12mo ago

California's war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired. Lawmakers are trying again

www.latimes.com California's war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired. Lawmakers are trying again

Ten years after California passed landmark legislation to reduce plastic bag use, the tonnage of discarded bags has skyrocketed. What happened?

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.

87 comments

That is such an idiotic loophole there is no way in hell it wasn't bought by lobbyists
- The whole scheme is a farce designed to take what was once complimentary and turn it into a highly profitable side business. It's the same the world over.
  
  I refuse to buy into the scam u can now find me balancing my groceries intop of eavhother as i try navugate from my car to my kitchen. Yes i know i could use a reusable bag but i always forget.
  
  The fillip to retailers is incidental I suspect. The aim of plastic manufacturers when they engage in the lawmaking process is probably safeguarding their ability to produce plastic at an uninterrupted level. They're happy to reduce total units provided the units are heavier. The environmental impact doesn't matter: government and industry will continue forcing the recycling meme so it looks as though the conservation angle is covered. Once their part of the problem is solved, the problem no longer exists :^)
- You described most CA laws - don't get me started on CARB and how is just pushing us toward bigger, less efficient cars while killing innovation by smaller engineering shops
  
  I'ma have to get you started. Explain yourself.
  
  I'ma second. This is officiallly unofficial permission to begin your dissertation on unforeseen consequences. I'm here for this.
  
  As the asker of the question and someone who is vaguely interested in maybe one day getting into hot rod building to have an electric that doesn't have those blasted touch screens, by all means, get started on it.
- Totally was. In NJ, those poor saps were sold by the grocer lobbyists that the paper and plastic bag ban was good for reducing the amount of plastic bags. NJ is now seeing that there was no reduction in waste, but rather than cost being passed into the consumer. I lol’d so hard because “I told you so”
  News 12 reported it on TV, so no, I have no link, but you can go find one.
  Same shit, different set of idiots.

this isnt just california. they rolled out these thicker bags everywhere so they are no longer 'single use' except to the people that use them.
- In CO this doesn’t seem to be much of a thing. Almost everyone is using reusable fabric bags or no bags at all. I can’t recall seeing thicker bags for sale at any of the retailers I frequent. Many don’t have bags at checkouts at all anymore even though you can buy the thin ones for a dime.
  
  ive seen them in at least 3 different states on the east coast
- Those thicker bags, tear easily and usually don't survive longer than the trip home. It's a stupid loophole. They also can't be washed. So if you do reuse them, it's a great way to buildup bacteria and molds.
  In reality they are thicker single used bags.
- Here in MO basically everyone has super thin bags that suck ass.
  
  They literally aren't even worth using to pickup dog shit here in Florida. Because you'll get it on your hands.
  
  And they give me a look and roll their eyes when I place my reusable bag on the counter or have to fight the self checkout machine at Schnucks or Dierbergs to accept that I brought my own bags.
- Interesting, here in NY grocery stores can't have any plastic bags. The only bags they have are paper. Restaurants can have plastic bags though.
  
  Correct.
  NY did not totally fuck up like NJ did, but that’s a song almost as old as time for the most part.
- The bags sold in NJ aren't plastic. It is this weird cloth product.

"banned..."
They never banned them. They just made people have to pay for them, and forced them to be made differently. The new bags are better than before; but they're still plastic and most people aren't re-using them.

They did this in Chicago too and everyone immediately saw that it wasn't about reducing plastic, but about getting more money to the city. If they actually cared about plastic, they would actually ban it. And you know what, It's not hard at all. Think about what people were using in the 70s before plastic on everything was common. Paper grocery bags, wax paper at the deli counter, cardboard cartons for small fruit like blueberries, lettuce and potatoes laying bare on shelves instead of wrapped up in plastic bundles, beverages in cans and glass bottles. If they could do it, we can do it too.

The idea of reusable bags was great, but they operated the same as the old plastic bags. They're thicker, more durable, but most people don't care enough to bring back their old bags, and will just buy new ones because it's convenient. Speaking from personal experience.
Also, different places have different protocols, sometimes they make you bag your own groceries if you bring your own bags. Again, some people won't bother.

They did this in the UK and it worked. The Cali law just has dumb ass loopholes in it.
- That's cause we didn't actually ban them. Neo Liberals thought people would stop using them if they had to pay 10 cents.
  Turns out, nobody cared. We need an actual ban.
  
  Not OP, but that's what we did in the UK too... I'm honestly confused reading the post and the comments calling California out on this. I must be misunderstanding something because we did the same thing and it really, really worked. The UK led the charge on the concept of 'nudges' like this and it's been successful and widely praised. We still have thick plastic bags that you buy for 10p, but most people really do keep some on hand for most situations so plastic dumping has been significantly reduced.
  
  Or one just buys them in bulk and brings their own plastic bags to the store. Cheaper than $.10, still legal.
  Plastic grocery bags take up so little space and are so versatile for so many things that would otherwise take thicker more expensive trashbag-like material, or paper or cloth that can't handle wet.
  Replacing them at the store didn't replace them at the litterbox, at the quick trip to the friend's house to bring some snacks, at the carpet stain cleanup, at the garage project cleanup, at side of the road car repair, for emergency gloves in a pinch, at stopping liquid leaks in your car's trunk because some container broke, at the small bathroom trash can at home, and so many other places where those bags can and do get reused a bunch of times. Paper and cloth bags both leak. Cloth bags waste drinking water to clean. Regular trash bags not only cost more, but like this article mentions, are also thicker plastic resulting in more plastic ending up in a landfill.
  Not trying to sound pro-plastic grocery bag, just pointing out that they are infinitely useful for so many small tasks, and the replacements can't hold up to the task, or are worse in several ways. It's difficult to remove something from peoples' processes when there aren't any reasonable substitutes.
  Paper probably has the best bet of going back to prevalence since it can be a carbon sink cycle, but it will take time.
  
  I think the gig economy and the pandemic both had a hand in this as well. The pandemic set things up for curbside pickup and increased the number of people using things like Instacart, and a lot of people who switched to that have stayed on them. But both curbside pickup and Instacart-style services need a convenient way for the collector of goods to get that stuff to the purchaser, so they're going to buy bags for their deliveree. And the deliveree is going to end up with stacks and stacks of reusable bags that they're never going to reuse (because they order pickup or delivery). They try to donate them but a lot of places don't take them, so they end up in the trash.
  
  It could still be a financial penalty, but it should be 10 dollars instead of 10 cents.

now plastic bags are no longer free - but honestly $0.15/bag is basically free so most folks still toss them out.

Ireland has a plastic bag levy of 22c per bag. Most supermarkets don't even bother selling single use bags any more. If you want to buy a bag, then your choice is a thicker reusable bag or a "bag for life" that most supermarkets will charge you 70c or more for.
I suppose some people might throw them away but more likely they hang onto them because they cost so much to begin with.
In some supermarkets like LIDL and Aldi it's also quite common for someone to grab an empty cardboard box that (the stores usually toss them in a big mesh bin) and use that to carry stuff away. These can be put into recycling.
There is also a drive to ban single use plastics like cutlery, straws, cups etc. Ireland also just imposed a refundable tax on plastic bottles and cans - supermarkets have machines that ingest returned containers and print out a credit slip.

Damn, some others countries successfully banned single-use plastic bags years ago, replacing them by re-usable thicker bags that you can buy, people are now accustomed to bring bags to go shopping.
Seems like californians have too much money or are very generous.
- We have these cheap fabric bags that groceries stores give out here in Canada. They cost something like 25 cents each and could theoretically be used disposably but most people don't seem to. I have a stupid amount of them stuffed into my car's trunk that I bring into stores.
  Does California only sell those big plastic re-useable bags? I don't even really see those here in Canada much anymore
- Or the bags are too cheap.

People are gonna be pissed when they find out about plastic water bottles.
- Those are recyclable allegedly.
  ... in practice they really arent though but they do make us feel responsible when we toss those in the blue bin
  
  Plastics aren't as recyclable as they make it sound. But at the same time, nobody ever remembers the other 2 fucking R's:
  Reduce your consumption of these materials and
  Reuse things that aren't damaged.
  Recycling is meant to be the last stop; not the only stop.
  There is no reason you can't just keep using the same grocery bags every week until they actually are non functional. But most people just bin them as soon as they are done.
- Those are made of PET which is one of the most recycled types of plastic ever.

If only the bags were significantly more expensive people would actually start to care and reuse the bags. Where in from the bags cost the equivalent to 2-3 dollars. A lot of people started using fabric bags and reuse the thicker plastic bags many times. I can easily use the thick plastic grocery bags we have 20 times and the fabric ones I mainly use are over 5 years now and counting.

Plastic bags need to be banned totally.

I just carry some of the thick ones in my car in the trunk and just bag there at the car. I fold them up and bring them to the car and leave them there next time I go out anywhere. A habit that is less common for me to forget to do now but I did forget all the time initially and would pay at the counter. I have an excess of them now though so even when I do forget to bring some down I have spares in the car. Less chance of forgetting twice anyway. Easy thing to change to.

My city banned plastic bags and it costs 10 cents for paper bags so you definitely see a lot more cloth bags being brought in. Just at grocery stores, you still get take out in plastic bags every so often but most places just switched to all paper
- Our city is the same but they sell you and even thicker plastic bag for 10 cents. No paper options. (Safeway)
- I did notice an option at Kroger or maybe it was Walmart when you do pickup they won't use plastic bags. I have a big shopping basket I accidentally liberated from the store years ago that stays in the back of the car they put the stuff in.

LOL my wife would come home with brand new plant liners. WTF! You can just vacuum form these things and reuse them as furniture.
- can you give me two paragraphs on this? i am really interested but i do not know what you're saying.
  
  I'm just agreeing with the post. My wife went from bringing countless things plastic bags to bringing countless thick plastic bags. The mindset of re-use was limited to using the bags to toss baby diapers. But not actually to keep using the bag over and over for bringing groceries home.

ok so this is a mindset problem : people are too accustomed to disposable, and lost the habit to re-use (thank to Consumer society)?
This problem can be solved with education, with new habits taught to young generations : awareness courses about waste management, teaching about sorting, waste reduction, composting and food waste.
In my area they do it since 6 years in schools, now children are educating their parents !

Would it not work to do like we do for refundable cans? QR code or barcode on the bag to verify and store drop off for a refund of this 10/15¢. People would go out of their way to collect and drop these off at facilities that could accept and recycle these.
- you can't really recycle a regular plastic bag, the materials used are "bottom of the food chain". around here they recycle bottles and containers, but use wrappings and bags to heat up the regular garbage incinerators...

Yup. They just created more waste. We need to make the jump to no plastic bags. It's time, we can do it.

Germany did this years ago. Seems to work. You can still get plastic bags, but you have to pay for them.
- That's what the article is saying.
  The intent was to drop plastic usage. It did, but plastic usage multiplied because the plastic bags people are paying for contain more plastic than before.
  
  Another German law states that if you make a product, like a plastic bag, you must pay for its disposal after use. That way, if a product changes, the manufacturer bears the cost. Does drive prices up, though.

Yeah. Why are they even offering these? Use paper for instacart shoppers only. Everyone else needs to bring their own. Why is it so hard to put this into play?
- Because stores lose out on the impulse shopper market. Who didn't plan to go shopping and didn't bring bags.

Coming from a country that did this ages ago for stupid reasons.
Wait until they come for your straws. Cutting down trees for paper bags I can deal with but fucking paper straws (Mcdonalds im looking at you) is god awful.
Edit: downvoters getting sour about the paper bags consuming trees is a reality and cost of shifting resources. So do we create enormous plastic waste and destroy the environment or do we cut down trees and destroy the atmosphere. Policy change requires constructive thought, critical thought to test, and balance (not always but considered) to get the best outcome.
- There are compostable straws that work quite well. Also maybe just use a metal straw, or bring your own cup, no need to have disposable everything.
  
  Metal straw I can get bahind but other straw types just dont make it to market because money. Personally just take the lid off and use a cup like an adult.
  God the fictional line of just bring your own cup. No one brings their own cup to Mcdonalds. No one. They dont accept them now anyway. Their soda machines are automated for their own cups. Their trajectory is hire less people buy more robots.
  
  I got a paper straw the other day that actually worked really well, so it seems like someone finally figured out how to make a good one.

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