Feel-Good Environmental Regulations Won’t Save the Planet, But They Do Harm Consumers
1 day ago Guest Blogger
By Nate Scherer
The fight against climate change is increasingly riddled with lawmakers’ feel-good attempts to save the planet by imposing top-down regulations that do nothing in the way of meaningfully reducing global temperatures or cutting pollution. However, these “feel-good” regulations have a familiar habit of harming consumers by eliminating popular goods and services or making them more expensive.
The latest example of such a regulation comes courtesy of California, where lawmakers recently passed a second ban on plastic grocery bags after the first attempt ended in failure. The first ban, SB 270—which took effect in 2014—prohibited grocery stores from distributing single-use plastic bags at checkout. It was designed to reduce plastic waste and encourage consumers to use reusable bags.
However, a study published by the California consumer advocacy organization CALPIRG recently found that the ban may have inadvertently led to a 47% jump in plastic bag waste between 2014 and 2022 due to consumers’ tendency to throw away thicker reusable plastic bags after a single use. That means that rather than reduce plastic waste, SB 270 created more of it, all the while charging consumers 10 cents per reusable bag. Plastic bag bans in other states have produced similar results, such as in New Jersey where plastic consumption was found to have tripled after the ban took effect.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/10/24/feel-good-environmental-regulations-wont-save-the-planet-but-they-do-harm-consumers/
