LA Times: CA Plastic Bag Ban increases Total Plastic Use

[storewanderer]

Finally they have figured this out.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/sto ... c-bag-bans
So in 2004 the CalRecycle group estimated that the average CA resident disposed of 8 pounds of plastic bags per year.
In 2021 the average CA resident disposed of 11 pounds of plastic bags per year.

There is also a companion article pointing out how few people take reusable bags to the stores in CA.
I've been saying this since before COVID.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/sto ... california
Quote from article:

"
I counted 337 customers coming out of a Target in Culver City: 146 had all new plastic bags; only 25 had brought reusable bags. Only four of those shoppers were reusing plastic bags. Most reusables were made of sturdier materials, such as cotton or woven polyethylene.

Of 177 customers at a Ralph’s in Culver City, 70 had all-new plastic bags while 43 had brought reusable bags with them. Four of those people had brought back plastic bags.


I also observed shoppers at a Whole Foods in Playa Vista and Trader Joe’s in Culver City. Both of these stores cater to a more upscale, eco-conscious clientele, so I thought more of their customers might bring bags. And neither of these stores will sell you a plastic bag; they offer paper bags for 10 cents.

At Whole Foods, 79 shoppers emerged with all-new paper bags, while 29 had reusables. I watched one woman exit the store with two paper bags, set them down on a table, then condense her groceries into one bag. She folded and discarded the other paper bag into a recycling bin approximately 20 feet from where she’d purchased it.

At Trader Joe’s, 52 shoppers left with all-new paper bags, and 27 left with bags they brought from home.

At a Smart and Final and a Grocery Outlet in Fresno, 34 shoppers emerged with new plastic bags. A grand total of one person had a single, small, reusable bag."

This article also doesn't take into account any increase in trash bag use/purchases due to this plastic bag ban.

This is a complete failure. What the lawmakers and certain environmental groups have to understand is a large segment of consumers are not interested in reusable bags and there are legitimate sanitation concerns. Accept that people still want the single use bags and move on. Also that food stamp/WIC customers receive free bags and that customer base makes up a significant percentage of customers at some stores creates a lot of plastic waste as well.

What is ironic is if they had kept the thin bags and attached a bag fee to those (like Chicago, Minneapolis, and Washington DC), I am confident plastic pounds of trash would have declined. But since they have to hand out those super thick bags of course the amount of plastic waste decreased. It does not take a genius to figure out this would be the outcome.

Rather than waste all the money on a plastic bag ban and enforcement (a total joke), the state should have spent the money on plastic bag recycling programs that actually recycled the bags. They are absolutely recyclable; there are stories out there of bags being made into park benches, crates, employee aprons, and many other things. It

[HCal]

10 cents is simply not enough to get people to change their behavior. Make it 50 cents and it might work.

Or just ban the plastic bags entirely. Stores can sell paper bags, or just hand out boxes like Costco.

[storewanderer]

10 cents is simply not enough to get people to change their behavior. Make it 50 cents and it might work.

Or just ban the plastic bags entirely. Stores can sell paper bags, or just hand out boxes like Costco.

Change their behavior for what reason/benefit? The environmental impact of the reusable bags, especially cotton being the worst, is well documented and it takes thousands of uses to get them to have an environmental impact vs. a similar number of single use bags? What is the point of changing their behavior for something that is even worse for the environment?

The super thick plastic bags absolutely have got to go. There is no question those need to be gone.

Paper bags have more of an impact on the environment too, and use a lot of water. The other problem is paper bag cost is above 20 cents per bag now, and rising. Paper bags have simply become too costly.

Supposedly the super thick plastic bags are actually better for the environment than paper bags. At least that is what Sprouts has concluded in their ESG Report and in their bag fee policy rolled out chainwide.

I am against all legislated bag bans/bag fees (if a store wants to impose one, that is on them) however the keeping thin bags/having a fee approach as in the cities I cited above strikes me as at least a way to reduce plastic use. This at least stops bag waste, stops double bagging, and stops the one item customer from using a bag.

Another interesting thing I noticed in Texas was at HEB and Brookshire Brothers they had two sizes of T-shirt/handled plastic bags at checkout- they had the usual standard size, then they had a smaller size one (similar to what convenience stores use). The smaller size was being used for many small 3-4 item type transactions, also for "separately bagged" items like meat, ice cream, etc. This is a creative way to reduce plastic use by having a smaller bag. Of course many places use a smaller t-shirt bag but this was the first time I've seen in a grocery store in quite some time. I remember long ago Albertsons used to have those smaller bags on a roll (convenience store like) somehow held under the counter, and they came up through the checkstand countertop through a little plastic dispensing slot.

[ClownLoach]

I think I've mentioned it before, but they've got clear, regular thickness t-shirt bags in Canada that are fully biodegradable. I am guessing they're made from some kind of corn or cellulose product. You would never in a million years think it wasn't plastic, and in fact it was more durable and more difficult to tear. Apparently in a landfill the enzymes and other rot causes them to break down into harmless plant dust.

WHY DO THEY HAVE BIODEGRADABLE BAGS IN CANADA BUT NOT HERE?

It's absolutely insane to see the incredible plastic waste here. Meanwhile our neighbors to the North manage to make sensible changes that actually work and more importantly don't complicate anyone's life so they are quick to adapt. Nobody needs to change their behavior, and frankly as we know half the country if you told them that what they do is good for the earth they'd deliberately find a way to ruin it.

The use of all this non recyclable plastic, this bogus bag ban that is now proven to have increased plastic use instead of reducing it. All of this is absolutely criminal. The answers are right in front of our faces, and they don't require offensive bag fees, any kind of behavior changes, or expensive unsanitary reusables. What is so damned difficult about this?

[rwsandiego]

I think I've mentioned it before, but they've got clear, regular thickness t-shirt bags in Canada that are fully biodegradable. I am guessing they're made from some kind of corn or cellulose product. You would never in a million years think it wasn't plastic, and in fact it was more durable and more difficult to tear. Apparently in a landfill the enzymes and other rot causes them to break down into harmless plant dust.

WHY DO THEY HAVE BIODEGRADABLE BAGS IN CANADA BUT NOT HERE?...

Two words: Petrochemical Lobby. That's why. It's the same reason the US does not use ethanol as extensively as Brasil. The petroleum industry touts that food supplies will dwindle and prices will rise. Brasil uses waste sugarcane and other green waste to make ethanol. No effect on the food supply, given they are using waste. Here, we don't use waste. We throw it away and grown corn specifically for ethanol production.

IKEA sells ziplock bags that are made from plastic derived from sugar cane. They work every bit as well as the ones made from petroleum.

I've seen the stories about cotton reusable bags having a much higher environmental impact that plastic when things like the water used to grow the crops and the energy to make the fabric is included. I've never seen an equivalent breakdown on the conventional plastic side. Does the plastic bag's footprint include the energy used to pump the oil out of the ground, transport it from a well to a refinery to a plastics plant, and make the plastic? Does the footprint include the pollution caused by oil spills, refining, and manufacturing the chemicals that become the plastic bag? I won't include the energy that was required to convert dinosaur carcasses to oil, but I have seen anti-reusable bag articles include the energy of the sun required to grow the cotton as a component of its environmental impact.

All that being said, I don't support bag bans because I don't think they are effective. If retailers stopped using plastic and switched to paper, there would be no more plastic bags. Regarding the woman who didn't use one of the two paper bags, the solution is to pack more into one paper bag. Retailers used paper bags until the mid-1980's. Plastic bags, at the time, were widely scorned by consumers. Fast-forward 40 years and we act like we can't live without them.

[storewanderer]

I think I've mentioned it before, but they've got clear, regular thickness t-shirt bags in Canada that are fully biodegradable. I am guessing they're made from some kind of corn or cellulose product. You would never in a million years think it wasn't plastic, and in fact it was more durable and more difficult to tear. Apparently in a landfill the enzymes and other rot causes them to break down into harmless plant dust.

WHY DO THEY HAVE BIODEGRADABLE BAGS IN CANADA BUT NOT HERE?

It's absolutely insane to see the incredible plastic waste here. Meanwhile our neighbors to the North manage to make sensible changes that actually work and more importantly don't complicate anyone's life so they are quick to adapt. Nobody needs to change their behavior, and frankly as we know half the country if you told them that what they do is good for the earth they'd deliberately find a way to ruin it.

The use of all this non recyclable plastic, this bogus bag ban that is now proven to have increased plastic use instead of reducing it. All of this is absolutely criminal. The answers are right in front of our faces, and they don't require offensive bag fees, any kind of behavior changes, or expensive unsanitary reusables. What is so damned difficult about this?

Actually Canada has outlawed the biodegradable bags. They will be illegal in Canada by the end of this year I believe. This isn't about the bags, about the plastic, or about the environment. It is about the war on "single use" even if the alternatives use more plastic and cost more. Once again the consumer loses, the environment loses, but some connected company who imports overpriced "reusables" from some slave labor wage country wins.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/compos ... -1.6928724

Also the biodegradable bags exist in the US; a restaurant I go to uses them for to go orders.

[ClownLoach]

I think I've mentioned it before, but they've got clear, regular thickness t-shirt bags in Canada that are fully biodegradable. I am guessing they're made from some kind of corn or cellulose product. You would never in a million years think it wasn't plastic, and in fact it was more durable and more difficult to tear. Apparently in a landfill the enzymes and other rot causes them to break down into harmless plant dust.

WHY DO THEY HAVE BIODEGRADABLE BAGS IN CANADA BUT NOT HERE?

It's absolutely insane to see the incredible plastic waste here. Meanwhile our neighbors to the North manage to make sensible changes that actually work and more importantly don't complicate anyone's life so they are quick to adapt. Nobody needs to change their behavior, and frankly as we know half the country if you told them that what they do is good for the earth they'd deliberately find a way to ruin it.

The use of all this non recyclable plastic, this bogus bag ban that is now proven to have increased plastic use instead of reducing it. All of this is absolutely criminal. The answers are right in front of our faces, and they don't require offensive bag fees, any kind of behavior changes, or expensive unsanitary reusables. What is so damned difficult about this?

Actually Canada has outlawed the biodegradable bags. They will be illegal in Canada by the end of this year I believe. This isn't about the bags, about the plastic, or about the environment. It is about the war on "single use" even if the alternatives use more plastic and cost more. Once again the consumer loses, the environment loses, but some connected company who imports overpriced "reusables" from some slave labor wage country wins.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/compos ... -1.6928724

Also the biodegradable bags exist in the US; a restaurant I go to uses them for to go orders.

These banned ones shown are like the Trader Joe's produce bags. I've heard there are problems with those. They are thick, questions about how they're made, and they get stuck in machinery. They can cause the same or more issues as a plastic bag. Weather makes a big difference in the decomposition and as we know it's cold up there so I don't believe they break down.

The bags I saw were from Quebec and I believe they were compliant with the Provencal ban on single use plastics. They were clear like plastic. I wonder if they were the sugar cane ones mentioned above...

[storewanderer]

I think I've mentioned it before, but they've got clear, regular thickness t-shirt bags in Canada that are fully biodegradable. I am guessing they're made from some kind of corn or cellulose product. You would never in a million years think it wasn't plastic, and in fact it was more durable and more difficult to tear. Apparently in a landfill the enzymes and other rot causes them to break down into harmless plant dust.

WHY DO THEY HAVE BIODEGRADABLE BAGS IN CANADA BUT NOT HERE?

It's absolutely insane to see the incredible plastic waste here. Meanwhile our neighbors to the North manage to make sensible changes that actually work and more importantly don't complicate anyone's life so they are quick to adapt. Nobody needs to change their behavior, and frankly as we know half the country if you told them that what they do is good for the earth they'd deliberately find a way to ruin it.

The use of all this non recyclable plastic, this bogus bag ban that is now proven to have increased plastic use instead of reducing it. All of this is absolutely criminal. The answers are right in front of our faces, and they don't require offensive bag fees, any kind of behavior changes, or expensive unsanitary reusables. What is so damned difficult about this?

Actually Canada has outlawed the biodegradable bags. They will be illegal in Canada by the end of this year I believe. This isn't about the bags, about the plastic, or about the environment. It is about the war on "single use" even if the alternatives use more plastic and cost more. Once again the consumer loses, the environment loses, but some connected company who imports overpriced "reusables" from some slave labor wage country wins.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/compos ... -1.6928724

Also the biodegradable bags exist in the US; a restaurant I go to uses them for to go orders.

These banned ones shown are like the Trader Joe's produce bags. I've heard there are problems with those. They are thick, questions about how they're made, and they get stuck in machinery. They can cause the same or more issues as a plastic bag. Weather makes a big difference in the decomposition and as we know it's cold up there so I don't believe they break down.

The bags I saw were from Quebec and I believe they were compliant with the Provencal ban on single use plastics. They were clear like plastic. I wonder if they were the sugar cane ones mentioned above...

This is what I'm thinking. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/pl ... table-bags

I can't find anything on the ones in Quebec..

~~~~ttps://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/15jsd6 ... ?rdt=33647

[HCal]

Change their behavior for what reason/benefit? The environmental impact of the reusable bags, especially cotton being the worst, is well documented and it takes thousands of uses to get them to have an environmental impact vs. a similar number of single use bags? What is the point of changing their behavior for something that is even worse for the environment?

The super thick plastic bags absolutely have got to go. There is no question those need to be gone.

When a policy doesn't work or has unintended consequences, the proper response is to reassess and adjust it, not to just abandon it. Outside the US, there are several places where the majority of customers use their own reusable bags, so it clearly can be done.

I completely agree that the super thick plastic bags have to go. They should never have existed to begin with, as they are supposed to be "reusable" and "recyclable" but in practice are neither. It seems like they were just created to skirt the law.

[storewanderer]

Change their behavior for what reason/benefit? The environmental impact of the reusable bags, especially cotton being the worst, is well documented and it takes thousands of uses to get them to have an environmental impact vs. a similar number of single use bags? What is the point of changing their behavior for something that is even worse for the environment?

The super thick plastic bags absolutely have got to go. There is no question those need to be gone.

When a policy doesn't work or has unintended consequences, the proper response is to reassess and adjust it, not to just abandon it. Outside the US, there are several places where the majority of customers use their own reusable bags, so it clearly can be done.

I completely agree that the super thick plastic bags have to go. They should never have existed to begin with, as they are supposed to be "reusable" and "recyclable" but in practice are neither. It seems like they were just created to skirt the law.

Several places outside the US are not the US. The consumer behavior in the US is much different than other countries. In Australia where they have pushed this policy most/all of the produce is wrapped in plastic containers or foam/plastic trays and shrink wrapped, for example. Also just because it happens in several other countries doesn't mean it is actually working in those countries either. It doesn't mean it is actually helping the environment in those countries either.

There is a segment of consumers that is legally (foodstamp customers) or functionally (online pick up orders) using new store provided bags every time they shop. Beyond that there is a segment of customers who doesn't want to use reusable bags due to sanitation concerns, forgetting them, being homeless and having nowhere for reusable bags, etc.

So at this point the people pushing these rules need to be honest with themselves and understand not everyone shopping is going to use reusable bags. So at that point you go back to the thin bags and you put a fee on the bags. This way those who do use store bags every time get a bag with the least amount of plastic. Meanwhile the fee remains in order to discourage over use, etc. Also in a way fee would go up this way because the thin bags do not hold as much as the super thick ones, so the customer who today pays .10 for a super thick bag and squeezes everything into it, would now need 3 thin bags, and be paying .30. Also those 3 thin bags in total equal less than half the plastic of a super thick bag, so the plastic waste would still decline under that scenario.

I do not like the bag fee (which is not assessed much to me anyway) and I think this is another spot where everyone has to be honest including the grocers (who don't seem to care if it is charged or not) and the politicians as to if this is really something people want or not. Obviously a few obnoxious anti-plastic activists love the fee because they know it is the only way more than about 2% of customers will use a reusable bag, so to that point even if I don't like the fee I understand its function.

I do not think changing the fee to 25 cents per bag is appropriate but I am sure the stores would love that and that is probably where this is going, and the super thick plastic bags remain too since the stores can't source enough paper bags (paper bag cost is also now over 20 cents per bag for smaller retailers/independent grocers).

I don't know CA politics and how exactly this works for this law given how it was passed. Given that the law was passed through the referendum process, can the lawmakers even modify the 10 cent fee on their own (without putting it out to a public vote)? Can they modify the law to get rid of the super thick plastic bags (without putting it out for a public vote)? In Nevada if a law passes by way of a ballot measure (has to go through 2 consecutive ballots and have 2/3 voter approval; this is how tax increases can occur, how abortion is codified into the state constitution since the 90's, etc.) and someone wants to change it, it has to go through that same 2 ballots/ 2/3 voter approval thing again.