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California will require shoppers to use paper bags or a reusable bag. In this photo from 2007, a woman loads plastic bags of groceries into her car at a Safeway store in San Francisco, before the city — and later, the state — adopted a ban on plastic checkout bags.
Should people just use paper bags?
When bans on single-use plastic bags haven’t also included a fee on paper bags, their use has soared. In Portland, Ore., for instance, paper bag use shot up by nearly 500% after the city enacted a ban (and before the state imposed its own ban with a fee for paper alternatives).
A similar dynamic has played out in Philadelphia, where the proportion of supermarket shoppers using at least one paper bag tripled after a plastic-bag ban took effect without a fee for paper. A recent bid to tack on a 15-cent fee for paper bags was axed by a pocket veto.
Paper bags are easier to recycle than plastic, and more degradable. But environmental advocates want retailers and shoppers to move away from single-use bags of any type. They argue that a few minutes of convenience isn’t enough to justify cumbersome networks of bag collection, processing and production needed to recycle single-use bags.
“The whole goal is to get people to switch from disposable options — especially plastic, but disposable options altogether — to reusable and refillable options,” Vallian said. “Because ultimately that is going to be the most sustainable and the best for both environment and human health.”
Which 12 states have banned plastic bags?
In 2024, Colorado and Rhode Island enacted statewide bans on single-use plastic bags, joining 10 states that already had restrictions in place: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
At their core, such bans are attempts to shift responsibility for plastic waste from consumers upstream — to retailers and, by extension, plastic producers.
The same week California’s new ban became law, the state opened another front in its battle with plastic waste by filing a lawsuit against oil and gas giant ExxonMobil, a leading producer of the polymers used to make single-use plastics.
“For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said.
Bonta accused ExxonMobil of profiting from “convincing consumers that they were responsible for the proliferation of plastic waste through their own personal habits, rather than through Mobil’s and Exxon’s efforts to produce an increasing number of plastic products designed for single-use.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-25 06:24:00
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