Plastic bags could also be more sustainable from the production side. 12 Reasons for Banning Plastic Bags: Plastic Bags Are Made With Non-Renewable Energy Plastic Bags Use Up Lots Of Energy Plastic Bags End Up In The Ocean Beach Plastic Litter Is On The Rise Plastic Bags Kill Millions Of Animals Every Year Plastic Takes A Long Time To Disintegrate Plastic Is Harming The Ocean's Coral Plastic Bags Contain Toxins Businesses may be reluctant to engage in default choice modification because customers might not realize the law and think theyre just getting bad service. As far as I know, nobody has done the definitive analysis, which would necessarily need to have a large number of caveats and qualifications. But not just anywhere. As such, many people suggest accompanying measures to distribute free reusable bags, and the tax could even be used to raise the money to make that happen. YouTube. AD READER: This episode of The Sweaty Penguin is brought to you by Christmas. The measure now under consideration in Massachusetts, for example, would mandate that single-use paper bags contain at least 40 percent recycled fiber. Shortly after, the Massachusetts State Senate passed a measure that would ban plastic bags from being dispensed by many retail businesses and require acharge of 10 cents or more for a recycled paper or reusable bag. But if communicated to the public well, I think its an interesting idea, and Id be curious to see if a similar approach could work with bags. New York's ban will take effect in 2020 but will apply to single-use plastic bags you can get at grocery stores or retailers. If a plastic bag is reused in the home as the garbage bag in a bathroom waste bin, does that reduce its footprint by eliminating the need for another small plastic garbage bag? Plastic bag bans are spreading. But are they truly effective? TAYLOR: Its a great question, I would say its a bit nuanced, because that was just respect with respect to the plastic bags. So is there anything you would suggest to policymakers as they tried to address the issue? Not So Fast | WIRED Plastic Bottles Plastic Bags If they were going to use a slur for white people, why not name it Karen or Wonderbread? I know youve done some comparisons on different strategies and looked at this more holistically. California and Hawaii banned them, then New York. Its the type of giving that allows us to plan for future projects and provides us with the consistent funding we need to continue bringing you the climate news that you rely on. ETHAN: Obviously, this is a ridiculously nuanced issue, and while it might not be the most pressing concern of our generation, its absolutely worth discussing, especially given how popular the topic has been. Phytoplankton: How Too Much of a Good Thing Causes Problems. Its taken long enough. But not just anywhere. Put all that together, and National Geographic estimates that a paper bag would need to be used anywhere from 3 to 43 times in order to neutralize its environmental impact as compared to plastic. I personally dont care much what kind of bag my groceries are in, Id even take a Hello Kitty bag if it meant my eggs got home without breaking, but Im sure some people really love their plastic bags, and for those that do, this is certainly an intriguing possibility. How do we make polyethylene? There are so very many variables. The Supreme Court Has Delayed Its Abortion Pill Decision. First off, this sort of tax does hit low income communities the hardest, since they spend a larger percentage of their monthly income on food. And as you mentioned, tote bags can be actually more harmful. Our world faces increasingly severe hurricanes, wildfires, floods, heat waves, and more, but grocery bags have somehow become one of the hottest environmental topics. (The crunchy rich should already have more than enough tote bags from PBS and Whole Foods.). And just a few weeks ago, California took it one step further, banning not just single-use plastic bags at checkout, but those smaller produce bags as well. Thats primarily because more energy is required to produce and transport paper bags. Twitter, Follow us on WIRED is where tomorrow is realized. The first time you say your dog ate it, its a funny story, but by the fifth time, youre definitely going to fail first grade. And honestly, a little sketchy that ethylene cant handle sunlight. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Like cigarettes, plastic bags have recently gone from a tolerated nuisance to a widely despised and discouraged vice. You would think five cents to reuse a bag would have a state similar behavioral response is five cents to not use a bag to have to pay for than plastic bag. Whats more? And now theyre using a thicker product with more packaging. Eastern Hemlocks Are Declining. Salt Marshes Are Essential Climate Solutions. And you even have some states, at least 17 in the US who have actually banned bag bans, banned regulating bags in general. [wrong buzz, rewind] Cracker? A pound of cotton requires more than 5,000 gallons of water on average, a thirst far greater than that of any vegetable and even most meats. the more right . Often, the problem shifts. And even if you use the word fee, sometimes people dont like that as well. The ideal city bag policy would probably involve charging for paper and plastic single-use bags, as New York City has decided to do, while giving out reusable recycled-plastic bags to those who need them, especially to low-income communities and seniors. And an estimated 10 million tons of plastic are discarded in the ocean yearly. Because of that, the climate impact of a cotton tote is 131 times that of a plastic bag, and its overall environmental impact is thousands of times worse. Its like time outs. If your chief concern is climate change, things get even muddier. Three reasons why banning plastic bags is problematic - The Conversation What she finds is actually leave the bag bonuses really dont have an effect. Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? Not So Fast "Banning Plastic Bags Is Great For The World, Right? There are also some challenges regarding the design of such a policy, as Dr. Taylor explains. Throwing This Out Here: Plastic Bags Are Amazing and You Should Appreciate Them More, Trash Is Ugly, But Recycling Is Downright Beautiful. All donations doubled for a limited time. Like, get a life, man. TAYLOR: Yeah, I would love to see the conversation, sort of move more. The shift from one single-use bag to another single-use bag may improve one environmental outcome, but be offset by another environmental impact.. In fact, eight states have gone so far as to ban single-use plastic bags, and over 200 counties and municipalities have enacted ordinances either imposing a fee on plastic bags or. "Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? TAYLOR: Yeah, well, Ill circle back to the three Rs. In accordance with the budge bill passed last year, New York State retailers will be banned from doling out single-use plastic bags, starting on March 1. ETHAN: Plastic bag bans also can negatively affect businesses. One of the most comprehensive research papers on the environmental impact of bags, published in 2007 by anAustralian state government agency, found that paper bags have a higher carbon footprint than plastic. I also got retail data from the store on what people were purchasing, in particular, what kinds of garbage bags they were purchasing. So I wont rehash it all today, but if you listen to our episodes on fracking or the Permian Basin or the Haynesville Shale, youll learn a little bit about the villain origin story of plastic bags, and some of the many issues to which they contribute. There are other options though. Thats the percentage the Massachusetts Sierra Club has advocated for at the state level and when lobbying for municipal bag rules. Washington, DCs government estimates that its 5-cent bag tax has led to a 60 percent reduction in the number of these bags being used, although that figure is contested by other sources. For example, because paper bags take up so much more space, more trucks are needed to ship paper bags to a store than to ship plastic bags. TAYLOR: Yeah, I think one thing that stands out, when we think about plastic bags, and when we think about sort of packaging, in general, is that theres this perception that its free, that theres no price, and that you can you know, youre not paying for the plastic bags that you use, thats not actually true, you actually do pay for the plastic bags that you use at the supermarket. Cities and states across the country are banning plastic bags, but those bans may be having unintended consequences. Bag bans cut this litter off at the source: In San Jose, California, a plastic bag ban led to an 89 percent reduction in the number of plastic bags winding up in the citys storm drains. First, we transport our fossil fuels to a type of petrochemical plant called a cracker. Cracker? There are so very many variables. ETHAN: Today we are talking about bags: a word that simultaneously means a container with an open top used for carrying things, a lot of money, and any goal youve ever had in your life. In some cases, people start buying more plastic trash bags now that they cant use their grocery bags to store trash. (The crunchy rich should already have more than enough tote bags from PBS and Whole Foods.). [wrong buzz] Aw, dammit, I was so close! And so because of that bands have been more popular. [slam the wrong buzz several times, then rewind], Okay, okay cracker? 12:48 PM PDT March 16, 2023. Every year, around 500 billion plastic grocery bags are used worldwide. And when I no longer had access to those carry out bags, it meant I didnt have this quote unquote, free source of garbage bags anymore. But that carbon footprint could also very easily be lower, which is why I bring it up. It honestly sounds like a superhero, doesnt it? Plastic Bags Are a Problem. Are Plastic Bag Bans a Solution? - PBS Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? Not So Fast Thank you all for listening, and Ill see you next week. Heres why thats a big deal. ETHAN: But first, its time for Plastic Bags 101. People still need bags to bring home their groceries. The Massachusetts proposal may not become law this year, but it's the latest sign that the plastic bag industry is losing this war. Now theres a breakthrough. Do single-use plastic bans work? - BBC Future India followed the UK with a . Choking the oceans with Plastics. But what I do know I find so fascinating. Advocates for plastic bag bans often neglect to ask what will replace plastic bags and what the environmental impact of that replacement will be. So have at least 88 localities in California, including the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, plus cities and towns in more than a dozen other states and more than a dozen other countries. Paper does have its own environmental consequences in terms of how much energy it takes to generate, acknowledges Emily Norton, director of the Massachusetts Sierra Club. Heres just one tiny example: Does the paper for paper bags come from a recycled paper mill on Staten Island or a virgin forest in northern Canada? In that case, it was the simple act of instead of automatically giving customers a straw with their drink, bringing the drink without a straw. Some social justice activists who work in low-income urban neighborhoods or communities of color also argue that plastic bags are a particular scourge. ETHAN: So just to wrap up this point, would you say that its a net positive or negative? All three counties are majority minority, the first two are over a third low income, and according to data from Texas Rising, if you rank all 254 counties in Texas for the overall environmental and social burdens they face, these three counties come in at #3, #8, and #53. The Secrets of Covid Brain Fog Are Starting to Lift. And so my recommendation is to use as few bags as you can reuse the ones that you do purchase and purchase your bags, make it an active decision. Again, because this is what I tell people all the time. Microsoft quietly supported legislation to make it easier to fix devices. But sales of garbage bags increased substantially and especially those small garbage bags that you know, are around the same size as the carryout back. And then if when those you know are no longer possible, can we recycle them? Follow us on Design and build by Upstatement. Thats one idea that Ive seen floated all over the internet. Or, another idea, what if plastic could be made directly from carbon dioxide that we suck from the atmosphere? Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? Now, Im not sure how far along plant plastic or CO2 plastic are in the development process, but certainly very exciting possibilities if they could scale up. Whether its paper, whether its plastic, can we reuse it, you know, extend its life? People still need bags to bring home their groceries. Banning plastic bags is great for the world, right? I guess the name does make sense. What if instead of making the plastic from fossil fuels, we made it out of plants? ETHAN: Seven of those 16 projects were related to ethylene or polyethylene, including the five highest polluters of the group. Anything thats not zero gets, you know a pretty big impact. You can learn more at pbs.org/perilandpromise. Some bills, like in Massachusetts, try to reduce the use of paper bags as well as plastic, but still favor paper. So thats exactly what I did. I also looked at paper bags as well. But thats not to say plastic bag recycling couldnt be more widely implemented. How Do We Protect Them? Shortly after, the Massachusetts State Senate passed a measure that would ban plastic bags from being dispensed by many retail businesses and require a charge of 10 cents or more for a. In the last couple weeks, I believe around five of our team members got sick, so weve been struggling a little bit! Rough Draft 14 - Writing - The Effects Of Plastic In the essay And so its the sort of carrots versus sticks story, the sticks of the taxes seem to be much more effective than the carrots of the bonuses. Cracker plants release air pollutants such as benzene which is linked to cancer and childhood leukemia, toluene which is linked to birth defects and brain, liver, and kidney problems, formaldehyde which is a known carcinogen, and particulate matter which is linked to cardiovascular and respiratory disease and lung and bladder cancer. And so I think, and subsidies can be quite expensive for governments to run or source to run. You can try, but nine times out of ten, its going to rip your original in half. Not So Fast. And the question that I had was, how does banning this plastic carry out bag affect the use of other types of plastic bags, and in particular, garbage bags, because as a consumer myself, I knew that I reused many of my carry out grocery bags as garbage bags. Im your host, Ethan Brown. So if its something thats easy to keep in your car, or in your purse or in your backpack that you know youll reuse, then thats going to be the bag for you. But in terms of plastic, you are correct. The Search for Long Covid Treatments Takes a Promising Turn. ETHAN: Now, it is worth noting that a single-use plastic grocery bag takes about 20 years to break down in the environment about as long as it takes the average to break down. ETHAN: After we drill and frack and insert other PG13 sounding term here, we have to actually turn our fossil fuels into polyethylene. The Australian study concluded that the best option appears to be a reusable bag, but one made from recycled plastic, not cotton. Many supermarkets have experimented with bag bonuses trying to get people to reuse their either bags by giving them five cents, and they havent found them to be particularly effective. Even then, the question remains as to whether single-use bags are necessarily always worse than reusable ones. Grist is powered by WordPress VIP. Not So Fast" by Ben Adler focuses on the states attempting to end giving out plastic bags for free hoping to reduce plastic waste. It honestly sounds like a superhero, doesnt it? New York State and Hawaii just passed theirs, set to go into effect in 2020, and California's bag ban, which was passed in 2014, has been shown to have reduced plastic bag usage by 85 percent . AD READER: Is it 12:01am on November 1st? In fact, we can take it a step further. There are eight states that ban single-use plastic bags, and these are Oregon, Vermont, California, Hawaii, Delaware, New York, Maine, and Connecticut. Christmas: no, were not going to stop. Cotton tote bags dont fare well either. READ MORE. Bag bans cut this litter off at the source: In San Jose, Calif., a plastic bag ban led to an 89 percent reduction in the number of plastic bags winding up in the citys storm drains. Now, a new law hopes to take things a step further by banning these: single-use plastic pre-checkout bags that are not recyclable and can contaminate compost facilities. Oil and natural gas are also made of carbon and hydrogen, so in addition to using them for energy, we process them into plastic. ETHAN: Another thing I wanted to bring up part of why I was so excited to talk to you is that there is the word behavioral economics in your work. Washington, D.C.s government estimates that its 5-cent bag tax has led to a 60 percent reduction in the number of these bags being used, although that figure is contested by other sources. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. How do we do that? And so in terms of ranking those, that would be my order, taxes, hybrid bands, and then least preferred standalone bands. Better alternatives are available 10. Now, a new law hopes to take things a step further by banning these: single-use plastic pre-checkout bags that are not recyclable and can contaminate compost facilities. Plastic bag bans havent fixed the entire problem where theyve been implemented. Theyre just not very effective. A single mom, or someone working two jobs, is more likely to have to do her shopping in a rush on the way home from work than to go out specifically with a tote bag in hand. Theres the impact of material, if it makes it into the environment as litter, theres the impact of the production of it on emissions and climate. Not only are there these human health concerns, but crackers and other petrochemical facilities are not located very fairly. Have a listen. Thats primarily because more energy is required to produce and transport paper bags. And I also looked at not just shopping at a supermarket across the border but also eating out Instead of grocery shopping, and I do find that there is this, you know, substitution, this cross border shopping, some people do try to avoid going to, you know, regulated supermarkets, especially if they live near a border, where they can easily get to another another grocery store, while other customers if they dont live near a border, they might be slightly more likely to decide to eat out for dinner as opposed to grocery shopping, especially if they didnt bring their bags with them or that party. Heres Why That Matters. Its like the Snapchat of ocean trash its no YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter, but its still relevant. Spoiler alert: plastics parents got divorced at age eleven and it still isnt over it. Doing either earns you a special shoutout at the end of the show; joining the Patreon gets you merch, bonus content, and a whole lot more. I collected data from supermarkets, on the types of bags people were using at checkout, both before and after the policy went into effect. Talk about consistency! Yeet that wheat. ITS COMPOSTABLE! They are not the largest sources of plastic pollution Plastic waste is indeed a. The instinct to favor reusable bags springs from an understandable urge to reduce our chronic overconsumption, but the bags we use are not the big problem. Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? Australia has had a plastic bag ban since 2018. You can order the T-shirt plastic bags in wholesale from Bags . Nielson & Associates Manhasset, NY : Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? A New Computer Proof Blows Up Centuries-Old Fluid Equations. Scientists believe lasting symptoms following a coronavirus infection is not a single disorder. I hope at least one of those cracked you up. Im really proud of this one and I hope you enjoy it! Increasingly, environmentalists are pushing for laws that include fees for all single-use bags, and that require paper bags to be made with recycled content, which could lower their carbon footprint. Anyway, at a cracker plant, they use extreme heat to crack the molecular bonds in the oil or gas to produce a new gas called ethylene. Donate today to keep our climate news free. Cracker? They are a lot easier to carry than many other shopping bags out there. Plastic bags not only destroy the physical infrastructure, she says, referring to the way they clog up storm drains and other systems, they contribute to emissions. And she points out that marine plastic pollution is a threat to low-income people who fish for their dinner: So many frontline communities depend on food coming from the ocean. Thats why her group supported New York Citys bag fee even though its more of a burden on lower-income citizens. Plastic bags are made from non-renewable sources and on this account, highly contribute to climate change. All of these policies give consumers a little more freedom, but try to nudge them in the right direction through small fees or rewards in the 5 to 15 cent per bag range. How do we do that? (Cindy) Works Cited. As the Australian study noted, a cotton bag has major environmental impacts of its own. Again, Im not referring to carbon emissions, Im talking nitrous oxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, smog, Sagittariuses, really bad stuff. One option you may have come across depending on where you live is a plastic bag fee or paper bag fee or reusable bag credit. So if you have a policy in your own city, but the next city over doesnt, and you decide to shop in then next city over to avoid the policy.
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