[HN Gopher] Plastic bag bans and fees reduce harmful bag litter ...
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Plastic bag bans and fees reduce harmful bag litter on shorelines
Author : miles
Score : 228 points
Date : 2025-06-20 23:46 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| mykowebhn wrote:
| I know these types of comments are frowned upon here, but I find
| it really sad that posts about video game sales, for example,
| have many more upvotes than a post about positive efforts to
| reduce plastic waste. It shows where priorities and interests lie
| for the majority.
|
| I comment like this because I understand that the struggle is not
| only to stop this kind of waste--and on a larger scale the
| environmental destruction of our planet--but also to engage and
| motivate the public at large to want to make these changes.
| yvklxrcv wrote:
| I believe leisure is the end goal of all technology, so it
| makes sense that something advertising a form of end result is
| more appealing than another contributor to realizing them.
| Consider advertising sweetrolls versus more effective less
| harmful pesticide. The latter will contribute to the former,
| but the former is much closer to what you're likely actually
| interested in.
| keybored wrote:
| > --but also to engage and motivate the public at large to want
| to make these changes.
|
| Are you raising awareness?
| thiht wrote:
| You can be judgmental all you want but I don't think it's
| controversial that video games are more interesting than
| plastic bags politics
| bamboozled wrote:
| It's not cool, seen was woke / soft / feminine to care about
| such things so "real men" don't bother.
| harvey9 wrote:
| No idea how you can motivate people. Glastonbury Music Festival
| has always been huge on messaging it's audience about not being
| wasteful but if anything the amount of abandoned camping stuff
| as well as general litter has been getting worse.
| matwood wrote:
| > No idea how you can motivate people.
|
| As market driven as the US is, I'm surprised they haven't
| adopted more EU ideas to keep things tidy. The euro to get a
| shopping cart tends to keep parking lots clean.
|
| I went to an event in Germany once that had re-usable plastic
| beer mugs. 5 euro/beer with 1 euro back for the mug. They
| were also easily stackable, so if you saw a mug on the ground
| you would pick up. 5 mugs == free beer. Simple idea using
| money that kept the event relatively clean given the number
| of people partying.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| The only store in the US where carts aren't a problem is
| Aldi specifically because a cart deposit is $0.25
| yupitsme123 wrote:
| The deposit on cans and bottles in some states seems to
| work perfectly with little to no cost. I'm sure it could
| work with plastic bags.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I think it might be because this is a tech / start-up forum and
| not for all topics.
|
| Some of the most important issues facing us right now are
| simply not allowed and moderated before we even get to vote.
| userbinator wrote:
| "Let's ban everything that could be remotely harmful" is the way
| to further rampant authoritarianism, not that we aren't already
| on that path...
| padjo wrote:
| What about "let's ban things with demonstrated negative impacts
| and reasonable alternatives"?
|
| Or should we just sacrifice everything on the alter of vaguely
| defined "freedom"?
| userbinator wrote:
| "reasonable alternatives"?
|
| Look how well paper straws work... and they're still coated
| in thin film of plastic anyway. Total stupidity, except for
| those who are making $$$ from convincing us that they're
| somehow better.
|
| Plastic bags fulfill a need for a very lightweight, flexible,
| waterproof container. The alternatives all require more
| energy overall, which eventually results in CO2 emissions, so
| if you believe in climate change, that's not good either.
|
| The only argument I've heard against them is "they look bad
| littered everywhere", which is a purely subjective opinion
| and one that is better handled, should one want to tackle the
| problem, by other means than depriving the majority who
| doesn't litter.
| padjo wrote:
| My country switched to reusable bags almost 25 years ago by
| introducing a levy on their use. Plastic bag litter has
| basically been eliminated by this change. I don't know what
| alternative you have in mind but the research and
| experience is there to say levies work to reduce litter.
|
| I've been using the same bags for about 20 years and they
| will probably last until I die. The alternative would be
| around 20,000 disposable bags. I have a hard time believing
| the lifecycle cost of my 3 bags is higher.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| By one of the 7 metrics analyzed, the lifecycle use of 3
| organic cotton bags would have been considered higher by
| the Danish study (https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/
| 2018/02/978-87-93614-...), but that's obviously the most
| extreme example and not representative.
|
| I also think that you reusing the same bags for 20 years
| and never forgetting them is an extreme example and not
| representative, and when you're at the cashier and
| realize you forgot your bags, the only realistic option
| if single use bags have been regulated away is buying
| another reusable-but-will-see-a-single-use bag.
|
| I have a drawer full of those, and I think I've already
| thrown one bag full of those out during my last move.
| More importantly, the annoyance from this and dissolving
| paper straws has made me swear to never vote for a
| "green" party that pushes these performative bans
| (plastic bag litter has never been a major problem in my
| area), even though I would agree with many of their other
| policies, both social and environmental. But I'm not
| going to vote for someone who will go out of their way to
| add annoyances to my life.
| morsch wrote:
| From the study: _Conventional cotton bags: Reuse for
| grocery shopping at least 52 times for climate change,
| and up to 7100 times considering all indicators; reuse as
| waste bin bag if possible, otherwise incinerate._
|
| 50 times seems real easy, all of mine have been used more
| often than that. 7000 seems hard to accomplish in a
| lifetime, though, to me anyway. If I forgot to bring one
| at a store, I buy a paper bag (which get good grades in
| the study) and reuse it for paper recycling. Or I reuse
| discarded cardboard containers available in the store.
| padjo wrote:
| I do occasionally forget a bag and have to but a
| biopolymer or LDPE bag. That doesn't really impact my
| totals over a lifetime since it's a rare occurrence. My
| bags are woven polyproplene, which the study you linked
| indicates I need to use about 50 times. I have certainly
| used them many multiple times more than that.
|
| I think your stance on green politics is quite odd. I'm
| unaware of any Green Party pushing a ban on plastic
| straws, in my country signature Green Party policies have
| been levies on single use plastic bags, plastic container
| deposit return schemes, the phase out of incandescent
| lighting, development of renewable energy and reducing
| the cost of public transport. All of which have
| measurable impacts on energy use and pollution. In my
| experience the notion that they push "performative"
| policies just isn't true.
| tclancy wrote:
| You forgot to mention that paper straws can explode!
|
| If the only argument you've heard against plastic bags is
| they look bad, you need to listen more.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Most uses of plastic do not have a reasonable alternative.
| Glass and metal have properties similar to plastic but
| require more energy to produce, more material and are heavier
| which increases freight costs.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Pretty much. We need better alternatives! Better in many
| ways. Cheap to mass produce, convenient to use, must be
| reusable, has to be light, has to be biodegradable, should
| not dissolve after a while (like these cardboard boxes they
| put my food in).
| shlant wrote:
| lazy slippery slope and strawman argument is lazy. If you think
| banning plastic bags are significantly contributing to
| authoritarianism then your understanding of the term is
| probably skewed.
| unlimit wrote:
| I am all for complete and absolute ban on plastic bags.
| yvklxrcv wrote:
| I think plastic bags, like most things in life is more nuanced
| than is or isn't bad. We should look at the whole lifecycle
| costs and usage patterns of not only the bag itself, but it's
| effects on the people using them. Does a type of alternative
| make it hard to carry them by foot or by bike? It could be
| worse if a bag promotes car usage
|
| I've seen some people start using those durable big bags as
| disposable ones instead of basic plastics in many areas where
| normal bags weren't available, causing potentially over a
| hundred times more energy to be consumed and thrown away, the
| opposite of what was wanted
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| I think one issue with these plastic bags is that they're
| very light and not attached to anything. So, even if they end
| up in a landfill, they can still get blown away and end up in
| a body of water.
|
| A plastic bag that is used as a garbage bag, on the other
| hand, will remain where it is because its contents weigh it
| down.
|
| I'm not sure how to solve this, though. Perhaps standardizing
| the size of these bags to make them easily usable as garbage
| bags, and then marking them to indicate reuse, would be
| helpful.
| i80and wrote:
| Counter-anecdote, my county banned disposable plastic bags
| some years back, effectively ending the former plague of
| feral plastic bags flapping in the wind everywhere, but I
| basically never see people buying the cheap bags by the
| checkout counter.
|
| People really did adapt by bringing their own bags.
|
| (I live in suburb hell -- unfortunately, I'm probably the
| only person who walks to the grocery store, so car use is
| unaffected)
| johnisgood wrote:
| > People really did adapt by bringing their own bags.
|
| Maybe it is just my family, but in Eastern Europe, my
| family and some people do the same. We have re-usable bags
| that are not made out of plastic, but fabric, and we re-use
| them every time we shop. The reason for this is that bags
| are too expensive for what they are, so we do not continue
| re-buying them due to their high costs. No ban in place
| from what I know.
| sitharus wrote:
| Where I live single use plastic bags have been banned for
| several years now. People either take reusable fabric or jute
| bags when shopping or have to buy paper ones, which are good
| enough for a few uses by themselves.
|
| I always keep a bag on me that folds up quite small. It's a
| change but easy to adapt to.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| >Does a type of alternative make it hard to carry them by
| foot or by bike?
|
| Just last night we were having family pizza night and
| realized we didn't have mushrooms. Grabbed a reusable bag --
| one that I have used dozens to hundreds of times -- and
| stuffed it in my pocket and hopped on my bike to the grocery
| store.
|
| It is an utter non-issue. Indeed, in that case I would never
| have trusted a classic thin plastic bag but the heavy duty
| reusable one gives me no concern when it's swinging on my
| handle as I biked home.
|
| When we first got rid of plastic bags here in Ontario,
| Canada, early on I'd often find myself at a store with no
| bags, so I went through the period of accumulation. Not to
| mention that a lot of stores went through a malicious
| compliance where the bags they sold were _terrible_ and
| barely lasted more than one use.
|
| Eventually habits changed and now we as a family pretty much
| never get new bags, and the options stores sell are
| significantly better, and are truly reusable.
|
| And like someone else said, plastic bags (and plastic straws
| for that matter) were an absolute scourge, litter wise.
| Antisocial litterers, blowing out of garbage, etc. Now I
| never see them. From an environmental perspective -- meaning
| I like walking my neighbourhood without seeing trash blowing
| around -- it is a massive improvement.
| userbinator wrote:
| How about just reusing them and teaching others to do the same?
| Y-bar wrote:
| We tried that for more than thirty years.
|
| We tried public awareness campaigns, major environmental and
| educational groups were part of it, celebrities and
| television personalities held galas on prime time which some
| estimated 40% of the population tuned into, frequent ad
| campaigns, via sports clubs and scouting, lobbying,
| partnering with ski resorts.
|
| It barely worked. Plastic pollution still increased.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| They feel disgusting after you get used to normal bags.
|
| p.s. today I had to buy plastic water bottle for the first time
| in years. The reason - no water fountain in the park I was
| visiting. Easiest way to stop it to make alternatives available
| and affordable.
| keybored wrote:
| They investigated plastic bags specifically and found that
| plastic bag litter specifically went down (according to reading
| before the Conclusion).
|
| Yeah why? Because you get the choice to take a plastic bag with
| you or not at the checkout. That's why. That's you choice. You
| have much less (just indirect) choice when it comes to how much
| plastic the stuff you buy is wrapped in. But wait. That's a lot
| of it. Even most apparently cardboard wrapping makes me second
| guess if there is a microfilm of plastic over it.
|
| So we have to hyperfocus on this type of plastic. The one that is
| the consumer's choice. And plastic straws of course.
|
| Even less of a choice is commercial fishing equipment being
| dumped in the ocean. Or things being dumped from other commercial
| activities.
|
| They got data from citizen-scientists from plastic cleanup. Were
| those volunteers?[1] If so, plastic pollution propaganda is so
| important that the important work of plastic cleanup is given to
| concerned citizens as a bleeding heart hazing ritual. Is that how
| serious we are about the issue?
|
| The nearest small sports arena is made of synthetic grass which
| is pellets of plastic. But that's fine. Plastic bags.
|
| [1] Or that might just be a stereotype by me
| culebron21 wrote:
| I wonder if plastic bottles are charged/taxed anywhere? Because I
| bet they're #2 if not #1 in pollution.
|
| And straws, oh yes. I noticed after covid they're in individual
| packaging!
| keybored wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container-deposit_legislation
|
| > Because I bet they're #2 if not #1 in pollution.
|
| Why?
| culebron21 wrote:
| That's my guess. Wherever I go outside of cities, I see
| plastic bottles, bags and other wrapping of sweets, candies,
| cigarettes, etc.
| codingbot3000 wrote:
| I never get why people will drop plastic garbage somewhere
| in nature or just at the roadside. I always associate it
| with the Alaska Highway in Snow Crash, don't know why :-D
| kgwgk wrote:
| Because you've not visited Sicily.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Many places have mandatory deposits on them, ranging from
| ineffective (California - you pay 5 or 10 cents but there is no
| practical way to redeem it so it's just an extra tax and
| there's no extra incentive to dispose of it properly) to very
| effective (Germany, 25 Eurocents, IIRC any shop that sells
| drinks in PET bottles has to accept returns of PET bottles).
|
| The German system has interesting side effects: If you litter,
| a homeless person will soon pick it up, making this double as
| an additional social system with a built-in needs test.
| However, a downside is that if you know you won't be returning
| it, it's actually cheaper to buy and trash a reusable bottle
| because the deposit on a reusable beer bottle is 8 cents, vs.
| 25 cents on a can. The production cost for the bottle is around
| 35 cents I think.
|
| The deposit was introduced as a punitive measure for the
| industry for failing to keep the percentage of drinks sold in
| reusable bottles high enough. As soon as the barrier was broken
| and the threat/incentive gone, glass bottles almost disappeared
| for anything except beer (and maybe some mineral water).
|
| Even with one of the main benefits (easy disposal) removed -
| since you can't crush the bottles before returning them and
| have to drag them back to a store - they are much more popular
| than glass because unless you go shopping with a car (uncommon
| in cities in Germany), having to carry twice as much weight
| (and then drag the heavy packaging back) matters.
| jogjayr wrote:
| > California - you pay 5 or 10 cents but there is no
| practical way to redeem it
|
| I once brought my cans to a recycling center and got paid.
| This was in the Bay Area. For the cost of driving it is
| uneconomical unless you bring hundreds of cans. Someone with
| a bike and trailer could make it work.
| hansvm wrote:
| Yeah, the problem is that they aren't required to take them
| and pay you. Most recycling centers don't have that system.
| You have to go a long ways out of your way (for most
| residents), leading to the problem you described.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Yeah, the problem is that they aren't required to take
| them and pay you
|
| Yes, they are.
|
| https://calrecycle.ca.gov/bevcontainer/consumers/
| hansvm wrote:
| Oh, fun, thanks. And it has a link to the form I'm about
| to fill out from a recycling center who denied that.
| Excellent.
| jogjayr wrote:
| This page https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/BevContainer/InS
| toreRedemptio... says regular stores take them too.
|
| And the recycling center I went to was right smack in the
| middle of South Bay. Not inconvenient.
| voodoo_child wrote:
| Same. They've recently brought CRV charges into Ireland and
| almost every supermarket has a machine you can get your
| refund, so much more convenient. I've only noticed one of
| these near me in the Bay Area, and it's almost always out
| of order or has queues of people waiting.
|
| With over $800m in unclaimed CRVs[1], I'd wonder what kind
| of motivation there is to actually improve the service over
| "pocketing" the money. [1] https://www.kpbs.org/news/enviro
| nment/2024/06/20/californias...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > California - you pay 5 or 10 cents but there is no
| practical way to redeem it
|
| There are CRV redemption centers all over the state
| (concentrated in the same places people are concentrated,
| basically), many of them in-store ones in retail stores.
| ofalkaed wrote:
| As someone who lives on the beach and lived on the beach since
| before these bans, plastic bags never seemed much of an issue and
| the real issue is that most people who visit the beach think
| nothing of leaving their garbage on the beach. Before the ban
| people tended to leave their garbage nicely contained in a
| plastic bag, now everyone just leaves it strewn about because
| they don't want to put garbage in their reusable bags that they
| use for their groceries which also would mean they would have to
| deal with the garbage instead of "forgetting" their plastic bag
| of garbage. The worst is the massive increase in sodden diapers,
| no one has a disposable bag for the diapers so they just leave
| them on the beach.
|
| The garbage bags and plastic bag that wash up on the beach are
| insignificant compared to the garbage beach goers leave on the
| beach and people who don't live on the beach don't realize how
| much garbage that is because those of us who do live on the beach
| spoil our morning stroll and swim with picking up the garbage so
| the beach can be clean and ready to be spoiled all over again.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| If this is the behaviour of people in a community, it seems
| absolutely necessary to institute top-down rules on which
| materials are permissible and which not.
|
| That is to say, the problem here lies mainly with the attitudes
| and behaviour of people in this community than with specific
| policies.
| bradfa wrote:
| I suspect it's mostly tourists leaving the garbage. People
| usually don't literally trash the places they frequent.
| Tourists don't follow rules.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Well, that depends very much on the tourist and their own
| community culture.
|
| Although I understand your point, it is easier to be
| selfish outside one's community.
| bix6 wrote:
| People are entitled and lazy. I've seen many locals
| litter, especially dog poo, but the majority outside my
| house is from the temporary sleepers whether tourists or
| van lifers. Substance users are the worst offenders - I
| pickup so many cigarette / joint butts and beer cans.
| sfasdfh123 wrote:
| But like do tourists even have a community ? I don't
| think you are making sense here. Tourists are from
| everywhere, every one of them think the problem is the
| other tourists.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| They hopefully have one at home :)
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Beaches are tourist attractions, at least in my experience
| during beach season, tourists outnumber locals by an order of
| magnitude, and locals elect to go when they aren't so
| crowded.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Is this a US thing? I was kinda shocked at how people use the
| beach there. Very loud music, driving on the beach, lots of
| rubbish. Never seen that in England and Germany
| jumpkick wrote:
| I've been to the beach more times than I can count, over a
| lifetime living in Florida . Loud music, yes, cars and
| especially big trucks, yes. But I've never seen people just
| pack up and leave their trash when they're done. There are
| ample trash cans and they get used. Take this anecdote for
| what it's worth.
| infecto wrote:
| Agree. Grew up near a beach and have been to beaches many
| times in different spots. Definitely have seen trash before
| but never as described, not to say it never happens. People
| are generally pretty good at throwing their trash away or
| taking it home.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| People were trashing the beach long before bag bans. Even when
| they had ample access to plastic bags in every size, people
| would elect to leave their garbage on the beach because they
| just don't care enough to pick it up and bring it to a garbage
| can 20 yards away.
|
| It took enforcement of carry-in/carry-out policies with tickets
| to make some progress on that. Possibly getting fined and
| having to go to court for littering or illegal dumping changes
| behavior.
|
| Source: I live on the beach in a place where a bag ban went
| through.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" It took enforcement of carry-in/carry-out policies with
| tickets to make some progress on that."_
|
| Not only do we need heavy fines to deter these sloppy morons
| but we also need to develop a culture of shame. Shaming
| people for such cretinous behavior ought to be the norm.
|
| These are the same people who drop things in a supermarket
| and don't bother to pick them up or change their mind and
| leave goods at any place instead of putting them back where
| they belong.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Not only do we need heavy fines to deter these sloppy
| morons but we also need to develop a culture of shame.
| Shaming people for such cretinous behavior ought to be the
| norm._
|
| I think one of the primary issues comes from the fact that
| the majority of those who litter are just visiting the
| beach for a day trip or short vacation.
|
| Even being known as the guy who kicks puppies wouldn't
| really matter to tourists since they won't come back or
| only visit once a year.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Out of curiosity, whereabouts are the beaches you're talking
| about?
|
| I live in New England, and I haven't noticed people treating
| beaches this way.
| bix6 wrote:
| Not OP but San Diego has this issue. Especially in summer
| with tourists. My local beach gets disgusting around the fire
| pits / area closest to the parking lot. I was blown away by
| the trash yesterday morning when I walked through the main
| area to surf. People suck sometimes.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I think a lot of the time this is just because there aren't
| enough bins provided or they don't empty them frequently
| enough.
| bix6 wrote:
| Unfortunately not true. They empty the bins daily and
| people litter literally 2 feet away from them.
| Unfortunately I think some people just feel entitled to
| make others pickup after them.
| tekla wrote:
| No, its because people are slobs. I see it all the time,
| people tossing shit into the streets in view of a garbage
| can.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I can't agree with this. If you can't find a receptacle
| for your trash take it home and dispose of it there.
| Being responsible for your own trash seems to me like one
| of the most basic social obligations for adulthood.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| The majority of plastic on beaches comes from the sea, not the
| land. Most of it comes not from people using the beach for
| recreation but from shipping, fishing, industry and also arrives
| washed down from rivers and via drainage and sewage. Needless to
| say of course there is lots added by people using the beach too
| but its worth looking at the whole picture.
|
| https://www.mcsuk.org/ocean-emergency/ocean-pollution/plasti...
| hedora wrote:
| The study finds that plastic bags as a fraction of the waste on
| beaches increased in all areas, so that's bad.
|
| A more concerning issue is the nature of the bags being thrown
| away. California banned "single use" plastic bags (which we used
| to reuse as trash bags for the bathroom or whatever) but lets you
| buy "reusable" ones for a few cents at the checkout counter. The
| reusable ones are much heavier and contain 10-100x more plastic,
| and take even longer to biodegrade.
|
| The study counts "items", not weight, and reports a 25-47%
| decrease.
|
| Assuming California is the region that hit 47% (call it 50%), and
| the reusable bags are better than the best available (only 10x
| worse than pre-ban) that translates to a 5x increase in
| microplastics on the beach. I'd consider this a disaster, not a
| win.
|
| This matches older studies, which measured total plastic content
| of landfill waste before and after plastic bag bans like
| California's.
|
| Those showed sharp increases in plastic waste too. The studies in
| question were in places that did not allow the reusable plastic
| ones that California forced the stores to switch to. Instead, the
| authors found that people switched from using the disposable bags
| as trash bags to using kitchen trash bags, which are ~100x worse.
| If only 1% of households were using disposable shopping bags for
| trash, and no one reused the new style bags, then the policies
| ended up breaking even. In practice, the policies increased total
| plastic waste, despite being better thought out than California's
| newer ban.
|
| I'm all for banning plastic bags, but the current bans target the
| most efficient use of plastic, increasing overall plastic
| production and waste. The bans should only target things that
| have plastic-free alternatives, or at least that have less
| plastic intensive alternatives.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The anti-rugged bag stuff is propaganda put out by the
| disposable bag industry. There is no problem with them once
| they've been used long enough.
| condiment wrote:
| I think the parent is pointing out that empirically,
| increases in plastic waste are observed in places where
| plastic bags are banned.
|
| You are correct there's no problem with them _if_ they're
| used enough, but evidence suggests they do not receive that
| usage.
| hansvm wrote:
| People still view them as disposable though. Public policy
| necessarily interacts with real people, and those
| interactions are currently a net negative.
|
| You might fix that by encouraging properly reusable bags
| (e.g., by banning even the rugged bag sales), but that's
| problematic too. By many metrics, with normal usage, they're
| worse than the disposable bags people used to use (the break-
| even point is linear in the number of days between shopping
| trips, and unless we also encourage more frequent short
| _walks_ or something to the store you also have the issue of
| car-related expenses, not to mention that if your diet is
| largely meats and other animal products as is common in the
| US, walking is actually more carbon intensive than taking an
| EV the same distance (biking blows them both out of the water
| in efficiency)).
| cwillu wrote:
| Got a breakdown on the walking calculation anywhere? I find
| myself suspicious of the argument, not least because such
| walking will likely displace exercise and idle time
| elsewhere.
| hansvm wrote:
| Coming from an assumption of being overweight or
| otherwise needing extra exercise in your day the argument
| completely falls apart. In the US, on average, you'd have
| a ton of benefits encouraging more walking, likely
| reducing net CO2-equivalent production in the process
| (smaller bodies require less maintenance energy).
|
| In a country like Vietnam or Japan (or when applied at an
| individual level rather than a societal level, each
| individual weighing whether they actuall need more
| exercise at the moment) we can get back to the simple
| assumption of walking requiring extra calories (which
| you'll eventually eat due to hunger and some sort of
| weight homeostasis) and just running the numbers (all
| slightly conservative for "typical" scenarios, favoring
| beef over gasoline to mildly steelman the argument):
|
| - Beef produces something like 48 lbs of CO2 equivalent
| emissions per pound
|
| - Beef is something like 1200 calories per pound
|
| - Walking burns something like 90 calories per mile
|
| This directly gives 3.6lb of CO2 equivalent emissions per
| mile. Under a homeostasis assumption, none is sequestered
| on average long-term in the person doing the walking,
| though actual emissions could be slightly higher or lower
| when taking into account the relative greenhouse impact
| of human emissions in response to that digestion/exercise
| (but this is somewhat negligible compared to a cow's
| methane production).
|
| Even pretty crappy cars in city driving conditions can
| achieve 20mpg, which is only 1.02lb of CO2 equivalent
| emissions per mile, 3.5x better.
|
| Most people aren't eating pure beef, but the break-even
| point (compared to that hypothetical extremely shitty
| car; the argument favors gasoline even more with more
| modern vehicles) is 28% of your calorie budget (assuming
| all other inputs have zero greenhouse impact).
|
| Chicken is better at only 1.6lb of emissions per mile of
| walking, with a break-even point at 63%. Cheese and
| butter are _slightly_ better still. Nearly all animal
| products are much worse than gasoline, and basically any
| diet made from >=70% animal products (denominated in
| calories) will have higher emissions than a 20mpg car and
| driving habit.
|
| If you compare it to more typical cars (my car is dirt
| cheap, from 2008, and still gets 30mpg city even after 17
| years of wear and tear), the break-even point is much
| worse.
|
| Counter-arguments include that the carbon impact of a car
| is much higher than just its gasoline consumption, but if
| you work through the math everything else put together is
| a rounding error compared to the gas over the lifetime of
| a vehicle (still 5-15%, but it doesn't substantially
| impact anything I've said so far).
| wrigby wrote:
| I was curious what these numbers look like if people get
| their extra calories from carbs instead of animal
| products:
|
| - A 100g cooked serving of pasta has 131 calories [1] -
| This random website claims that a 100g serving of pasta
| generates 0.58 lb CO2 equivalent emissions - To get 90
| calories we need ~69g of pasta - This gives 0.4lb CO2e
| per mile when walking under pasta power
|
| I'm not sure if the CO2 estimation for pasta is using a
| cooked weight or a dry weight, so I chose the worst-case
| scenario. If that CO2e number is applied to 100g of _dry_
| pasta, the numbers get way better.
|
| 1: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/169728/nutrients
| 2: https://www.co2everything.com/co2e-of/pasta
| sfasdfh123 wrote:
| >People still view them as disposable though
|
| No way this is true, not when the bag costs about 30% of
| what I usually buy per trip.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| I promise you this is true
|
| Especially with delivery services where a store will
| deliver your order to your door, you just keep
| accumulating more and more of those "reusable" bags. But
| the reality is that you really only need so many reusable
| bags, so when you keep getting more you have to do
| something with them
|
| Bags should have a deposit and a "return excess bags for
| a refund" system like bottles do
|
| Otherwise they are going to go to landfills, no question
| rectang wrote:
| I have only ordered groceries once because of all the
| "reusable" bags I got stuck with.
|
| Those things are incredibly durable. I have two as my
| backup grocery bags and I've been using the same ones for
| nearly a decade.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| Your country is just a little behind. Groceries and
| takeout food comes in paper bags now.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > No way this is true, not when the bag costs about 30%
| of what I usually buy per trip.
|
| The price is normally the legislated minimum, 10C/. So
| your average shopping trip is ~33C/?
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Reusable shopping bags cost about $10-$15. No one is
| buying them frivolously.
|
| I think the issue here is one of semantics. The so-called
| "reusable" bags you're talking about are still classified
| as single-use plastics.
|
| If you look at BC as an example, where ALL single-use
| plastic bags at checkouts are banned, people have adapted
| just fine. In some stores (like restaurants) you can buy
| paper bags for 25C/, but generally people either don't
| bother with bags at all and simply load things directly
| into their cars, or they bring their own bags or baskets.
| Now, pretty much the only litter I regularly see is paper
| coffee cups or candy wrappers. Bags have disappeared, and
| bottles and cans usually collected for the deposit.
| hansvm wrote:
| Going up a few levels in the conversation, I think the
| question is about the extra-durable bags the store sells
| for $0.15, not properly reusable bags (hence me calling
| out encouragement of properly reusable bags as a
| potential solution).
| lovich wrote:
| The reuseable bags in my area are 10-50 cents for the
| plastic ones and like 5 dollars for the foldable cloth
| ones with a button.
|
| Where are you seeing 10-15 dollar bags? I can only
| imagine that's happening because your locality added a
| major tax to them
|
| Also I get delivery groceries from BJ's and they have
| been including piles of these giant reuseable bags in
| each order to the point that I have been donating them to
| a homeless shelter.
|
| I produced less plastic waste with grocery bags back when
| they were the size and shape to be reused as bathroom
| garbage bags, anecdata and real data all points to them
| being used frivolously still
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Reusable bags are $0.99 at my grocery store, and they
| give a coupon for a free one every few months. They last
| years.
| estebank wrote:
| Some people on this thread are talking about things like
| canvas bags, which are more expensive and meant to be
| reused a lot, and others are talking about plastic bags
| that have a lot of material and are more durable than the
| old school "thinnest bag you can produce without it
| dissolving immediately when you look at it" which are not
| nearly as expensive to buy as the others.
| whyenot wrote:
| Your are asserting a lot of facts here. Please provide some
| references so that those of us who are interested can learn
| more.
| hansvm wrote:
| - The walking thing you can mostly calculate yourself if
| you only examine particular foods, but here's some study
| looking at the dietary impact in practice averaged across
| a country (walking has comparable emissions to a 22mpg
| car trip in developed countries) [0].
|
| - For cotton reusable bags (very common for all sorts of
| reasons; all my reusable bags are cotton and not because
| of any particular intentional selection), you need 50+
| trips to the store to hit a break-even point [1] in
| greenhouse emissions. Similarly with the 50x thicker
| plastic bags stores in CA sell compared to disposable
| shopping bags. That's 1-2yrs for the break-even point
| with weekly or biweekly shopping trips, worse if your
| usage distribution is temporally nonuniform (e.g., owning
| 5 bags but sometimes only using only 1-3 for slightly
| more frequent shopping trips and occasionally using all
| 5). Properly reusable bags are likely worth it, but it's
| not an immediate or obvious win unless you use them
| regularly and they're sturdy enough to not wear out too
| quickly (enough material is involved and the timescales
| are long enough that you should also consider the impact
| of the disposal method and a number of other things).
|
| - Some of the other points like linearity in the number
| of days between shopping trips should be obvious. I'll
| leave investigating everything else as an exercise for
| the reader.
|
| [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66170-y
|
| [1] Not "source" so much as a summary of sources, so I
| referenced the smallest number in the article to give the
| argument more weight:
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/13/world/reusable-grocery-
| bags-c...
| estebank wrote:
| You are making the baseline assumption that the reason
| for reusable bags is to _reduce greenhouse emissions_ ,
| instead of reducing the number of plastic bags being
| discarded in public areas causing negative externalities
| like affecting wildlife. Heavier plastic bags have a
| greater chance of lasting beyond a single shop trip to
| make it long enough to be reused at the very least as a
| garbage bag. Paper bags desintegrate easily if thrown in
| the trash and are trivially recyclable.
|
| I do think that we need to meet people where they are at,
| you can't expect people to over night start bringing a
| classic trolley and/or canvas bags to a local shop if
| they don't have a shop to walk to or dont have a way to
| keep a bag on themselves at all times, but we can slowly
| nudge people towards desirable behavior. And that's what
| charging for bags does.
| mjevans wrote:
| My opinions:
|
| * Leave my dang plastic straws alone or at least make any
| degradable replacement take longer than a week to degrade and
| __not crumple like a limp noodle__ during normal use.
|
| * 1000% yes on this inanity of selling bags. Require standard
| grade carry out bags all be complimentary (this will drive
| stores to get the cheapest ones that don't irk customers), and
| just outright ban plastic for 'bags'. Do not specify exactly
| but require that any take out bag be (non commercially)
| compostable, or recycled (for real, not export to someone that
| just treats it as trash).
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| Have you tried Phade? They're pretty much the same as regular
| plastic straws, albeit slightly more brittle
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| My kids use silicon straws. You can take them apart, wash
| them, put them together again and they work ok.
| trollbridge wrote:
| We use metal and glass, and they also work fine.
| kragen wrote:
| Silicon? That sounds really dangerous--what if it shatters
| while it's in their mouth? Are you sure you don't mean
| silicone?
| golergka wrote:
| If you're a bar or restaurant, please invest in metal, re-
| usable straws instead of humiliating your paying clients with
| paper ones. I just don't understand why a place that charges
| $50 or more for a dinner would do something like this.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" The bans should only target things that have plastic-free
| alternatives, or at least that have less plastic intensive
| alternatives."_
|
| There's also what I call junk plastic products. I'll illustrate
| with examples. Plastic products that aren't durable and have
| very short lifespans:
|
| - Plastic storage bins and such that use so little plastic that
| they break when stacked thus become plastic waste long before
| they ought to.
|
| - I bought three plastic buckets at the supermarket and the
| handles fell off two before I got them home. I nevertheless
| used them only to find that they soon cracked and leaked with
| normal domestic usage.
|
| (BTW, there's an old galvanized bucket in our family that's
| well over 80 years old (it belonged to my grandmother), and
| it's still serviceable (the galvanizing is still intact and
| it's not rusty).)
|
| - The use of polyethylene for containers, etc. Over time
| polyethylene leaks its plasticizers to produce a greasy coating
| on the surface. The polyethylene then hardens and cracks--thus
| more junk plastic waste. Polyethylene should not be used for
| such purposes.
|
| Moreover, phthalate plasticizers have been found to have bad
| effects on human health. Phthalate plasticizers ought to be
| banned for use in domestic products.
|
| I could go on, there are hundreds more examples.
|
| The plastic waste problem could be fixed quick smart if high
| taxes were applied on plastic products that were deemed
| insufficiently durable.
|
| No doubt, manufacturers, penny-pinching cheapskates and greedy
| profit mongers would cry foul over what's deemed as 'durable'.
| That's solvable with standards set down by an authoritative
| standards body.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Plastics need to be taxed for the external cost their waste
| causes.
|
| Galvanised metal wouldn't have such a tax if it has no impact
| (it doesn't).
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Well we did this for the bags (put a high price on them)
| and banned some others (e.g. straws). My fear is that
| taxing plastic items more (let's say of VAT is 20%,
| plastics could get 35%). Then our dear politicians on Year4
| will pass a law to "redirect the extra collection for blah
| blah blah" and it will end up _not_ to the effort of
| mitigating the plastic pollution, and we will be stuck with
| one more tax _and_ the pollution!!
| coryrc wrote:
| > old galvanized bucket in our family that's well over 80
| years old
|
| It's got lead in it. Not everything in the past is better.
| kragen wrote:
| Polyethylene only rarely contains plasticizers, and it
| doesn't harden or crack unless continuously exposed to
| sunlight--neither LDPE, LLDPE, HDPE, nor UHMWPE. It seems
| like you have your plastics mixed up. Possibly you're
| thinking of polyvinyl chloride, which does sometimes behave
| in the way you describe polyethylene describing, but not in
| all cases.
|
| The plastic buckets I use in my house are food-grade
| polypropylene 20-liter buckets with hermetically sealing
| lids. Polypropylene, like polyethylene, does not need
| plasticizers to remain resilient to impacts; its biggest
| problem is creep. The handles do sometimes fall off, but
| they're easy to put back on.
| dawnerd wrote:
| I used the old style plastic bags as trash bags. I use the new
| thicker ones as trash bags (cat litter). All the law did was
| increase how much plastic ends up in the landfill.
|
| They should have required paper. Oregon did the same dumb
| thing. Portland has paper bags everywhere. Then they required
| charging for bags and everyone switched to plastic.
| Tagbert wrote:
| Paper bags are a pain. The stores that push paper have paper
| bags with no handles. It makes carrying more than one bag
| very clumsy. I tend to avoid the stores around here that only
| have paper.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| 100% agree though I'm curious how to fix things. If I go to any
| supermarket it's full of plastic. Of course many traditional
| products are often (not always) sold in plastic like milk,
| yogurt, cottage cheese, breads. But, stores are full of,
| packaged by the store or the store's company products. The
| easist place to see this is the prepared foods section. Veggie
| salads in plastic, pasta salad in plastic, hummus in plastic,
| cookies in plastic, nuts in plastic, sandwiches in plastic, ...
|
| I have no idea what it would take to stop that and what the
| substitute would be. Examples: I like Japanese Milk Bread. It
| generally comes wrapped in a plastic bag, arguably because it's
| not hardy like something like sourdough which can be sold in an
| open paper bag.
|
| Similarly, local markets sell Chinese sticky lotus leaf rice, 2
| or 3 in a plastic container, they sell fresh tofu skin in a
| plastic container. I guess they could try to switch to waxed
| cardboard like milk is sometimes sold? Is that good or is that
| cardboard infused with plastic?
|
| Has any "progressive" country banned plastic such that pre-
| sliced meat/cheese is not sold in plastic?
| serial_dev wrote:
| Not only that, they now sell all kinds of vegetables in
| plastic. I would like to buy 3-4 "loose" carrots for a meal,
| I cannot.
|
| I can only buy a 1 kg bag of carrot and it's plastic. One
| kilogram of carrot is a huge amount for my dietary habits,
| and I need to throw away usually half of the carrot. Now
| multiply it by about ten for the different vegetables.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Mangos? Wrapped in plastic. Other fruits? Often packaged in
| styrofoam. Meats? Styrofoam package or vacuum sealed
| plastic.
|
| I sort my rubbish for what can be composted, is metal, what
| can be burned ecologically, and what must be thrown away. A
| normal household level of buying ingredients results in a
| mountain of plastic trash with no ecological way to dispose
| of it (other than landfills assuming the landfill is run
| properly, which they are where I live... but no way to
| guarantee it will stay that way for the next several
| hundred years).
|
| I won't even get into the nightmare of plastic toys, one of
| which I found had dangerous levels of lead despite being a
| newish toy from a responsible source (Melissa & Doug), and
| I was unable to get any government agency interested in
| investigating further.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The ban on single use plastic bags ignores the reality, which
| is that people often didn't plan to go to the shop or didn't
| plan to buy that much and so find themselves in need of a bag
| at the till.
|
| I think it would be more pragmatic to have environmentally
| friendly single use bags available for a fee rather than
| wasting all those "reusable" bags.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| People adapt though. I don't hear complaints about shopping
| bags anymore (except for American visitors), the way I
| still do about paper straws. Plastic bags at checkouts were
| only banned where I live a couple of years ago, and most
| people have learned to keep a few reusable bags in the car,
| and generally to plan better.
|
| I actually worked in a hardware store for a while, and
| after the old supply of plastic bags ran out it was common
| practice for customers to either bring their own bags,
| carry stuff out in their hands, or use one of the hundreds
| of small cardboard boxes or trays that were set aside on
| receiving day when the shelves were stocked.
| timr wrote:
| For bags specifically, instead of just "banning plastic bags"
| (which usually leads to dumb outcomes, as GP notes) mandate
| the use of paper.
|
| It drives me up the wall when I go to a store (Target comes
| to mind; I also see those stupid FreshDirect bags everywhere
| in NYC, even though I don't use the service), and the _only_
| option is a pseudo-reusable plastic bag, which I can only
| accumulate or discard. As long as you 're charging me anyway
| [1], just give me a paper bag! Most of the time I have a re-
| usuable bag that I carry around, but for the times I don't, I
| save the paper bags I receive and use them to put out my
| recycling.
|
| [1] I assume this is about cost to the retailer.
| fmbb wrote:
| > Assuming California is the region that hit 47% (call it 50%),
| and the reusable bags are better than the best available (only
| 10x worse than pre-ban) that translates to a 5x increase in
| microplastics on the beach. I'd consider this a disaster, not a
| win.
|
| You are assuming that people are throwing away more reusable
| plastic bags. Are they?
|
| Where I live (Sweden) the extra plastic bag fee introduced made
| people also buy more single use plastic bags in bulk which were
| cheaper and flimsier. If they are making up a larger part of
| the "items" counted, and not the reusable bags, then the win is
| even greater than a 25-47% decrease.
|
| What reason do you have to believe people are throwing away the
| heavier, reusable bags at that rate? Do other bags not exist
| anywhere?
| scoofy wrote:
| We are throwing them away. "Reusable" is a term of art. We're
| not talking about the _actually reusable_ canvas-like bags.
| We 're talking about heavy sheets of plastic.
|
| The situation is complicated, and nobody wants to have an
| honest conversation about it.
|
| The reason why the switch to heavier bags is important is
| mainly _to stop them from blowing away in the wind_ when
| people litter, where they end up in the water system. I don
| 't think anyone really has any serious concerns about the
| density of plastic that ends up in our landfills, ideally,
| never to be seen again. The idea that _plastic is bad,_
| without concern for whether or not it ends up in a landfill,
| I think is misplaced concern. There are some decomposition
| GHG concerns, but again, those are insignificant compared to
| something as common as just driving ever day. Here we must
| remember that recycling plastic is generally a bad idea
| altogether if we care about GHGs.
|
| The only people that seem to be pushing back against the bans
| are people with _sudden and politically surprising_ (fake)
| environmental concerns because they are annoyed that they
| have to pay 10C/-25C/ for a bag (and absurdly trivial
| amount), and having to ask for one, instead of getting them
| for free without asking. This also has the effect of making
| paper bags competitive with plastic.
|
| The entire debate is between most people on this issue seems
| to be people who either don't understand what it's about or
| don't actually care. Virtue signalling on the left or fake
| concern on the right.
| trollbridge wrote:
| It's hard to understand why couldn't just have ecological
| canvas or jute bags.
| scoofy wrote:
| It's hard to understand why we can't do a lot of sensible
| things, like not blasting tiktok on the bus or not
| speeding on local streets the in our cars.
|
| Most people are happily ignorant of anything that doesn't
| reinforce their priors.
| Ray20 wrote:
| Because they are about 400 times more expensive to
| produce than plastic bags with comparable
| characteristics?
| 00N8 wrote:
| In terms of microplastics, I would think 100 of the old flimsy
| single use bags would be much worse than 5 reusable plastic
| bags, even if the total mass is the same. The heavier reusables
| have less surface area per mass, so they'll be degraded more
| slowly by the sun. They also are less easily blown by the wind,
| so it's more likely someone will dispose of them properly or
| that they'll naturally end up buried somewhere that does a
| better job of containing the eventual microplastics. Fewer bags
| in total would probably be better for sea turtles than thinner
| bags as well.
|
| I'm not sure if that makes the reusables better overall, but I
| don't think we can say they're 10-100x worse based on weight
| alone.
| kragen wrote:
| I agree with most of your comment, except that microplastics
| come from paint, tires, and washing synthetic garments, not
| plastic bags, and I'm dubious about your photodegradation
| point.
| belorn wrote:
| My anecdotal experience as a diver in Sweden that do a few
| ocean clean days per year, and who have operated during the
| periods of before, during and after a plastic bag ban, my
| experience has been that the ban worked greatly in reducing
| bags and plastic eating tools to a very major degree. Before
| the ban we saw plastic garbage practically every single dive,
| and the days we were cleaning we picked up bags of it by the
| end of the day. In contrast, plastic garbage is now thankfully
| rather rare to see, maybe once every 10th dive, and the effect
| has continued after the ban was lifted (so far). On cleaning
| days we might get like a few items in total. Plastic is no
| longer a major thing we pick up, and focus is instead on
| e-scooters and cans of laughing gas. In the couple ocean clean
| up events we have found more scooters than plastic bags.
|
| I have seen a few canvas bags, but they don't seem to last long
| under the water.
| DanielHB wrote:
| It worked in Sweden because the bags you can buy (used to)
| cost 7kr (about a US dollar in purchasing power). So even
| though those bags are heavier and sturdier people do reuse
| them. I cringe every time I have to buy one because I didn't
| plan ahead.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I think its the same here in Australia. Whats more, a lot
| of the bags you pay extra for are paper anyhow.
| trollbridge wrote:
| There really needs to be a ban on single use eating utensils
| and most single use plastic food packaging.
|
| It would require a tiny bit of planning ahead, such as people
| would need to carry around a fork, knife, metal straw, and
| perhaps a cup or coffee mug.
|
| Considering how minimal the cost of forks and spoons are,
| eateries could simply sell metal forks and spoons to people
| who forget them.
|
| An easy way to implement this is a tax / user fee on single
| use plastics for mitigating waste that ends up in shorelines
| or in the ocean, and make the fee enough to actually mitigate
| it + set the fee so that reusable metal or wood cutlery is
| price competitive.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > The bans should only target things that have plastic-free
| alternatives, or at least that have less plastic intensive
| alternatives.
|
| I find this very interesting. It's basically saying that unless
| there is a better way that's just as convenient, one has the
| right to buy these disposable bags. Who gives us the right to
| pollute the environment?
| graemep wrote:
| > California banned "single use" plastic bags (which we used to
| reuse as trash bags for the bathroom or whatever) but lets you
| buy "reusable" ones for a few cents at the checkout counter.
| The reusable ones are much heavier and contain 10-100x more
| plastic, and take even longer to biodegrade.
|
| We have the same problem in the UK. Single use bags not
| available but you can buy heavier ones, so while people throw
| fewer bags, they are heavier ones.
|
| Paper bags have also become a lot more common. Obviously no
| plastic pollution but I do not know what other impact they
| have. They are often reusable and obviously very biodegradable
| so I would guess its a win?
| janalsncm wrote:
| If the cost of the bags covered the cost to clean up I wouldn't
| mind. As it stands, ten cents seems pretty arbitrary and
| frankly not even a decision factor.
|
| At the grocery store they ask if you want to round up your bill
| to donate. On average that is 50 cents, way more than a bag
| costs.
| coryrc wrote:
| > and take even longer to biodegrade
|
| I didn't think they did at all, but turns out to do so
| slightly: https://biosphereplastic.com/microbes-that-
| biodegrade-plasti...
| b0a04gl wrote:
| counting bags instead of measuring total plastic weight is peak
| policy theater. yeah fewer bags on beaches looks good in a chart,
| but if each one's 50x thicker now, congrats you just upgraded the
| pollution class without fixing the problem. are we're optimizing
| for optics again. where's the data on mass per capita per
| disposal cycle?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| You have a point but it's also kinda flawed. The marginal cost
| to pick up a thick plastic bag is the same as that of a thin
| one - perhaps even a bit less as it is less likely to tear and
| disintegrate, and more likely to either be reusable or return
| some of its stored energy if burnt.
|
| So if there are only half as many bags to pick up, the cost of
| mitigation goes down proportionally.
| yboris wrote:
| And the biggest contribution to plastic in the oceans is fishing
| nets. We all ought to do our part and buy less fish.
| drakonka wrote:
| Purely anecdotally, when plastic bags in my country started
| costing 5-ish SEK I switched to fabric reusables (which I already
| had lying around from conventions and stuff) almost immediately.
| In the uncommon case where I don't have one handy I go for the 3
| SEK paper bag. I think I now buy maybe 2-3 plastic bags a year in
| some rare instance where one of the other options isn't
| practical.
| jekwoooooe wrote:
| And instead we kill a lot more trees and plants to make expensive
| cotton or polyester bags that are much worse for the environment
| as a whole. It's typical left leaning feel good logic instead of
| actually improving something. Not to mention the inconvenience
| rexpop wrote:
| Cotton bags are not "much worse for the possibility
| environment". They only need to be used 131 times to beat out
| 131 plastic bags.
|
| That's three years of weekly groceries. I plan to shop much
| longer than three years. Closer to 30.
| jekwoooooe wrote:
| You expect people to keep these bags for 3 years? No way
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Troll somewhere else
| cubefox wrote:
| Plastic doesn't actually necessarily end up in the ocean. Most
| plastic in the ocean comes from certain countries, like the
| Philippines, while other countries contribute basically not at
| all. The problem here is mainly the law and law enforcement in
| certain countries which fail to prevent dumping plastic in the
| sea. But that's not an overly hard thing to prevent, because many
| countries are doing it successfully.
| Padriac wrote:
| In Australia we never had plastic bags on our beaches or plastics
| straws on the ground. Now we have to buy paper bags at the shop
| and use dodgy paper straws. The developed world is trying to fix
| a non problem that actually exists elsewhere.
| Padriac wrote:
| After the ban on plastic shopping bags in Australia I bought a
| box of 3000 of them online for rubbish bin liners. I use 2 or 3 a
| week.
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