Plastic bag ban didn’t work in California – 02/16/2024 – Environment

Nearly a decade ago, California became the first state in the United States to ban single-use plastic bags in an attempt to combat a persistent plastic waste problem.

Then came sturdy, reusable plastic bags, offered to customers for $0.10. Designed to withstand dozens of uses and technically recyclable, many retailers treated them as exempt from the ban.

But because they didn’t look much different from the flimsy bags they replaced, many people didn’t actually reuse them. And although they came with a recycling symbol, it turned out that few, if any, were actually recycled.

The unfortunate result: Last year, Californians threw away more plastic bags by total weight than when the law was first passed, according to data from CalRecycle, California’s recycling agency.

Now lawmakers are trying to fix this problem. A new bill seeks to ban all plastic bags offered at checkout, including resistant ones. Shoppers could still pay for paper bags.

“It’s time to get rid of plastic bags completely,” said state Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat who is one of the bill’s supporters.

According to reports, California’s initial plastic bag ban was a well-intentioned but failed experiment, an environmental rule that backfired and inadvertently made the situation worse.

“We didn’t worry about the exception for these thicker bags in the early days,” said Mark Murray, director of the group Californians Against Waste. “It didn’t seem like they would become what they became.”

The pandemic, which raised fears that reusing bags could help spread the virus, has led to “an explosion of these thicker plastic bags,” he said. Basically, people started using the thicker bags only once.

The average length of time shoppers used a plastic bag? Twelve minutes, according to those responsible for the bill.

Some supporters of the measure say the initial ban would have been effective if properly enforced. The ban, adopted in 2014, allowed plastic bags to be sold to shoppers only if they were recycled in California.

However, “no bag manufacturer or retailer was able to demonstrate any evidence that they were being recycled,” said Jan Dell, founder of the nonprofit group The Last Beach Cleanup.

Over the past year, she has led an effort to sue retailers who sell the thicker plastic bags, claiming they are prohibited from selling, based on the original ban on those items.

Even if the new law is passed, billions of bags will likely still be sold before it can take effect in 2026, she said. “If the initial law had been enforced, we would no longer have these bags today.”

Daniel Conway, of the California Grocers Association, which represents the establishments, says retailers followed the law “to the letter.” He says he hopes the new legislation will clear up any confusion that may still exist regarding thicker bags.

“We see it as finishing something we started,” he says. “People are really starting to bring reusable bags when they go to the grocery store.”

US plastic manufacturers said in a statement that they “remain steadfast in expanding a system by which they transform used plastic into new plastic.” Policymakers need to work with companies so that rules don’t result in “worse environmental outcomes,” said Ross Eisenberg, president of the group.

Other states have learned from California’s experience. In New York, which banned plastic bags at most store checkouts in 2020, environmental advocates managed to resist a proposal that would allow stores to continue providing thicker plastic bags. According to reports, there are numerous examples of stores that did not comply with the ban.

Hawaii, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Oregon, Vermont and New Jersey have also adopted some type of plastic bag ban.

“Lawmakers at all levels need to be aware that plastic bag manufacturers will look for every opportunity to continue flooding the market with thicker plastic bags,” said Judith Enck, president of the Beyond Plastics group and former regional administrator for the Agency. of Environmental Protection.

Despite the plastic bag setback, California remains at the forefront of efforts to reduce plastic waste, which is everywhere, polluting beaches and rivers and also contaminating food and drinking water in the form of microplastics.

In 2021, California passed a law that prohibits companies from using the recycling symbol (the one with “moving arrows”) unless they can prove that the material is, in fact, recycled in most California communities.

The following year, a bill was passed that transfers responsibility for recycling and waste disposal from local communities to plastic producers and packaging companies.

California has also turned its attention to fossil fuel companies, which produce the oil from which plastics are made. In 2022, California Attorney General Rob Bonta opened an investigation into allegations that the industry misled the public into believing that recycling could solve the plastic waste crisis.

Industry groups rejected these claims and vowed to remain focused on improving recycling. In the United States, the recycling rate has remained below 10% for decades.