopped doing this years before because the thin bags became too crappy to re-use for anything. I can’t be the only one