After California bans plastic bags, plastic bag waste shoots to unprecedented levels

[rangerrebew]

After California bans plastic bags, plastic bag waste shoots to unprecedented levels
February 16th, 2024|33 Comments

California has long been a leader in trends, the use of plastic bags being one. Plastic bags were invented to save the planet, according to the son of Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin, who created them in 1959. The bags were developed as an alternative to paper bags, which were considered bad for the environment because they resulted in forests being chopped down.

How the times have changed.

In 2014, “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.”

It appears environmentalists had a change of heart. Plastic was put on the naughty list. Paper was rehabilitated and now deemed “good”. But as is often the case with environmental do-gooder “fixes”, the law of unintended consequences reared up.

https://www.cfact.org/2024/02/16/after-california-bans-plastic-bags-plastic-bag-waste-shoots-to-unprecedented-levels/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=after-california-bans-plastic-bags-plastic-bag-waste-shoots-to-unprecedented-levels&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=after-california-bans-plastic-bags-plastic-bag-waste-shoots-to-unprecedented-levels

[PeteS in CA]

CA's plastic bad "ban" isn't actually a ban and is something more complex.

1. Restaurants are free to use whatever, including the "single-use" thin plastic bags the Enviros hate.

2. When I go to the grocery store, one of the options I have when checking out - live cashier or self-check - is to have my groceries bagged in slightly less flimsy plastic bags, for which I would be charged $0.10 apiece. The article basically is about people still tossing out these hypothetically multi-use bags after the single use of bringing their groceries home.

I grew up in a home in which the paper bags were refolded for eventual reuse, so we reuse paper and reasonably robust plastic bags. I'm pretty sure that some significant degree of reuse has always been fairly common, but Enviros gotta have their bogey-stereotypes.

[Hoodat]

We always saved the paper bags and used them for a multitude of things...they were great.

I remember using them to cut out book covers for school books when I was a kid.

[roamer_1]

We always saved the paper bags and used them for a multitude of things...they were great.  I also use the plastic bags for doggy poop bags at the park.  They can also be used for plastic bag liners for your small trash cans.  I figure at some point all bags will be outlawed and you'll have to bring your own bags, like you see some people do.

What's missing is the tote sack. Once so ubiquitous, the burlap bag is almost gone.
You want to talk about a sack that gets reused... That was it.
We still ain't run out of em, though little ones are about gone. And the grain sacks are getting worn clean out because they cannot be replaced..

We reuse plastic - Though we as a family prefer paper, because brown paper is always a garden product in the end - It can be busted apart and laid down under mulch as another layer, where it will finally disintegrate into compost. So it fits what we do better than plastic.