If your chief concern is climate change, things get even muddier. Like, get a life, man. Waste in particular, plastic packaging, how it is used, how it gets discarded. 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. Grist is powered by WordPress VIP. And as you mentioned, tote bags can be actually more harmful. 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. Politicians "looking for something to do" like banning plastic bags routinely do more harm than good. Recently, many politicians were in such a hurry to ban plastic bags. Our world faces increasingly severe hurricanes, wildfires, floods, heat waves, and more, but grocery bags have somehow become one of the hottest environmental topics. AD READER: This episode of The Sweaty Penguin is brought to you by Christmas. 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. Thats right, nothing like getting high on your own supply. So if its, if it makes it into the environment, it stays there, it breaks into smaller pieces, it gets blown around the world, many different ecosystems. Two weeks ago, 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 recycled paper or reusable bag. For example, I talked in our plastic straws episode about something called default choice modification. First, we transport our fossil fuels to a type of petrochemical plant called a cracker. Cracker? Thats right, the solution to single use plastic isnt bans, its awkwardness! Wonder why you hear about legislation concerning plastic bags? On the disposal side, single-use plastic bags are currently not recyclable, but thats because the bags are so flimsy they can get caught in the machinery. Start with your washing machine. ETHAN: Plastic bag bans also can negatively affect businesses. Still, many environmentalists argue that plastic is worse than paper. So is there anything you would suggest to policymakers as they tried to address the issue? ETHAN: And the list of policy approaches goes on and on. So paper bag usage did increase quite a bit. Ironic.plastic is still better than cloth, but it just has to be more than single-use. 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. Over Half of the Worlds Penguin Species Are Threatened, A New Natural Gas Project in Mozambique Gives Locals All of the Costs and None of the Benefits. Adler, Ben. And even if you use the word fee, sometimes people dont like that as well. This episode of The Sweaty Penguin explores a wide range of issues including plastic bag manufacturing and looks at the shortcomings of some proposed solutions. And then if when those you know are no longer possible, can we recycle them? the more right . Its like time outs. In fact, we can take it a step further. TAYLOR: When I put my economist hat, the sort of first tool that I really think that policymakers should consider is a small fee, or a tax on all the different types of carry out bags. Not So Fast Like cigarettes, plastic bags have recently gone from a tolerated nuisance to a widely despised and discouraged vice. NADJA: After much deliberation, Nandor and I have invited a new resident into the house. Scientists believe lasting symptoms following a coronavirus infection is not a single disorder. Thats the intended goal of the policy. 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. Whos building these things, Triscuit? With respect to the bonuses we talked about. In fact, the only place they havent been is Dave and Busters. But University of Sydneys Dr. Rebecca Taylor says not so fast. 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. Again, because this is what I tell people all the time. Two weeks ago, 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 recycled paper or reusable bag. 500 billion plastic grocery bags are used worldwide. Every so often, our star fires off a plasma bomb in a random direction. That way youre reducing the amount of material thats going into the product, but you still want it to be something that youll actually find convenient and reuse with you. Not So Fast Advocates for plastic bag bans often neglect to ask what will replace plastic bags and what the environmental impact of that replacement will be. 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. LASZLO: Oh, alright, if itll shut you up. Quick Navigation for Reasons Why Plastic Shopping Bags Should Be Banned REASONS 1. There are so very many variables. Will we use our cotton tote hundreds or thousands of times? 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. Different studies say different things, but the point is clear: even though paper bags are much better for the environment in the disposal stage, the rest of the supply chain is riddled with problems. The reasons for papers higher carbon footprint are complex, but can mostly be understood as stemming from the fact that paper bags are much thicker than plastic bags. ETHAN: Like, come on, we dont need more toxic chemicals in one spot! The big difference is that paper does biodegrade eventually. If so, awesome, although we should probably talk about why youre that obsessed with your tote bag. I asked Dr. Taylor how we can account for the cost of alternatives when we create policies to address plastic bags. Animals can become entangled in the bags and drown or mistake the bags for food which can clog their intestines and cause them to starve. Microsoft quietly supported legislation to make it easier to fix devices. How Do We Protect Avocados From Drought, Deforestation, and Drug Cartels? India followed the UK with a . How Are Muskoxen Faring in a Changing Climate? 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. How Can Soy Reduce Its Environmental Impact? 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. Rather than automatically using a bag, just ask the customer for their bags, or maybe even stop keeping bags at the register at all. In fact, 79 percent of microplastics sampled in the marine environment originated from polyethylene specifically. Last month, the New York City Council passed a 5-cent-per-bag fee on single-use bags handed out by most retailers. Choking the oceans with Plastics. Physicists Rewrite a Quantum Rule That Clashes With Our Universe. Salt Marshes Are Essential Climate Solutions. 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. Obtain that grain. Bag bans seem to be all the rage, but its not the only option. Winters are becoming less and less predictable due to climate change, but you dont have to worry because the second you put on a long sleeve shirt and jeans, youll be hearing Mariah Carey blast on every radio in town. Reader support helps sustain our work. ETHAN: Seven of those 16 projects were related to ethylene or polyethylene, including the five highest polluters of the group. The opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the host and guests. So I am an environmental economist. Twitter, Follow us on Spoiler alert: plastics parents got divorced at age eleven and it still isnt over it. Hopefully its not laced with xylene! Thats where this gets interesting. Maybe call the manager over or fly the CEO in on a helicopter or pull the fire alarm so everyone starts screaming and running. I mean, throw some Dijon on there and youve got lunch! In all seriousness, theres drawbacks here too. 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. And all of these materials do better? They say Hanukkah gets eight nights as if its special, but with Christmas, you get six whole months! Plastic Bags Take Up To 1,000 Years to Decompose. 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. (The crunchy rich should already have more than enough tote bags from PBS and Whole Foods.). It honestly sounds like a superhero, doesnt it? California and Hawaii banned them, then New York. Does it get recycled? 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. Scientists are getting closer to understanding the neurology behind the memory problems and cognitive fuzziness that an infection can trigger. Not So Fast" by Ben Adler focuses on the states attempting to end giving out plastic bags for free hoping to reduce plastic waste. YouTube, Follow us on Others, like in New York City, treat all single-use bags equally. 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. Thats right, its always the one you most suspect. So I often tell people, if theyre choosing a bag, you want to choose a bag that you are going to reuse that could be a thin bag, then plastic bag, or it could be a nylon bag, which is technically still plastic, but is a woven plastic thats fairly lightweight, and thus, perhaps not going to have the same environmental impact as a heavier plastic or a cloth bag. How Do We Protect Them? debut in season five. Wait, sorry, wrong kind of cracker. And the most common substitute, paper bags, may be just as bad or worse, depending on the environmental problem youre most concerned about. This is often called border shopping. Are Plastic Bag Bans a Solution? 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? But what if reusable bags arent good either? The Massachusetts proposal may not become law this year, but its the latest sign that the plastic bag industry is losing this war. [deep echoey filter] ITS INSATIABLE! 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. Every time you need to process a new batch of polyethylene, you bring it to the facility and say, Polly want a cracker? [ding ding ding] Wow, that was a tough one. ETHAN: Hopefully ethylene makes its What We Do In The Shadows debut in season five. And thats definitely a behavioral effect that we find. Some people still keep streaks, I think! 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. 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. A lovely tote made from single use plastic bags. ETHAN: When something causes as many issues as plastic bags, it may seem tempting to ban it. Instagram, Follow us on And behavioral economics really explores a lot of that. Some are funded by plastic industry groups, like the ironically named American Progressive Bag Alliance. It honestly sounds like a superhero, doesnt it? So what this tells us is that people were actually doing this very green thing. Nakuru, Kenya In the open-air Wakulima Market thin plastic shopping bags have disappeared, banished by Kenya's national bag ban. [wrong buzz] Aw, dammit, I was so close! And honestly, a little sketchy that ethylene cant handle sunlight. A substantial shift to more durable bags would deliver environmental gains through reductions in greenhouse gases, energy and water use, resource depletion and litter, the study concluded. Its like excuses for not doing your homework. ETHAN: So where do we go from here? Then, that ethylene can be sent to a new plant where theyll add a catalyst which initiates a chemical reaction and forms our high-density polyethylene. Was Implementation the Right Theme for COP27? Were finding that hybrid bands can be as you know, as successful as the taxes, just standalone taxes.
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