What are Plastic Bag Bans Doing?
By Edwin De Matta
Being able to reuse an item has been a key factor in the shopping choices of consumers for what seems to be the majority of the 21st century. As people realized the devastating ecological effects single-use plastic bags and other single-use plastics could have, especially in our oceans, people have shifted to using reusable items. Whether those be reusable bags like totes, reusable water bottles, and even reusable masks, which became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they just needed to be washed in order to use again, seemingly everything has some reusable form. The popularity of reusable bags and the demonification of plastic bags, especially single-use ones, have even created laws, but how are these laws affecting people?
Laws on Plastic Bags
The first ever legislation on plastic bags was in California. In 2014, then Governor, Jerry Brown, passed Senate Bill 270. This bill introduced a plan to ban plastic bags and add a ten-cent tax for every plastic bag used the next time Californians went to stores. The bill was upheld in 2016 when Californians voted yes on Proposition 67, which allowed for a ban on single-use plastic bags. Since then seven other states besides California (those being, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon, and Vermont) have implemented bans on single-use plastic bags and Colorado’s ban will take place in January of 2024. Many other states have plastic bans on a smaller scale (ie. county ban on plastic bags). Many of these bills also include a ten-cent fee to discourage citizens from using single-use bags and instead bringing their own. But are these ten-cent taxes really enough to discourage people?
Are the Bans Working?
So are these local, county, and state bans on plastic bags working?
Well, it’s complicated.
I remember when the ban on single-use plastic bags took effect in my home state of California, and since then I have seen more and more people bring their own bags instead of paying for bags at stores.
But not everybody.
So why hasn’t everyone started bringing their own bags and reusing the same bags that they already had?
“It’s ten cents,” said Karla, a native Californian. “I forget sometimes. But when I do have to pay for bags, I’m not thinking that ten or twenty cents is going to hurt me in the long run, because truth is, it really won’t.” Karla is like many people in states with plastic bag bans. While California has a ban, which has encouraged people to use their own bags, people aren’t fazed by paying ten or twenty cents at the register.
So it seems like bans aren’t working, but in some ways, they actually are.
While some people are still paying a couple of cents for the bags, most people have decreased their consumption of plastic bags. The University of Sydney conducted a study published in 2018 that determined that plastic bag consumption in California was reduced by 71.5%. This dramatic decrease helped the environment and our neighborhoods as people saw much less debris and litter on streets, along with fewer plastics being thrown into our oceans, which is already a problem as oceans water is becoming more and more polluted and is making habitats unsustainable for marine life.
Conclusion
In some aspects, plastic bag bans are working, but in others, they are not as effective as they make themselves seem. States, counties, and cities, are deciding whether plastic bag bans are the way to go. But those who will ultimately decide are the people.
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